Our Mothers Ourselves

Valerie Jarrett  needs very little introduction. She's been a political force since the 1980s, when she worked first for Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, then for his successor, Richard Daley.

In 1991, she hired a young woman named Michelle Robinson —and thus was born a long friendship and working relationship with the Obamas. Jarrett was a senior White House advisor and is now president of the Obama Foundation.

She was a single mother who, in spite of an insanely busy work life, always made certain that her daughter, Laura, knew she came first.

Laura Jarrett has also had a very impressive career. She's the anchor of "Early Start" on CNN, and previously worked as a political correspondent covering the Justice Department. And before that, like her mother, she was an attorney in Chicago.

Laura is also a mother of a two-year-old, which gives her mother Valerie a new role of grandmother—one that she's embraced wholeheartedly. 

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producer: Claire Trageser

Social Media: Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Benter Akoth was born and lives in Kenya, where education is often seen as an opportunity that is given only to boys. But Benter has wanted to change that ever since she was told in primary school that girls could also be things like doctors, engineers, and architects, if they got educated. Although her own education was cut short, she passed on her conviction that girls should be educated too to her son Enos Magaga. He has taken this ideal and made it his life’s work.

This week Katie Semro fills in as host for Katie Hafner, and talks with Magaga about how his mother taught him to value education for girls and to respect women despite this being completely contrary to what he saw around him.

For more about Magaga's work educating girls in Kenya with Beads for Education visit their website: http://www.beadsforeducation.org/


Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah).
Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry.

Producer: Katie Semro
Executive Producer: Katie Hafner

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud.

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to its own feed. Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts, or search for Mother Mine wherever you listen. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Rita Kelly Mullan worked as a nurse, founded the nonprofit The Irish National Caucus, successfully lobbied the U.S. government to recognize human rights issues in Northern Ireland, received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights, was named one of the Top 100 Peacemakers by Irish America Magazine, and testified multiple times before Congress.

But she was  described as a ‘Belfast housewife’ in a  1979 story in The New York Times. 

Born in Northern Ireland in 1940, Rita went on to become a key part of U.S. involvement there. She helped lobby for the passage of the MacBride Principles, a code of conduct for U.S. companies doing business in Northern Ireland. 

She emigrated to the U.S. as a single mother with her two kids in 1976 to escape the violent conflict between Ireland and Northern Ireland. After arriving, she was able to find a job as a nurse in Arkansas, then moved her family to Washington D.C. to start her nonprofit and lobby the government.

This week, Katie speaks with Rita’s daughter, Bronagh Hanley,  about her childhood and her mother’s work. Bronagh is the founder of Big Noise PR, a  San Francisco-based public relations firm.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producer: Alice Hudson, Claire Trageser

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com.

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

In her late 30s Molly Luther went back to school to become a composer. It was the 1950s and going back to school at her age was unusual as was her career choice. But she was passionate and she gambled it all — her marriage, money from her mother — to pursue her dream. And her story is like that of many people, she started off well, but then things took a downward turn and never came back up. After all, most people’s lives aren't a fairy tale.


But despite the difficulties and sorrows, Molly's daughter Meg Luther Lindholm felt such unconditional love from her mother that it continues to give her strength decades after her mother's death.   

Katie Semro fills in as host and talks with Meg about the passionate woman who was her mother, and the heartbreaking life she led.

More about Molly:
Listen to Molly Luther's Music.
Meg's episode about her mother, The Golden Haired Girl, on her podcast Uplifted.
Meg's Mother Mine Episode: 22 Passionate

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah).
Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry.

Producer: Katie Semro
Executive Producer: Katie Hafner

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Author and journalist Sara Davidson is an award-winning storyteller, and she says she learned that skill from her mother Alice. Every night before bed, Alice would tell Sara and her sister the next installment in a serial story about a miniature girl named P Winky Smith who was so small she could fit in your pocket. 

But that doesn’t mean their relationship was idyllic by any stretch. For Sara, there were high highs and low lows in her childhood. Her mother was funny and once had dreams of being a comedic actress (she also had one of the first nose jobs in L.A.!) but she could also be derisive, mean and stubborn.

Alice then developed dementia, and for Sara this was the first time she could truly love her mother, in part because ailing Alice had forgotten many of the things they had fought about.

Together, Sara and Katie talk about dashed dreams, nose jobs, and the challenges of growing up with such a complicated mother, especially Alice Davidson, who was known as the “send-back queen” because she never settled for a dish that wasn’t perfectly prepared in a restaurant.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producers: Alice Hudson, Claire Trageser

Social Media: Ilana Nevins

Special thanks to Sarge, for permission to use the clip  from his routine about the beleaguered Jewish husband.

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

There is so much fascination around cults and extreme religions in popular culture, with movies like Midsommar and series like Wild Wild Country. We seem to have an endless appetite for stories about how people find themselves in thrall to a group and its ideas -- as well as its leader .

But what if you were born into the inner sanctum of such a group?  That was the case for Erin Prophet. Her mother, Elizabeth Prophet, was at one time the leader of The Church Universal and Triumphant, which at its height boasted 50,000 members worldwide.

Elizabeth's followers considered her an Ascended Master and Messenger of God. Her 1989 prediction of a nuclear conflagration prompted her followers to build fallout shelters and bunkers in Montana and gather enough food and supplies to last for years. Of course, the nuclear Armageddon didn't happen.

Described by critics as a cult, The Church Universal and Triumphant is where Erin grew up. Her mother worked 24 hours a day, but she also loved to dance and would occasionally indulge in a glass of wine, which was against church rules. Erin’s memoir, Prophet’s Daughter, is her attempt to explore the complexity of her mother.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)

Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producers: Alice Hudson, Claire Trageser

Social Media: Ilana Nevins

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com

Note: Our sister podcast, Mother Mine, has moved to a separate feed. Click here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

We've heard from some of you that having Mother Mine episodes mixed in with Our Mothers Ourselves episodes is getting confusing. So we've decided to switch Mother Mine over to it's own podcast feed. To keep listening to it, just search for Mother Mine in your favorite podcast app and hit subscribe. You'll then have access to all the old episodes and the new ones as they come out.

Click here to listen to Mother Mine on Apple Podcasts. 

We hope you will continue to enjoy listening to both Our Mothers Ourselves and Mother Mine. Thank you! 

Katie Hafner & Katie Semro

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Although we usually celebrate mothers here on Our Mothers Ourselves, once a year for Fathers' Day we celebrate a father. This year Katie Semro, from the Mother Mine mini-series, fills in for Katie Hafner as host, and talks with Isabella Di Pietro about her father Luca who owns and runs the Tarallucci e Vino restaurants in NYC.

Katie talks with Isabella about how the family rose to the challenges of the pandemic by creating the organization Feed the Frontlines NYC which not only helped them save their restaurant and keep their staff, but also helped other restaurants do the same whilst feeding health care workers and New Yorkers experiencing food insecurity.

Listen to hear the story of how good food, soccer, and an open mind make Luca an extraordinary father.


Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah).
Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry.

Producer: Katie Semro
Executive Producer: Katie Hafner

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

Divorce is hard on anyone, and sometimes the children of divorce become pawns in their parents' game of revenge. But what happens when that goes too far? It’s known as ‘parental alienation.' One parent uses tactics to make the children hate or fear the other parent so much that they begin to reject them as a parent altogether.

That’s what happened to Olivia  (her name has been changed to protect privacy) and her brother. Olivia shares with Katie how she became a puppet to her father, whose only goal was to turn his children against his ex-wife.

This isn’t just run of the mill bitterness engendered by divorce. ‘Parental alienation’ is a term recognized by courts and mental health professionals, and for Olivia and her brother, it took years before they understood exactly what their father had done.

Olivia and her brother truly believed their mother didn’t love them. In return, they treated her with disdain and disrespect, always lamenting how much they’d rather be with their father.

In this episode, Katie hears about this long journey and how Olivia now considers her mom her best friend.

Read the original article in The Atlantic here. And you can listen to an interview on NPR with the author here.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah)
Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry

Producer: Alice Hudson
Executive Producer: Katie Hafner
Social Media: Sophie McNulty

Special thanks to Barbara Bradley Hagerty, for putting us in touch with Oliva.

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud at www.ourmothersourselves.com

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.

This week, Katie Semro, from the Mother Mine mini-series, fills in for Katie Hafner as host. Katie interviews her childhood best friend Brittany Zaccagnini about her mother Linda Steed Heidenreich’s 54 years of life lived fully.

Linda was a vivacious woman who made everyone she met feel special. She loved her family, and also worked hard in a variety of careers.

And yet, as Brittany tells Katie, her mother never put any pressure on her children to be perfect. Linda managed to encourage them to strive hard but was never disappointed with them. She asked only that they try their best.

Artwork by Paula Mangin (@PaulaBallah).
Music composed and performed by Andrea Perry.

Producer: Katie Semro
Executive Producer: Katie Hafner

Mother Word Cloud: Please contribute the one word that best describes your mother to the Mother Word Cloud. 

Our Mothers Ourselves is an interview podcast that celebrates extraordinary mothers from all walks of life. Please share the one word that best describes your mother on the Mother Word Cloud.