White Picket Fence

When host Julie Kohler became a mom, a community of care sprouted up around her. The people who showed up to support her and her family were essential -- and they would be whether or not she was a single mom. All season, we've dissected the institution of marriage in the US. But what are we missing when talk only about marriage? For the final episode of this season, we're asking what the future of family could look like if marriage wasn't the ideal. We're talking to people who have created networks of support within and around marriage and examining the language and policies that can enable us to lead the lives we want to live. Whether that includes marriage, or... something else!

We’ve spent a lot of time this season investigating the current marriage panic. The pro-marriage crew is sounding alarm bells that if we don’t start marrying, and quit divorcing, things in the U.S. will only get worse. But our theory on this show is that the path to stability and happiness actually leads in the opposite direction. What if we could look beyond our shores, at a country that was taking a very different approach? This episode, we’re visiting Denmark: One of the countries that consistently, year after year after year, has some of the happiest citizens in the world. And we’re taking a look at Danish culture around marriage and divorce and relationships and family to see if we can learn some secrets from the experts. 

In 1969, California Governor Ronald Reagan signed the country's first no-fault divorce bill into law. Since then, Americans have been able to leave their marriages without having to prove their spouse committed any wrongdoing. But now, there's a growing movement on the right to make ending a marriage much harder. This week, host Julie Kohler digs into this current attack on no-fault divorce — and rolls back the clock to explore the "Wild West" of American divorce laws that existed before. 

In 1965, a government report on Black families that was never supposed to be public leaked... and permanently influenced how our country thought about marriage, poverty, and personal responsibility. It was called the Moynihan Report. The report affirmed the belief that family structure – specifically, families headed by single mothers – caused people to be poor. This week, host Julie Kohler traces the roots and repercussions of the Moynihan report, and why the solutions to the issues it puts forth run far deeper than marriage.

The idea that marriage is a fundamental, American institution isn’t just a cultural one – it has serious economic and legal implications. For most of its history, the U.S. has used marriage as a vessel to confer privilege and status onto some people, while marginalizing others. This week, our host, Julie Kohler, takes us on a historical marriage tour to examine how marriage achieved its exalted status, and how it became a tool – one that creates order, defines cultural norms, and maintains hierarchies of inequality.

Maybe you’ve noticed it -- we're in the midst of a moral panic about marriage. Pundits and politicians have become awfully concerned that people are marrying later, and less often. That a growing number of adults are living alone, without a spouse or partner. That divorce remains relatively common. That many women are having and raising kids as single mothers. Now, conservatives waxing poetic about family values is hardly new. But this is more than just hand-wringing with a microphone -- these folks are actually doing something about it. In the first episode of our new season, we're exploring the return of the marriage panic.

This season, we're diving into the hallowed institution of marriage. We want to know why so many people are getting so whipped up over the ways that Americans are — or are not — forming relationships and building families. Why marriage is becoming, once again, the catch-all policy solution for all of our country's challenges. And what becomes possible when we broaden our imaginations around what relationships can look like. We'll go beyond the rosy sheen of love and commitment and expose the darker side to all of this marriage talk — one that we have to pay attention to, if we want to maintain our social progress in this country.

Organizing around motherhood works. It can activate women politically by helping them tap into a powerful identity. But maternal activism can also have some unintended consequences that don't advance justice. So in the final episode of the season, we're asking this season’s guests: should the left still be playing into maternalist politics? Or can we evolve beyond it — to a kind of politics that focuses on values, not a fixed identity, and makes space for all caregivers?

This season's cover art features a photograph by Jonathan Wilkins.

White Picket Fence is supported by Planned Parenthood. For more information or to book an in-person or virtual appointment, visit plannedparenthood.org or call 1-800-230-PLAN.