Women Transcend

In this episode, we discuss sexuality and "the talk," that uncomfortable imparting of information about sexuality to our children. But parents need to be aware of all the sources that children are using to get their information about sexuality, and a number of other sensitive topics that they might not come to parents about. We shouldn't think our children find us to be the only source for information, because we aren't. They are bombarded with potential sources of varying qualities, most readily being their peers. Parents want information sources to be accurate, with good information and no agenda, either political or commercial. My guest, Dr. Stephanie Loomis Pappas discusses an article she posted on her blog SnackDinner in reaction to a provocative article in Teen Vogue about helping to teach children to be critical consumers of information, including information on topics like sexuality. She has some great thoughts on how to start teaching young children to know who it is they are reading so when they get old enough to Google search, they can discern information from junk.

In this special episode, we discuss what was a bad week for the United States after facing several back-to-back tragedies including hurricanes and a mass shooting. We focus on four important policy changes that were very quietly implemented by the Trump administration over the last week while media attention was diverted to these tragedies. All of these policy changes are relevant and important to the health, safety, and rights of women, girls, and families. All of these policy changes will be damaging in some way, whether at a large or small scale, big or small dollar amount, to women and girls. The common thread of these policies seems to be that they take away agency of women - control of one's own body and the ability to make decisions that will impact you on a deeply and intimately personal level. Listen for my informative interview with Dr. Colleen Begley, an activist and OB/GYN, as we discuss and dispel mythology around contraception and what you should be doing right now to protect yourself from the potential impact of these policies.

I have a powerful and raw discussion with Rob Scheer from the non-profit Comfort Cases about the foster care system. There are about 500,000 children in the foster care system at any given time in the United States. The average age of a child in the foster care system is nine years old. The majority of these children spend years in the system, not knowing from week to week, month to month, where they will end up. We discuss how the lack of stability and lack of support provided to these children gives them few options for their futures, and they move from the foster care system, to the criminal justice system in many cases.

For more information about the non-profit Comfort Cases visit: https://www.comfortcases.org/