The Longest Shortest Time
Stories about the surprises and absurdities of raising other humans—and being raised by them. But you don’t need to be a parent to listen. Created and hosted by Hillary Frank. The Longest Shortest Time is back after a 5-year hiatus! New episodes drop every other Wednesday. Join LST+ for community, ad-free listening, and access to You Know What, our premium show featuring college students speaking candidly about sex, dating, and relationships. If you’re new to the show or want to get reacquainted, check out some of our classic episodes: • #27 Rewriting Your Birth Story • #88 W. Kamau Bell Asks His Mom About Sex • The Accidental Gay Parents Series (#60, #62, #80, #81, #125, #211) • #79 Terry Gross on Not Having Kids • It's a Real Mother: A Series About Workplace Discrimination (#141, #142, #143, #145)
Episodes
July 9, 2025 • 37 mins
Amanda Hess writes about the internet for a living. So she didn’t expect to form an emotional bond with a fertility app during her pregnancy. But when Amanda’s pregnancy got complicated, her relationship with the app got complicated, too.
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Recommendations from the archive
We recently re-aired some favorite episodes from our ongoing Sex + Parenthood series. Check them out in your podcast feed (the most recent eps before this one...
Mark as Played
July 2, 2025 • 47 mins
Did your high school health teacher ever try to teach you the risks of sex by making you carry around an egg and pretend it was a baby? These days, the pretending isn’t as much of a stretch. Lots of schools are opting to use robotic babies that cry throughout the day and night just like a real infant. In this episode, we follow two teenage girls over the course of 48 hours with the “babies,” and their conclusions surprise us! We al...
Mark as Played
June 25, 2025 • 48 mins
Most of us, at some point, will be touched by an affair—whether in our own relationships, or because one of our parents cheated, or because we are a trusted confidant. It’s a scary thing to think about, especially when kids are in the mix. Couples therapist Esther Perel joins us with advice on how to navigate affairs and how to keep them from happening in the first place.
⭐️ This episode originally aired on December 6, 2017 and is...
Mark as Played
June 18, 2025 • 44 mins
For most of his life, comedian W. Kamau Bell assumed his single mom never had sex after she made him. Today, he gets the real story.
⭐️ This episode originally aired on July 12, 2016 and is a favorite from the LST archives. It’s also part of our ongoing Sex & Parenthood series. We’ll be airing a few episodes from the series over the next few weeks, while we gear up for our next batch of new episodes. You can find the full series h...
Mark as Played
June 11, 2025 • 44 mins
When Sara Reardon’s friends discovered she had answers for all their (and their moms’) weird vagina questions, they called her “The Vagina Whisperer.” Sara embraced the nickname and, like a true superhero, put on her cape (ahem, vulva costume) and went on a mission to save leaky, dry, painful, and aging vaginas around the world with her pelvic floor physical therapy practice and fun, educational videos. Tune in for Sara’s tips — an...
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May 28, 2025 • 37 mins
Anna North spent years reporting on reproductive health — so she was surprised when her doctor suggested a birth control method she’d never heard of. In this episode, Anna shares why she chose to end her potential for having kids while giving birth to one… and who else might want to consider this little-known procedure.
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Recommended from the archive
#71 A Childless Man Gets a C-Section
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Articles by Anna North (Vox)
• The ca...
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May 14, 2025 • 43 mins
Xyla Foxlin started flying as a teenager. By her twenties, she was piloting her own plane and building another from scratch. But when a private health crisis went public, she wound up in a battle with the FAA that could ground her for good.
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Recommendations from the archive
• #51 Real Teens, Fake Babies
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Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
• If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal ideation, dial 988
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More about X...
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May 7, 2025 • 57 mins
This week, we’re bringing you something special: an episode from Add to Cart, a show we love hosted by Kulap Vilaysack and SuChin Pak. You might remember Kulap when she was a guest on our show back in 2018, where she bravely unpacked her childhood trauma and shared how it led to her documentary film.
Add to Cart is a witty, subversive take on consumerism. Each week, Kulap and SuChin have candid (and often TMI) conversations about ...
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April 30, 2025 • 42 mins
Ashley Parker has covered some of the biggest political events of our time — but for years she’s been obsessed with a very different type of story: birth stories. In this episode, Ashley opens up about her own experiences with childbirth and pregnancy, raising three girls, and a mistake she made as a teenager involving a camera… and boobs. If you follow her work, this is a side of Ashley Parker you’ve never heard before!
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Recomm...
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April 16, 2025 • 47 mins
Ali Yarrow thought her childbirth experience would be hers to guide. Instead, she found it was guided by the American obstetrics system — a model that was designed by men. Ali documented what she uncovered in her eye-opening book, Birth Control, and joins us to share what she learned about maternal care in the U.S., how we got here, and how to advocate for ourselves in a system stacked against both patients and providers.
*When yo...
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April 9, 2025 • 16 mins
Howie Gordon starred in over a hundred porn films in the 70s and 80s under the name Richard Pacheco. But his greatest role was as a father. At StoryCorps, he talked with his son Bobby Gordon about sex, shame, and dirty movies. This episode comes from StoryCorps's podcast season "My Way" - stories from people who found a rhythm all their own and confidently marched to it their whole lives.
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Join LST+ for community and access to You...
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April 2, 2025 • 49 mins
When we last heard from CJ, they were struggling to figure out how to achieve their lifelong dream of becoming a dad. CJ now has a kid, but getting there was a total rollercoaster — including sperm mishaps, blatant discrimination, and an underground group of queer midwives in Athens. Buckle up, because this ride is a wild one!
Note: this episode contains mature content, so probably not one to listen to with the kids.
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CJ’s first e...
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March 19, 2025 • 45 mins
Sex ed in schools isn’t cutting it, and studies show that kids are turning to porn for answers. In this episode, Traci Thomas of The Stacks podcast joins us to suggest books that help tweens and teens navigate the complicated world of sex and relationships. We’ll cover fiction and nonfiction — plus a few picks to help spice up the sex lives of parents!
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Recent episodes about sex ed
• #220 The Staircase
• #221 How to Now (Accidenta...
Mark as Played
March 5, 2025 • 44 mins
Last time we heard from Andrea Silenzi, she was navigating the wild world of sperm shopping as a single woman in her mid-30s who wanted to become a mom. Five years later, Andrea’s back with an exciting update. Hint: she’s no longer single and no longer shopping.
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Hear “The Single Lady’s Guide to Sperm Shopping”
• #208 Sperm Series: I Download an App
• #209 Sperm Series: I Visit a Sperm Bank
• #210 Sperm Series: I Ask a Friend
Hea...
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February 19, 2025 • 39 mins
Cyndie Spiegel built a career on optimism — inspiring audiences with messages of hope and writing a bestselling book about the benefits of positive thinking. But when 2020 hit, her world unraveled in ways she never saw coming. As she faced mounting struggles with family and health, the affirmations she once preached were no longer working, and she had to find a new way forward. In this episode, Cyndie shares the surprising ways she...
Mark as Played
February 5, 2025 • 49 mins
Consent education in school is mostly insufficient or non-existent — even when it’s required by state law. An organization called SafeBAE is trying to change that by training teens to teach each other about consent. SafeBAE’s executive director Shael Norris talks about what works and what doesn’t when discussing this topic with young people. We’ll also hear a cautionary tale about a time when Shael’s own daughter attempted to get j...
Mark as Played
January 22, 2025 • 39 mins
We’re back after a 5-year hiatus! Hillary kicks us off with a story about her anxiety over her daughter’s first experience with unwanted male attention — and her subsequent misadventures in trying to get the girl’s school to teach consent.
Artwork for this episode by Lindsay Stripling.
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If you’re new to the show or want to get reacquainted, check out some of our classic episodes:
• #27 Rewriting Your Birth Story
• #88 W. Kamau Be...
Mark as Played
October 16, 2024 • 7 mins
After a 5-year hiatus, The Longest Shortest Time is coming back! We're gonna talk about all things reproductive health: periods, birth control, consent, bodily autonomy, pregnancy, menopause, and so much more — but we can only create a sustainable show with your help. Please join our club, where you'll get to participate in our community AND hear a whole extra show in the LST universe. Listen to this trailer for more info and to he...
Mark as Played
November 3, 2021 • 32 mins
It's been 2 years since LST ended and now Hillary has a new show! Here Lies Me is dramedy about middle school for teen and adult fans of PEN15 and Big Mouth. Listen to an excerpt (plus a special message from Hillary) right here!
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Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
Follow us on Instagram
Website: https://longestshortesttime.com/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...
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December 18, 2019 • 44 mins
Let's just say this one's inspired by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.
*Note: there is some cursing in this episode — and some talk about the tooth fairy — so you might not want to listen with your kids.*
This is the last episode of The Longest Shortest Time! But it isn't really goodbye. Hillary is cooking up something new, probably a project about middle school.
UPDATE: The Longest Shortest Time is returning with new episodes o...
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