November 24, 2025 • 59 mins
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We often talk about parenting like it should exist in a bubble—lunchboxes, bedtime routines, school calendars. But as Renee Niemann makes clear, parenting doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Parenting is a political act.
In this episode of Roar, host Danielle Davies sits down with writer and creator Renee Niemann, known for Fake Adult Mom and her new project, Resist Like a Mother. Renee explains the moment motherhood and resistance collided for her—when she realized she could no longer “go about life as normal” while raising kids through rising political extremism, cruelty, and instability.
As she shares early in the episode:
“When I say parenting is a political act… there is no way that I can go about life as normal. Business as usual stops. But I still have to parent.”
Renee speaks candidly about explaining authoritarianism to her kids, teaching age-appropriate truth, and raising children who refuse to shrink. She recounts the moment her daughter was told she “didn’t belong” at an academic event—and how, instead of staying small, she self-advocated so effectively that the boy who dismissed her ended up issuing a written apology.
Together, Danielle and Renee discuss:
💥 Why “business as usual” is impossible while parenting in today’s world
💬 How Renee introduces big topics like injustice, inequality, and authoritarianism to her kids in age-appropriate ways
🔥 Why she believes mothers are raising the next generation of “little resistors”
👶 The emotional load of explaining a chaotic world while still figuring out dinner
⚖️ How she makes decisions about safety, boundaries, and who her kids spend time with—including her controversial but deeply principled rule: “My kids don’t go to Trump supporters’ houses… It’s not punitive. I just don’t respect their judgment.”
❤️ What it means to raise children who don’t shrink themselves, even when it’s uncomfortable
Renee’s story is a reminder that motherhood isn’t passive. It shapes culture, community, and the future. And for many women, telling the truth—even when it’s frightening—is a form of care.
🔑 Key Takeaways
“Parenting is a political act.” Raising children with conscience, courage, and clarity shapes the world they will inherit.
Kids see everything. They watch how we respond to injustice, fear, and uncertainty — and they learn from it.
Mothers are often the first to notice what’s broken — and the ones most motivated to fix it.
Telling the truth is not harmful; dishonesty is. Even when the truth is scary, Renee believes kids deserve honesty “with reasons why.”
Resistance doesn’t have to be loud. Sometimes it's simply refusing to shrink.
🔗 Links Mentioned
Resist Like a Mother Substack → https://www.resistlikeamother.com/
Renee on Instagram → @resistlikeamother
Fake Adult Mom → @fakeadultmom
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hi, I'm Danielle Davey, and you're listening to Roar, a show
that amplifies the voices of women breaking barriers, leading
change and making real impact. Keep listening for bold ideas
and stories that inspire you to find your voice and make some
noise. Being a mom right now feels like
living in two different worlds. We're raising our kids to be
(00:26):
kind, fair, and decent while watching the highest levels of
society reward cruelty and powerwithout consequence.
And somehow we're supposed to keep it together.
Pack the lunches and stay polite.
My guest today, Renee Nieman, knows that contradiction better
than anyone you might remember from our hilarious Instagram
account, Fake fake adult mom. But she's making waves now for
(00:46):
her new sub stack and Instagram communities, both called Resist
Like a Mother. Because as Renee shows us, being
a parent isn't just personal, it's political.
Welcome, Renee. Thank you so much for being
here. Thank you for having me, I
really appreciate you having me on.
Oh my gosh, I'm thrilled. And I and I really, what you're
doing and what you're saying is really resonating.
(01:07):
And so I'm going to just jump right in.
Just say that louder for my children if you could.
Just louder, just so they can. It is really resonating and
you're doing a great job by kindof setting this example for your
kids because and what you say and you say this, you know, on
your sub stack, you've said thisin different places.
Parenting is a political act. Can you tell us about what made
(01:29):
that that click for you? Like when you realized raising
kids and resisting injustice were going to have to be part of
the same job. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I think when I had my first child way back in 2010,
which feels like the Stone Age, you know, I have AI, have a teen
between and a toddler. So I run the gambit of parenting
(01:53):
right now and the toddler supplies and baby supplies much
different from what they were in2010.
So I refer to Zoe as my Stone Age baby because I'm pretty sure
her equipment would not be street legal now.
But when I had her in 2010, I envisioned that the scope of
(02:16):
political involvement that this child would see from me would be
occasionally taking her to go vote with us, if only to get a
sticker for her complaining on random election nights when SNL
was pre empted because there's some random election that we're
(02:39):
following. But that was really going to be
the end of it. I never imagined that I would
have to explain authoritarianismto a 15 year old, to 12 year
old, and in some ways to a four year old.
Everything has to be age appropriate and I try to meet
(03:00):
them where they're at. But when I say parenting is a
political act, there is no way that I can go about life as
normal, business as usual stops,but I still have to parent.
(03:20):
And I'm still having to decide what's for dinner while also
talking to my children about whywe're bringing dinners to mutual
aid pantries, why we're stockingcommunity fridges because SNAP
benefits are being cut. We can't have these
(03:43):
conversations without there being that political under
score. And when they're watching what
I'm doing and what I'm saying, Ineed to be honest and tell them
the reasons why. And some of those reasons are
(04:03):
scary to them. Some of them are infuriating.
Especially for my 2 girls, The teen and tween, the toddler,
he's, he's not really there so much.
He's, he's more of like, oh, good.
We're putting, we're putting treats in a bag for the fridge.
(04:23):
OK, good, good, good. Give that to me.
That's the, the length of his involvement.
But the girls, you know, I thinkwhen Roe V Wade was overturned,
I had a hard time processing that myself.
(04:44):
And, you know, I'm in my mid 40s.
And I didn't expect them to havea concept of what that meant.
And I tried to make it palatable, to explain it on
their level. And all I could really get out
(05:04):
of my mouth was you don't have the same things that I had at
your age. And you know, when those words
came out because they wanted to know why I was sad, why I was
crying. Why was daddy kind of irked, but
(05:25):
mommy was crying. And you know, when I when that
sentence came out of my mouth, I'm sad because you don't have
the same things I had now. Because it is so personal, it's.
Right, it absolutely is. And this past election season,
(05:49):
you know, my daughters are very aware now at 15 and 12 of the
goings on. You know, I like to think that
unfortunately they're reading comprehension and context clues
are sadly, but also yay, better than for most of the population
(06:09):
because brain worm was a deal breaker for them on our junior.
They were like, wait, he had a brain worm.
Wait, he talked a bear cub in the park.
He drove with a shark on his car.
He swam in that. And they're like, but you know,
America's like, hey, Senator Bill Cassidy.
(06:32):
My senator was like, hey, but mygirls were like, yeah, that's
going to be a no for me. They're aware now.
I can't shield them from this. And frankly, I don't want them
to. I don't want them to be in the
dark. I want them awake.
I want them to know what's goingon.
I want them to know why. Hey, when we see somebody pulled
(06:57):
over on the side of the road andwe don't recognize those cars
and there are men talking to a woman, you're going to get in,
lock the doors, start recording,and mommy's going to get out and
they know. But you're, you know, you're not
just bringing it to them, you'rebringing it to everybody.
So just for anybody who doesn't know you, I'm going to just
(07:18):
explain and tell me if I'm wrong.
You had this following fake adult mom was memes.
It was funny parenting stuff since 2017, but it was huge.
It wasn't like, it wasn't like little.
It was an enormous amount of followers, right?
I mean, it was, yeah, it was nice.
I mean. I'd like to say that as long as
like a few people who weren't related to me liked it, I felt
(07:41):
big. It was big, it was big and it is
big. But you, you made the decision
at some point to total switch gears and now it's not really
funny right now. No, I mean.
You're not so funny. Funny.
And the absurdity of it all, I'msure.
I mean, I, I, I sometimes I lookback at the things that we
(08:02):
normalize now and that terrifiedme in just January of this year.
And now I'm like, oh, that's so quite.
Because now I'm like, you know, they're taking toddlers out of
cars, you know, and, and I'm just like, oh, I can't believe I
was worried about doge, you know, like, how cute.
(08:26):
How cute. Yeah.
What was the turning point though, for you to make that so
you didn't just switch? Like you don't just have another
account, you literally deleted all your other stuff, right?
You know, I couldn't in good conscience joke about oh, my
kids won't go to sleep on time, Oh my kids can't find their
(08:46):
shoes, but my children constantly ask me for money.
I am such a tired person becauseI have children.
Those memes. I couldn't in good conscience
leave that up because that was almost like pretending we were
still in that world and and we're just not.
(09:07):
Like I said, I can't go back to business as usual.
I don't have that little life where I can complain about my
kids not going to sleep. I mean, I will still complain
one. 1000% I will do that. But I'm also going to be really
grateful, A, my kids are with me.
B, we've got a safe place to sleep.
(09:30):
CI don't have to worry about thethings that a lot of people are
worrying about because I'm privileged to have the skin
color that I do. And God, I hate that I'm
grateful for that. But I hate that we're also the
(09:52):
type of country where I have to be grateful.
I hate having to explain that tomy children.
I hate having to explain to themthat we are in this bubble that
we are fortunate to be in. But we can't.
(10:16):
We can't appreciate what we havewithout also acknowledging the
people that don't and trying to balance what we have with what
we give. And, you know, fake adult mom
(10:36):
and resist like a mother. They're born of the same class,
but one is out of a desire to. I figure, look, if I'm thinking
this stuff, chances are there's another mom that is going to be
thinking this. How do I how do I decide what's
(10:56):
for dinner and also tell my child that there is a predator
in the White House? How do I run a Costco and then
explain to my child that the National Guard is being called
into our city? If I'm thinking it, maybe
another mom is thinking it and she doesn't know how to how to
(11:19):
make it click for her kids. And I've always said I don't
post for everybody. I don't really post for anybody.
I post for me. And I hope that what I post
reaches someone like minded who's going to pass it on to
somebody else who's like minded.And we built. 100% I think that
(11:41):
that's that's you know, when I saw your posts, I, it resonated.
I mean, that's why I reached out.
It's just you're speaking in a way that I think so many moms
find relatable. And we're all worried about our
kids. And we all, you know, we're all
worried about all the things, getting them to bed on time.
Did they eat their vegetables? Who wants to deal with bath
(12:01):
night? Like, there are all those very
practical right now moments. But there's also the issue of,
like, the world at large. And, you know, as you're
talking, I can like, see that you're getting upset.
And of course you are, because it's upsetting.
Not a upset, it's more of it's just, it's, it's somber, it's
sadness. There's so much that I've had to
(12:26):
explain to my children that I it's innocence that's taken from
them that I will never be able to give back to them.
And look, I'm not even going to pretend that we are on the scale
of other people. But like I tell my kids,
everyone's hard is hard. My kids are not the children in
(12:49):
Gaza. They are not the children who
were taken hostage. They are not the children in
Sudan or the Congo, but they arestill children and their heart
is hard. And children in America right
now who are watching this stuff on TV happen in their country,
not some far away place that maybe due to our educational
(13:13):
system, they can't pick out on the globe.
It's here. Well, you talk about like grief
for the country you love when you you you wrote a bunch of
posts that are going to potentially be a book called the
handbook of the recently the handbook for the recently
resisting and you said it's grief for the.
(13:35):
Absolutely it's it is it is 1000% grief for the country that
I love. And maybe that's naivete of, of
my, my very non melanin skinned self because the country that I
loved, you know, I grew up staying with liberty and justice
for all. And I thought we meant that and.
(14:00):
You know, I keep saying the samething too.
It's not that it was, It's not that I was living in some kind
of disillusionment that like America was great for everybody.
And we're all just like living in like Happy Lego Valley, you
know, just there wasn't that. But there was the there was the
belief in this ideal and that that we had a there was a
(14:24):
promise. There was a belief that there
could be. Yes, yeah.
And now that is shattered in many ways.
You know, that's and it's and now I am living under like it's
almost like a disillusioning because I'm like, I am complete
now. There's so much fear and it and
(14:45):
it kind of permeates every aspect of your life.
So how could you not when kids take up so much of your life?
They're part of everything, right?
They don't just go in their bedrooms.
You don't put them in the shelf at 5:00 and well, I'm done for
the day. So how would it not?
Lift them and get them onto the shelf.
Yes. Right.
But yeah, no, it doesn't. My job is to raise these
(15:09):
beautiful humans into good decent people that will one day
leave my home. Not too soon, but one day they
will start their own lives outside of this home.
And I would be remiss if what amI sending them out into doesn't
concern me on the daily. And also, I want to make sure
(15:30):
that what I'm sending out is incredible, and I'm not going to
be able to do that if I'm not honest with them about what I'm
leaving them and leading them to.
Unfortunately, the way the country is going right now, I
(15:51):
don't really have a lot of hope for what is being left to them.
But I do hope that what I'm leading them to, to speak up, to
make sure they say no, that's not OK.
Make sure they say I don't. I don't get why that's funny.
(16:13):
Why is that funny? Can you explain it to me?
When they hear a joke that's, I'm going to just say
distasteful. You know, my girls go to an all
girls school and that's important for us.
(16:34):
My girls have been going there since 2012.
My oldest when she was two, my youngest when she was 18 months,
we started going to nursery school there and they love it.
But the reason why we picked an all girls education, besides
that girls tend to thrive was because of the mass shootings
(16:58):
that were going on. And this was before Sandy Hook.
But I was looking at statistics and saying that the majority of
mass shooters were why chromosomes if you will.
And I wanted to protect my babies so they don't encounter a
(17:19):
lot of distasteful jokes, if youwill.
OK, but when there have been kind of interschool events, my
oldest daughter about two years ago at an academic games
tournament, which is the whitestand nerdiest sentence I have
(17:40):
uttered in a while. I had a a male student from
another school tell her she didn't belong there and it's a
girl. Yeah, because she was a girl.
And, you know, she promptly finished and then went up to the
director. I mean, it was even like, mom,
(18:02):
I've got this. And I was like, see that kid?
You need to tell that kid to change the way he thinks, or I'm
going to tell my school that we can't play here.
And we have his written apology framed in her room, you know?
(18:23):
Absolutely epic of her. Well, I mean, you know, she was
13. So I think it's it, it does take
a hefty set of ovaries at 13 to do that on your own.
But that's what I mean about raising like these little
resistors, because she could have sat in that discomfort and
she could have made herself smaller.
(18:44):
She didn't. She made herself bigger.
She took up the space that she wanted, she took up the space
that she needed, and she made sure that guy knew how much
space she wanted to take up well.
Not only that, like not only areyou re like raising, like you
said, little resistors, right? So you're teaching them how to
(19:05):
act in response to what we're seeing from absolutely adults in
charge. But some people like, you know,
what do you think today's kids are learning?
Learning from the adults in church.
Some. You're seeing a lot more racism.
You're seeing a lot more bullying.
Bullying's gone up like sky high.
I mean, you see just the way people speak to one another in
(19:28):
anywhere, the grocery store, anywhere.
How do you counter that as parents inside saying resist
like because some people are saying it's okay you can be a
bully. Like all our lessons about be
nice, treat people the way you want to be treated.
It's like it's a joke. I love you.
Want to really girls? I let my girls look in on my DMS
(19:50):
with me and my DMS are a delight.
Oh, Danielle, they are a delight.
Let me tell you. They are a fun mix of here's the
promo code we'd love for you to collab on, a jewelry line that
you have to pay for somehow, genitalia and a mix of threats.
(20:12):
And I find that some of the threats come from teenage boys.
So now I make it a point to onceI find out that they're minors
that I say, look, I I need your parents permission if we're
going to continue to talk because I don't feel comfortable
talking to you without them. One time this kid Facetimed me
(20:36):
and his mom gave me permission to talk to him.
But I I tell the girls, you know, you have to talk to
people. You can walk away if you feel
uncomfortable, but you walk awaywith a big presence.
You don't walk away some more. But if you can ask them with a
(20:59):
straight face, why do you think it's OK to say that to me?
Let them respond. Let them answer their own
question. Let them describe why they feel
emboldened to threaten you. Some people say things to me
(21:20):
like, oh, because you're dumb Lib, insert your own, whatever.
And I'll say, why do you think that?
Well, you think you should be giving away all of our tax
dollars to illegal immigrants? And I'm like, who are the
illegal immigrants? Where are tax dollars going?
And then they'll ask me questions.
(21:42):
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give away free healthcare, Just anybody.
I say foster children. Is it free?
Like, is it free? No, it's not free.
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What do they say when it's the teenage?
Like for example, the one FaceTime, the one that Facetimed
you? What?
Well. He had said some really
(22:44):
derogatory things and I initiated a video call and I
said say it's my face. And I saw he was like a 16 year
old kid and he was at work and Iwas like, oh, you're a teenager.
And I said, well, I can't talk to you until like I've got
(23:08):
permission for your parents. And he called me some other
choice words and I said, like I said, I can't talk to you until
you. So he called back and with his
mom, and, you know, his mom was like, what did you say to her?
And I said, and I said, please say it to my face.
(23:30):
And he said, no, ma'am. I said, well, why did you think
that you could write that to me?Because I was really upset about
all the stuff you were saying about Donald Trump.
I was like, well, Donald Trump is a adult.
Donald Trump is in his late 70s.You don't think Donald Trump can
handle himself? Do you think you need to stand
(23:50):
up for Donald Trump? You need to defend Donald Trump?
If Donald Trump is still great, why are you out there defending
him? Don't you have other stuff to
do? And what was the outcome of
this? The mom thanked me.
The kid and I, we, we occasionally stay in contact
(24:12):
occasionally, you know, he said he liked my Miss Rachel costume
for Halloween. So it's, it's weird.
It's. But you know, it's crazy because
the very first podcast I ever episode I ever did was with
Nikki Vink. Have you heard of Nikki Vink?
OK, I love Nikki and one of the thing and I was just rehashing
(24:34):
some of quotes to put on social media last night.
So I just saw it and she was like, these hard conversations
have to be had because even if you're not changing someone's
mind, the fact and and of courseI'm paraphrasing, but the fact
is you're, you're showing humanity.
You know what I mean? You're you're human and you're
(24:54):
not behind a screen. And in this isn't how we talk to
people in real life. It wasn't how we talk to people
in real life. And and so just having this hard
conversations, even if they're not, you know, he's not like
having this moment where he's like, you're totally right,
right. No and.
Look, I don't expect him to. In fact, you know, I was at the
(25:16):
meow. Tuck it a protest when JD Vance
went up to Nantucket, it was my birthday and I've got family in
Massachusetts and I'm good friends with cats on a couch.
And so we decided to meet up in Nantucket.
And there were these group of teenage boys that were kind of
(25:36):
like just harassing the protesters and my family's
personal nickname. And I cannot believe I am
admitting this publicly. So Nanny and Uncle Jay, enjoy
your moment. My family nickname growing up
was Renege because I could talk all day long and I could get
(26:03):
what I wanted by just nagging them to death.
OK, I like it. I like.
It I put on my renege and mom hat and went up to these boys
and just nagged them until they left.
I asked them about their collegeplans, what AP courses they were
taking. One of them was trying to get in
(26:23):
a 2 lane and I was like, oh, I'mfrom New Orleans.
And they were like, oh, can you help me get in?
I was like, yeah, probably not if you end up on the news
because you're harassing people at protests.
And they were like, oh, and I was like, see, I was like, look,
I'm a mom. I wouldn't want my 17 year old
who's applying to colleges to beon the news right now.
(26:45):
There's bad reason. There's this whole world of kids
that doesn't realize like how this carries over.
But then but the flip side is then we have again a president
who he's been caught in every which way and we've still
elevated him to the Hyatt. So they're probably like, who
cares? Well.
Here's the thing about that too.And cool saying it out loud.
(27:10):
You know, we've always had very specific rules for our girls and
our son when he gets ready, you know, to go on play dates
without us and for sleepovers and friend gatherings.
And you know, with this election, my friends don't go to
Trump supporters houses. And that's not because I'm
(27:33):
trying to be mean and it's not because I'm trying to be
punitive. Your kids.
OK, sorry. All right.
The kids obviously can't vote. But if the parents, if I know
that they're Republicans, if I know that they're Trump
supporters, my kids don't go over there.
And like I said, that's not to be punitive towards the child.
(27:53):
It's not to be punitive towards my child.
It's just I don't respect their judgement and if I can't trust
them to make the same decision Ihad to make last November if
they could not take the time to read Project 2025 like I could,
(28:15):
or even the Cliff notes of it like my husband, No you don't.
You don't get the privilege of being around my child and you
certainly don't get to be alone with them in any capacity.
So, you know, part of you. Just said I don't trust their
judgement. Oh.
Absolutely not. Because it's not even being
(28:37):
punitive towards them, right? This is my most precious this.
Is where parenting becomes political.
Because my, for instance, my daughter had an invitation to go
to a party of a very good and dear friend who we adore.
And unfortunately, one of her parents voted for Trump in
(29:00):
November and the mom did not, but the father did.
And unfortunately, the mom was not going to be at home at this
time because they have other children and it was just going
to be the dad. And look, before 2024, I
probably would have said, yeah, go over to so and so's house, go
(29:22):
have fun, you know, I'll pick you up at 3:00 this time.
I said, no, sorry, can't go. And she said, well, why not?
I was like, well, you know, I don't trust Mr. so and so's
judgement. And she's like, well, why not?
I was like, well, because he voted for Trump.
(29:44):
Yeah, but, but, but insert friend's name says he regrets
it. And I said, well, you know,
baby, I don't see what he's doing to repair it.
And you can regret it all you want, but regret without repair
isn't redemption. So I don't see how his judgement
has changed. And if I can't trust him to make
(30:08):
a good decision for his daughters, I certainly can't
trust him to make a good decision for mine.
Oh my gosh, that is basically wecan hang up now that I mean,
right like that because OK, thank you.
And you know, not everybody right, is not everybody is
(30:31):
thinking like you or thinking about this or maybe drawing
lines in the sand. And I don't want to say they're
lines in the sand, but maybe even having these standards like
my kids not going to go here forthis, which makes a lot of sense
to me reason. But but some people are being
completely silent in the face ofit.
And sometimes some people will say I just didn't even vote for
(30:51):
anybody. That's how much I don't like it
I'm. And I get that a lot.
And that's such a silence. What do you think that costs us?
Silence. You know, listen, one of my very
dear friends from I mean, we will, we will both just not say
how long we've been friends. It's that long, but we've known
(31:16):
each other at every stage of ourlives.
Teens, young 20s, young wives, young mothers, old mothers,
mothers of teens. We've known each other a long
time, and we've been through just about every evolution that
you can go through as young women to whatever this
perimenopausal state of ours is.And she does not like to talk
(31:41):
politics to which I I go, she goes, well, I'm just, I'm just
not into politics. I'm like, well, politics is into
you. So what do you if there's a
fire, are you just going to shoparound for quotes or are you
going to call the fire department?
And she's like, well, that that's not political.
(32:02):
I'm like, it absolutely is your tax dollars.
Who to fund the fire department?And she's like, you know what I
mean? I I don't, I don't want to talk
about Trump. Why not?
Because. Because we're not going to
agree. What are we not going to agree
on? Well, you don't like him.
What makes you think I don't like him?
(32:23):
Besides the everything about me?But you know, she's like, well,
you know, you, you call him a pedophile and where's the lie?
And I, I finally, you know, I'll, I'll text her pictures of
Trump with Ivanka and she goes, this isn't real.
(32:44):
I'm like, yes, it is. OK.
There was an AI in 1991 when this picture was posted.
And I'll say, would you leave him with your kid?
No. If you wouldn't leave him with
your kid, why would you leave him with your country?
(33:06):
Why would you let it? Just when you get down to brass
tacks like this man has bankrupted everything he's
touched, including his own children, who, I mean, their
businesses aren't exactly on theup and up.
I mean, we're talking stealing from cancer charity.
(33:32):
What about people who say, you know, I've heard this too, and I
this is weird, like so I am not,I am going to keep people on
this podcast episode for so long.
I'm so sorry, but I need to knowwhat about what do you say to
you know, there are there are quite a few people that I know
that voted for Trump that but that say they don't like him.
(33:52):
They don't like him. But you know, he's he's the best
choice to lead the country. He's what he's doing is is good
for the country. Just out of curiosity.
I would say, is it good for yourchildren?
Is it good for your daughter to see?
Do you want your son to be like Trump?
(34:14):
That's what I would say. Because and, and that's the
thing so much of your work asks the question, what kind of
people are we raising? Because and why do you think is
mothers in particular have so much at stake in politics?
Because and so much potential tochange it?
Well, you know, I think a lot ofdefault parenting rests on the
(34:35):
backs of mothers. I think unfortunately that is
the way our society has organized.
We have crap for maternal healthcare in this country.
We have crap for postpartum resources for paid leave.
Just as just as a just a reference point, when my oldest
(34:59):
was born my husband got a week off one week for paternity
leave. I had AI had AC section and he
got an extra week for that. So I had two weeks of help at
home before my husband had to goback to work.
(35:22):
I wasn't even fully recovered from C-section yet.
Now thankfully I was a stay at home mom, but had I been the
sole provider in our family and had to go back to work, I don't
know how I would have done that.Our country does not really
value what we do, but definitelywants us to keep doing it.
(35:50):
Now when my last child was born in 2021, my husband had a
standard month off and because Ihad AC section with my son, he
had an extra 2 weeks. And then he was able to take
family medical leave. And so, you know, if thankfully
my husband was able to be home and he's kind of taking on some
(36:10):
of the default parenting with our son, but you know, I just
feel like mothers we're, we justknow how to get it done.
But so for so long, I feel like motherhood was treated as like
private, domestic, apolitical, right?
We're just. Well, think about, you know,
coming from coming from a place in the South.
(36:34):
And even though New Orleans is a, is a blue dot in a very
RedState, we're still Southern. You know, it's, oh, you want to
be polite? You want to be polite.
I'm not interested in making youcomfortable.
I'm interested in making sure that my children have better
than I do. And that's kind of the whole
point of parenting is that we leave them better than what we
(36:59):
had. And going back to that Roe V
Wade overturned moment, Mama wascrying because they don't have
it better. And that's not how it's supposed
to be. It's not how it's supposed to
be. So I think mothers, you know,
our whole goal when, when we meet our children for the first
(37:22):
time, whether it's in our arms at the hospital or given to us
by a surrogate or a birth parent, we have a connection
where and a promise where we saythis is for you, this is for
(37:42):
you, I am for you. And sometimes they take that a
little too literally and they will take all of your stuff.
They will come in in the night and you're like, what are you
doing? They're like, I need your
Airpods. How do I connect your Airpods?
How do I I need them on my phone?
I'm like, it's 7, it's a Saturday.
(38:03):
What, you know, I think a lot ofus, especially parents with
careers outside of the home, at the end of the day, how you
define yourself. I bet if you're a parent, parent
(38:23):
comes in there. Look at how politicians define
themselves. Even like Mikey, Cheryl in this,
you know, last New Jersey race, I was, I was watching Obama
speak and he introduced her and he's introducing her saying, you
know it, she's got these children, but she wants to take
(38:45):
on, you know, politics. And I'm, I'm, I'm like, yeah,
I'd rather deal with politics too than than other people's
children. But yeah, I got it.
You know, it's, it's just mom isgoing to be in your bio, Dad is
going to be in your bio somewhere.
You know, when politicians send out their Flyers, it's not just
(39:07):
a big picture of them next to a flag.
Most often they've got the wife,they've got the three kids.
Some people put in that token golden retriever.
And you know, it's just parenting is part of your
identity. It's not all of it, but it's a
big chunk. But I and I feel like though
what I'm even just on social media, maybe it's just me and
(39:29):
it's my feet and stuff, but you see more moms.
I don't see a lot of movements that have the word dad in it.
And I'm not knocking dads. They certainly got they're
doing, they're doing their thing.
But a lot of like movements, there's moms running, Moms
Demand Action. You resist like a mother.
(39:52):
There's something about that. And I hate the phrase the Mama
bear, but there is something so fierce about the way we'll be
willing to protect our children.You know, I think bear with me
through this metaphor, but you know that that choice, it was
very viral last year or maybe even the year before.
(40:14):
I don't, I don't know. I'm lucky.
I know my own name. Sometimes it was do we choose
the man or the bear? And a lot of women said, oh, I
definitely choose the bear. If you have to be alone in the
forest with a random man or a random bear, who do you choose
to be alone with? And my feed is blowing up with
(40:37):
this question. And every woman is like bear,
bear, bear, bear, bear, bear, bear.
And I made a meme with Belle from Beauty and the Beast and
Beast. And I was like, since the early
90s, we've been choosing the bear.
And I kid you not, all of these men were like, he's technically
not a bear. He's technically a beast.
(41:00):
He's he's not a bear. Like, are you mansplaining
Beauty and the Beast to me on this?
Like, are you really doing that right now?
This is why I choose the bear. The bear's just going to eat me
and get it over with. You are going to mansplain,
probably rape me, God only knowswhat else.
Worst case scenario, I'm going to have to meet your mom.
So, you know, yeah, I'm going tochoose the bear.
(41:22):
But I think a lot of women choose the bear because we are
the fucking bear. We are the bear.
We are the Mama bear. And you may not really like that
term, but hear me out. Mama bears.
We'll fight till the end. You mess with one of our Cubs,
(41:44):
we will come get you. We will find you.
We will find your mom and you'regoing to apologize to my cub.
Oh yeah, I like that. And you know, it's funny.
I'll. I've seen memes of like, you
know, you say like that mother who's still mad at like
(42:07):
something that happened to theirkid in preschool and their kids
like 35. You know, I'm like this.
This relates so much because youdon't forget either.
You're. You know.
Held your child up. You remember you.
Didn't and listen, my mom, we we're looking at preschools for
my son right now and my mom one particular preschool and she's
(42:29):
like, isn't that where so and sosends their child?
And I was like, yes. And she's like, he broke your
heart. I was like, yeah, yeah, he did.
He he did in 1997. Yes, he did.
And she's like you're. Like I'm OK now he's.
Like, don't send Julian there. I'm like, I I really don't think
(42:51):
Julian's going to have beef withsomeone he doesn't know exists,
but go on. And she's like bad.
Never liked him. Never.
I told you that. I mean, this was a 30 minute
conversation. She's still on.
Still on. Quick pause to invite you into
the ROAR community. War is all about amplifying
women's voices, and you can be part of it.
(43:12):
I share the messy, unfiltered behind the scenes stuff in my
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Sign up at listen to roar.com and get in on the real talk.
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Share it. Drop a comment or pass it to
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Every share helps bring more women's stories into the
spotlight. All right, let's get back to the
(43:34):
episode. Here's the thing.
When I I, I made it a point to say this specifically, your cub
is going to apologize to my cub.Not I'm going to take your Cub
out. Not I'm going to destroy your
cub. As much as I would like to
throttle your cub, I'm not goingto do that because all kids
belong to us. If I see your kid hurting, I'm
(43:58):
going to try to make him feel better.
Every mom has had this moment where we've been in a store,
we've been in Barnes and Noble, we see a toddler having a
meltdown. We feel for that mom.
If you're one of the moms that is side eyeing in judgement, or
worse, you're one of the grandma's side eyeing in
(44:19):
judgement. Shame, shame.
Insert Game of Thrones meme because real moms don't do that.
Real moms say, how can I help Real moms hold the door while
you carry out your child's surfboard style.
Real, real moms, you know, we get it.
(44:41):
They don't shame other moms. Right, because mom, mom shaming
is kind of like one of the dirtiest things she can do.
You know, I, I just, when I say like your cub is going to
apologize to my cub is because we're going to teach our Cubs to
treat each other with respect and come together.
(45:03):
We're not going to teach our Cubs to hate each other.
My children, when we're watchingthe news and we, we see
politicians that we don't agree with on a moral level, not just
a policy level, but a moral level, we don't hate them.
(45:25):
We pity them and we want them todo better.
That is very big of you. Look, I'm not saying it's easy,
but I don't think any parent wants their kid to grow up.
Hateful. No.
Well, you don't think so? Nobody wants to be mired in
hate. I don't think anybody wants
(45:46):
that. I think at the end of the day,
what we want is a safe place to land.
I personally a cold Diet Coke from McDonald's preferably and I
want to know that my babies are OK and unfortunately a lot of
people can't say that at the endof the day because.
(46:06):
The people. In charge, making policies that
aren't humane. Yeah.
Well, and I was going to say, you know, there's first of all,
there are, there are so many people who are being affected by
these policies. You don't have the luxury of
checking out, right, because they're literally worried about
somebody knocking at their frontdoor.
(46:27):
Then put this into you. Right then there are people like
you and I who, by the by the luck of the draw, happen to have
skin that isn't putting us a color that isn't putting us at
risk. So some and and and here's the
thing, universally, we're tired.This has been going on a long
time. It just seems to be getting
(46:47):
worse. People are both exhausted but
then also incredibly awake. What do you say to them?
How can people start resisting without without burning out and
checking out? Actually, I kind of want to
bring something back because it it reminded me of something when
you said, why do you think mothers are are kind of
propelling these movements and dads are kind of not on the
(47:08):
sidelines, but always kind of maybe not the first to step up.
It's because from the time womenare born we are taught to not
take candy from strangers to When I started driving, make
sure I park under a street lightin the parking lot.
Make sure I lock my car doors when I get out.
(47:31):
When I'm walking back to my car,make sure my key is in my hand
like this. Make sure I look under the car
so there isn't a someone hiding under there ready to slice my
Achilles tendon. Make sure someone isn't in the
back seat. We are taught to be hyper aware
of the person following us through a store.
We are, we're taught to be hyperaware of the person that looks
(47:52):
at us a little too long. We are taught to be hyper aware
of our surroundings, the exits, where we go, who we go with,
what time we left. Make sure a friend knows from a
from. I mean, from the time I was a
kid, it's the buddy system. And my husband certainly didn't
have to do that. And you know, when I go out with
(48:17):
our children, we have a code word for if you want to leave
because you feel unsafe for any reason, you say this word.
I drop what we have. We're at the store.
My husband, he's like, what? What?
And my daughter's texting me andshe's like, I seen some weird
guys staring at me and I'm like,leave, you know, like I'm
(48:41):
telling my husband leave. He's like, I didn't see the guy.
I'm like, because you're not trained to focus on it.
And moms have pattern recognition.
We know the guy that doesn't belong at the park.
We know that when we're watchingour kids on the merry go round
or the swing set and there's this weird guy that just keeps
walking around, maybe taking pictures, maybe just sitting
(49:05):
there on his phone. We don't know.
We don't want to find out. We get our kids.
We tell the mom sitting at the bench over there, hey, see the
creep, let's go. We've got pattern recognition.
And with that pattern recognition, I think a lot of
moms are using that to say, oh, that creep at the park.
He's now in the White House. And and I think too, what you
(49:30):
mentioned about your like everybody's children are our
children. There is that idea of universal
mothering, like even when you just said this a few weeks ago,
months ago, weeks slash a few months ago, I took my daughter
to see The Lumineers. We love The Lumineers.
And it was just the two of us. And he's like, well, my awesome.
And in front of us there was, you know, there's a row and
(49:52):
there were there was a couple. And at first it was super
annoying because this couple would not stop making out and
like the PDA was over the top. I mean, and it was so they were
so intense that other people in other rows were commenting like,
I guess they're missing the whole show because they even
when they sat down, they were just like looking at each
other's faces And just so it wasintense and it was a lot.
(50:14):
It was enough to draw your eye. But I'm like, OK, move on.
Like the show's going on. Like just don't pay attention to
them. At some point, this couple who
obviously have been drinking, itwasn't like they started
fighting and they're arguing Andnow like now they're sitting
down and the guy's got his head in his hands and he's like, like
(50:35):
very frustrated. And the girls like
simultaneously like she's like silent, like maybe crying or but
then she's texting her friend and then they start talking and
we don't, it's loud. You can't hear what's happening,
but you can hear that this is you can tell this is not going
super smoothly. And all of a sudden you see the
guy, the girl starts texting andI can see because I'm right
(50:56):
behind her that she's texting Uber.
She's like, she's going to get aride home.
And he grabs her phone and I'm like, and she real quick got it.
She real quick got it back and it's me and my daughter and
there's another family next to me, a mom dad and three
daughters. You're like in the family
(51:17):
section. This couple men right in front
of me tutors 2 seats down from the girl is another mom and I
tapped that mom and she's like Igot it.
We're watching like, and it was all of us moms watching this
girl and making sure and like and checking in.
And that is just what you do as a mom.
(51:38):
You. Yeah.
Because. Because any day that could be
your girl, right? Any.
And yeah, anyway, I feel like it's that kind of thing.
Not that my husband wouldn't getinvolved or wouldn't stand up
for somebody, but I feel like a lot of times men, and not
wrongfully so, they will say another guy is stepping another
(52:02):
somebody else is handling it andthat guy often looks like them,
right? So that's not I.
Just don't wait. You know, if I see your kid fall
on the playground and hit his head, I'm getting up.
I'm getting up off of the bench,I'm going over there the same
time you are. I'm not waiting for you to get
up. And you know, that's not out of
(52:25):
disrespect or anything. That's not saying you can't
handle it. It's saying I see hurt child,
what can I do to help? And I just, I don't, I don't
know if that's translates universally across the sexes or
not, but I I think parents, yeah, you definitely have more
(52:49):
of an instinct to do it. And I think mothers, yeah, we
can have it more than dads a little bit.
But you know what? I know some really involved
dads. I know some really kind of LAX
moms. But I know this totally true.
I know this. I will never not see a parent
(53:09):
get involved when they see a hurt kid.
And when I mean get involved, I mean in front of them.
I'm not talking about when they see it on TV and they can change
the channel. I'm not talking about when they
hear about it happening in Chicago or they hear about it
happening in LA or DC. I'm talking about when it's
(53:30):
right in front of them. And when it's right in front of
them, there's not one that doesn't rush.
And a case in point, last night my daughter has a lacrosse
practice. You know, you get hit in the
face, you're going to bleed. OK, Happens moms, dads, coaches,
(53:51):
everybody is oh, can we get, canwe get this?
Can we get this? The medical personnel of the
parents are coming in, You know,they're like, Oh yeah, it looks
good, you're fine, you're fine. Just sit out for a little bit.
You're fine. You just, you know, everybody's
coming in to check. And the only thing I can say is
if you're not one of those people who would check, maybe re
evaluate your parenting style. And that's not shaming, that's
(54:15):
asking you to evaluate. Or even just your humanity,
right? You know, I, I feel like at that
point I'm just by asking, I end the conversation there.
Yeah, let me ask you one last question because I can have you
here all day. When you imagine what it the
idea, the concept of resist likea mother, what do you think that
(54:37):
looks like in practice, not justonline, but in daily life for
other people who maybe aren't asoutspoken or aren't as brave
with the vitriolic responses or what they're, you know may be
perceived. Get over it, get over it.
Pick yourself up, get over it. I'd like to refer to November
(55:00):
6th, 2024 me as Offred, and I like to refer to November 7th,
2025 me as Mad Men's Peggy Olson.
Walking out with her, you know, box and her cigarette hanging
out of her mouth. From Offred to Olson here, you
(55:22):
you don't get the luxury of staying quiet anymore if you're
still staying quiet at this point in the game, you're making
an active choice. You are making an active choice
for you. You are making an active choice
for your children, and honestly,you're making the wrong one.
Because if you are silent right now, you're complicit.
(55:52):
Oh, Renee, if you are silent, you.
I want you to know what I think of you.
I want you to know that I think you don't even have the balls to
be on the other side of my viewpoint.
You have the balls to be neutralwhile while citizens.
I'm not talking about your illegal aliens, which is just
(56:16):
how are you still using that verbiage in 2025?
But I'm talking about U.S. citizens, US children being
detained by ICE by mistakes in 2025.
Are you telling me that the country you love, that the
so-called greatest country in the world that you love, is not
(56:42):
worth speaking up for, That you are going to be quiet?
I would much rather hear that you think Trump is the greatest
president and have a viewpoint than for you to sit on the
sidelines because it's more comfortable, because it is going
to get to a point where it's notcomfortable for you anymore.
(57:04):
And I think women know that because while you and I have
have said a few times during this podcast that we are lucky
enough and sadly we have to say lucky enough to be born with the
skin color that we do, we're still women.
We are on that. We are on that hierarchy of
(57:26):
where we go. OK, so right now, yeah, it is
black and brown people, but thenit's going to go to women and
eventually it will trickle down to the very privileged white men
maybe. I don't know, but I know it's
going to be the black and brown people.
(57:48):
Then it's going to go to all women.
And I don't want to live in thatworld.
So if you're still silent, you're comfortable.
Now you are paying for that comfort on like high interest
credit. You are borrowing from your
children's comfort and that's not OK.
(58:09):
It's not. Renee.
I can't thank you enough for everything that you're doing,
both here spending this time with me and our guests, and also
for what you're doing on your own.
You are. Thank you so so much.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
This is actually the very first podcast that I have ever done.
So this is my I, this is my first time Danielle, I'm.
(58:34):
Thrilled that I could be that person.
Thank you, Renee. It.
Was good for me. I hope it was good for you.
It was great. Thanks so much for listening to
Roar and huge thanks to Renee Neiman for such an honest,
thought provoking conversation. If you enjoyed this episode,
please follow rate and share Roar.
It really helps other listeners find the show.
Next week, I'm joined by Alex Gailey from Bankrate for a deep
(58:55):
dive into the gender wage gap, what's driving it, what's
changing and what women can do to reclaim their financial
power. I'm Danielle Davies, thanks for
being here. We'll see you next week.
Hi, I'm Danielle Davey, and you're listening to Roar, a show
that amplifies the voices of women breaking barriers, leading
change and making real impact. Keep listening for bold ideas
and stories that inspire you to find your voice and make some
noise. Being a mom right now feels like
living in two different worlds. We're raising our kids to be
(00:26):
kind, fair, and decent while watching the highest levels of
society reward cruelty and powerwithout consequence.
And somehow we're supposed to keep it together.
Pack the lunches and stay polite.
My guest today, Renee Nieman, knows that contradiction better
than anyone you might remember from our hilarious Instagram
account, Fake fake adult mom. But she's making waves now for
(00:46):
her new sub stack and Instagram communities, both called Resist
Like a Mother. Because as Renee shows us, being
a parent isn't just personal, it's political.
Welcome, Renee. Thank you so much for being
here. Thank you for having me, I
really appreciate you having me on.
Oh my gosh, I'm thrilled. And I and I really, what you're
doing and what you're saying is really resonating.
(01:07):
And so I'm going to just jump right in.
Just say that louder for my children if you could.
Just louder, just so they can. It is really resonating and
you're doing a great job by kindof setting this example for your
kids because and what you say and you say this, you know, on
your sub stack, you've said thisin different places.
Parenting is a political act. Can you tell us about what made
(01:29):
that that click for you? Like when you realized raising
kids and resisting injustice were going to have to be part of
the same job. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I think when I had my first child way back in 2010,
which feels like the Stone Age, you know, I have AI, have a teen
between and a toddler. So I run the gambit of parenting
(01:53):
right now and the toddler supplies and baby supplies much
different from what they were in2010.
So I refer to Zoe as my Stone Age baby because I'm pretty sure
her equipment would not be street legal now.
But when I had her in 2010, I envisioned that the scope of
(02:16):
political involvement that this child would see from me would be
occasionally taking her to go vote with us, if only to get a
sticker for her complaining on random election nights when SNL
was pre empted because there's some random election that we're
(02:39):
following. But that was really going to be
the end of it. I never imagined that I would
have to explain authoritarianismto a 15 year old, to 12 year
old, and in some ways to a four year old.
Everything has to be age appropriate and I try to meet
(03:00):
them where they're at. But when I say parenting is a
political act, there is no way that I can go about life as
normal, business as usual stops,but I still have to parent.
(03:20):
And I'm still having to decide what's for dinner while also
talking to my children about whywe're bringing dinners to mutual
aid pantries, why we're stockingcommunity fridges because SNAP
benefits are being cut. We can't have these
(03:43):
conversations without there being that political under
score. And when they're watching what
I'm doing and what I'm saying, Ineed to be honest and tell them
the reasons why. And some of those reasons are
(04:03):
scary to them. Some of them are infuriating.
Especially for my 2 girls, The teen and tween, the toddler,
he's, he's not really there so much.
He's, he's more of like, oh, good.
We're putting, we're putting treats in a bag for the fridge.
(04:23):
OK, good, good, good. Give that to me.
That's the, the length of his involvement.
But the girls, you know, I thinkwhen Roe V Wade was overturned,
I had a hard time processing that myself.
(04:44):
And, you know, I'm in my mid 40s.
And I didn't expect them to havea concept of what that meant.
And I tried to make it palatable, to explain it on
their level. And all I could really get out
(05:04):
of my mouth was you don't have the same things that I had at
your age. And you know, when those words
came out because they wanted to know why I was sad, why I was
crying. Why was daddy kind of irked, but
(05:25):
mommy was crying. And you know, when I when that
sentence came out of my mouth, I'm sad because you don't have
the same things I had now. Because it is so personal, it's.
Right, it absolutely is. And this past election season,
(05:49):
you know, my daughters are very aware now at 15 and 12 of the
goings on. You know, I like to think that
unfortunately they're reading comprehension and context clues
are sadly, but also yay, better than for most of the population
(06:09):
because brain worm was a deal breaker for them on our junior.
They were like, wait, he had a brain worm.
Wait, he talked a bear cub in the park.
He drove with a shark on his car.
He swam in that. And they're like, but you know,
America's like, hey, Senator Bill Cassidy.
(06:32):
My senator was like, hey, but mygirls were like, yeah, that's
going to be a no for me. They're aware now.
I can't shield them from this. And frankly, I don't want them
to. I don't want them to be in the
dark. I want them awake.
I want them to know what's goingon.
I want them to know why. Hey, when we see somebody pulled
(06:57):
over on the side of the road andwe don't recognize those cars
and there are men talking to a woman, you're going to get in,
lock the doors, start recording,and mommy's going to get out and
they know. But you're, you know, you're not
just bringing it to them, you'rebringing it to everybody.
So just for anybody who doesn't know you, I'm going to just
(07:18):
explain and tell me if I'm wrong.
You had this following fake adult mom was memes.
It was funny parenting stuff since 2017, but it was huge.
It wasn't like, it wasn't like little.
It was an enormous amount of followers, right?
I mean, it was, yeah, it was nice.
I mean. I'd like to say that as long as
like a few people who weren't related to me liked it, I felt
(07:41):
big. It was big, it was big and it is
big. But you, you made the decision
at some point to total switch gears and now it's not really
funny right now. No, I mean.
You're not so funny. Funny.
And the absurdity of it all, I'msure.
I mean, I, I, I sometimes I lookback at the things that we
(08:02):
normalize now and that terrifiedme in just January of this year.
And now I'm like, oh, that's so quite.
Because now I'm like, you know, they're taking toddlers out of
cars, you know, and, and I'm just like, oh, I can't believe I
was worried about doge, you know, like, how cute.
(08:26):
How cute. Yeah.
What was the turning point though, for you to make that so
you didn't just switch? Like you don't just have another
account, you literally deleted all your other stuff, right?
You know, I couldn't in good conscience joke about oh, my
kids won't go to sleep on time, Oh my kids can't find their
(08:46):
shoes, but my children constantly ask me for money.
I am such a tired person becauseI have children.
Those memes. I couldn't in good conscience
leave that up because that was almost like pretending we were
still in that world and and we're just not.
(09:07):
Like I said, I can't go back to business as usual.
I don't have that little life where I can complain about my
kids not going to sleep. I mean, I will still complain
one. 1000% I will do that. But I'm also going to be really
grateful, A, my kids are with me.
B, we've got a safe place to sleep.
(09:30):
CI don't have to worry about thethings that a lot of people are
worrying about because I'm privileged to have the skin
color that I do. And God, I hate that I'm
grateful for that. But I hate that we're also the
(09:52):
type of country where I have to be grateful.
I hate having to explain that tomy children.
I hate having to explain to themthat we are in this bubble that
we are fortunate to be in. But we can't.
(10:16):
We can't appreciate what we havewithout also acknowledging the
people that don't and trying to balance what we have with what
we give. And, you know, fake adult mom
(10:36):
and resist like a mother. They're born of the same class,
but one is out of a desire to. I figure, look, if I'm thinking
this stuff, chances are there's another mom that is going to be
thinking this. How do I how do I decide what's
(10:56):
for dinner and also tell my child that there is a predator
in the White House? How do I run a Costco and then
explain to my child that the National Guard is being called
into our city? If I'm thinking it, maybe
another mom is thinking it and she doesn't know how to how to
(11:19):
make it click for her kids. And I've always said I don't
post for everybody. I don't really post for anybody.
I post for me. And I hope that what I post
reaches someone like minded who's going to pass it on to
somebody else who's like minded.And we built. 100% I think that
(11:41):
that's that's you know, when I saw your posts, I, it resonated.
I mean, that's why I reached out.
It's just you're speaking in a way that I think so many moms
find relatable. And we're all worried about our
kids. And we all, you know, we're all
worried about all the things, getting them to bed on time.
Did they eat their vegetables? Who wants to deal with bath
(12:01):
night? Like, there are all those very
practical right now moments. But there's also the issue of,
like, the world at large. And, you know, as you're
talking, I can like, see that you're getting upset.
And of course you are, because it's upsetting.
Not a upset, it's more of it's just, it's, it's somber, it's
sadness. There's so much that I've had to
(12:26):
explain to my children that I it's innocence that's taken from
them that I will never be able to give back to them.
And look, I'm not even going to pretend that we are on the scale
of other people. But like I tell my kids,
everyone's hard is hard. My kids are not the children in
(12:49):
Gaza. They are not the children who
were taken hostage. They are not the children in
Sudan or the Congo, but they arestill children and their heart
is hard. And children in America right
now who are watching this stuff on TV happen in their country,
not some far away place that maybe due to our educational
(13:13):
system, they can't pick out on the globe.
It's here. Well, you talk about like grief
for the country you love when you you you wrote a bunch of
posts that are going to potentially be a book called the
handbook of the recently the handbook for the recently
resisting and you said it's grief for the.
(13:35):
Absolutely it's it is it is 1000% grief for the country that
I love. And maybe that's naivete of, of
my, my very non melanin skinned self because the country that I
loved, you know, I grew up staying with liberty and justice
for all. And I thought we meant that and.
(14:00):
You know, I keep saying the samething too.
It's not that it was, It's not that I was living in some kind
of disillusionment that like America was great for everybody.
And we're all just like living in like Happy Lego Valley, you
know, just there wasn't that. But there was the there was the
belief in this ideal and that that we had a there was a
(14:24):
promise. There was a belief that there
could be. Yes, yeah.
And now that is shattered in many ways.
You know, that's and it's and now I am living under like it's
almost like a disillusioning because I'm like, I am complete
now. There's so much fear and it and
(14:45):
it kind of permeates every aspect of your life.
So how could you not when kids take up so much of your life?
They're part of everything, right?
They don't just go in their bedrooms.
You don't put them in the shelf at 5:00 and well, I'm done for
the day. So how would it not?
Lift them and get them onto the shelf.
Yes. Right.
But yeah, no, it doesn't. My job is to raise these
(15:09):
beautiful humans into good decent people that will one day
leave my home. Not too soon, but one day they
will start their own lives outside of this home.
And I would be remiss if what amI sending them out into doesn't
concern me on the daily. And also, I want to make sure
(15:30):
that what I'm sending out is incredible, and I'm not going to
be able to do that if I'm not honest with them about what I'm
leaving them and leading them to.
Unfortunately, the way the country is going right now, I
(15:51):
don't really have a lot of hope for what is being left to them.
But I do hope that what I'm leading them to, to speak up, to
make sure they say no, that's not OK.
Make sure they say I don't. I don't get why that's funny.
(16:13):
Why is that funny? Can you explain it to me?
When they hear a joke that's, I'm going to just say
distasteful. You know, my girls go to an all
girls school and that's important for us.
(16:34):
My girls have been going there since 2012.
My oldest when she was two, my youngest when she was 18 months,
we started going to nursery school there and they love it.
But the reason why we picked an all girls education, besides
that girls tend to thrive was because of the mass shootings
(16:58):
that were going on. And this was before Sandy Hook.
But I was looking at statistics and saying that the majority of
mass shooters were why chromosomes if you will.
And I wanted to protect my babies so they don't encounter a
(17:19):
lot of distasteful jokes, if youwill.
OK, but when there have been kind of interschool events, my
oldest daughter about two years ago at an academic games
tournament, which is the whitestand nerdiest sentence I have
(17:40):
uttered in a while. I had a a male student from
another school tell her she didn't belong there and it's a
girl. Yeah, because she was a girl.
And, you know, she promptly finished and then went up to the
director. I mean, it was even like, mom,
(18:02):
I've got this. And I was like, see that kid?
You need to tell that kid to change the way he thinks, or I'm
going to tell my school that we can't play here.
And we have his written apology framed in her room, you know?
(18:23):
Absolutely epic of her. Well, I mean, you know, she was
13. So I think it's it, it does take
a hefty set of ovaries at 13 to do that on your own.
But that's what I mean about raising like these little
resistors, because she could have sat in that discomfort and
she could have made herself smaller.
(18:44):
She didn't. She made herself bigger.
She took up the space that she wanted, she took up the space
that she needed, and she made sure that guy knew how much
space she wanted to take up well.
Not only that, like not only areyou re like raising, like you
said, little resistors, right? So you're teaching them how to
(19:05):
act in response to what we're seeing from absolutely adults in
charge. But some people like, you know,
what do you think today's kids are learning?
Learning from the adults in church.
Some. You're seeing a lot more racism.
You're seeing a lot more bullying.
Bullying's gone up like sky high.
I mean, you see just the way people speak to one another in
(19:28):
anywhere, the grocery store, anywhere.
How do you counter that as parents inside saying resist
like because some people are saying it's okay you can be a
bully. Like all our lessons about be
nice, treat people the way you want to be treated.
It's like it's a joke. I love you.
Want to really girls? I let my girls look in on my DMS
(19:50):
with me and my DMS are a delight.
Oh, Danielle, they are a delight.
Let me tell you. They are a fun mix of here's the
promo code we'd love for you to collab on, a jewelry line that
you have to pay for somehow, genitalia and a mix of threats.
(20:12):
And I find that some of the threats come from teenage boys.
So now I make it a point to onceI find out that they're minors
that I say, look, I I need your parents permission if we're
going to continue to talk because I don't feel comfortable
talking to you without them. One time this kid Facetimed me
(20:36):
and his mom gave me permission to talk to him.
But I I tell the girls, you know, you have to talk to
people. You can walk away if you feel
uncomfortable, but you walk awaywith a big presence.
You don't walk away some more. But if you can ask them with a
(20:59):
straight face, why do you think it's OK to say that to me?
Let them respond. Let them answer their own
question. Let them describe why they feel
emboldened to threaten you. Some people say things to me
(21:20):
like, oh, because you're dumb Lib, insert your own, whatever.
And I'll say, why do you think that?
Well, you think you should be giving away all of our tax
dollars to illegal immigrants? And I'm like, who are the
illegal immigrants? Where are tax dollars going?
And then they'll ask me questions.
(21:42):
They'll say things like, well, you think it's OK to to give,
give away free healthcare, Just anybody.
I say foster children. Is it free?
Like, is it free? No, it's not free.
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What do they say when it's the teenage?
Like for example, the one FaceTime, the one that Facetimed
you? What?
Well. He had said some really
(22:44):
derogatory things and I initiated a video call and I
said say it's my face. And I saw he was like a 16 year
old kid and he was at work and Iwas like, oh, you're a teenager.
And I said, well, I can't talk to you until like I've got
(23:08):
permission for your parents. And he called me some other
choice words and I said, like I said, I can't talk to you until
you. So he called back and with his
mom, and, you know, his mom was like, what did you say to her?
And I said, and I said, please say it to my face.
(23:30):
And he said, no, ma'am. I said, well, why did you think
that you could write that to me?Because I was really upset about
all the stuff you were saying about Donald Trump.
I was like, well, Donald Trump is a adult.
Donald Trump is in his late 70s.You don't think Donald Trump can
handle himself? Do you think you need to stand
(23:50):
up for Donald Trump? You need to defend Donald Trump?
If Donald Trump is still great, why are you out there defending
him? Don't you have other stuff to
do? And what was the outcome of
this? The mom thanked me.
The kid and I, we, we occasionally stay in contact
(24:12):
occasionally, you know, he said he liked my Miss Rachel costume
for Halloween. So it's, it's weird.
It's. But you know, it's crazy because
the very first podcast I ever episode I ever did was with
Nikki Vink. Have you heard of Nikki Vink?
OK, I love Nikki and one of the thing and I was just rehashing
(24:34):
some of quotes to put on social media last night.
So I just saw it and she was like, these hard conversations
have to be had because even if you're not changing someone's
mind, the fact and and of courseI'm paraphrasing, but the fact
is you're, you're showing humanity.
You know what I mean? You're you're human and you're
(24:54):
not behind a screen. And in this isn't how we talk to
people in real life. It wasn't how we talk to people
in real life. And and so just having this hard
conversations, even if they're not, you know, he's not like
having this moment where he's like, you're totally right,
right. No and.
Look, I don't expect him to. In fact, you know, I was at the
(25:16):
meow. Tuck it a protest when JD Vance
went up to Nantucket, it was my birthday and I've got family in
Massachusetts and I'm good friends with cats on a couch.
And so we decided to meet up in Nantucket.
And there were these group of teenage boys that were kind of
(25:36):
like just harassing the protesters and my family's
personal nickname. And I cannot believe I am
admitting this publicly. So Nanny and Uncle Jay, enjoy
your moment. My family nickname growing up
was Renege because I could talk all day long and I could get
(26:03):
what I wanted by just nagging them to death.
OK, I like it. I like.
It I put on my renege and mom hat and went up to these boys
and just nagged them until they left.
I asked them about their collegeplans, what AP courses they were
taking. One of them was trying to get in
(26:23):
a 2 lane and I was like, oh, I'mfrom New Orleans.
And they were like, oh, can you help me get in?
I was like, yeah, probably not if you end up on the news
because you're harassing people at protests.
And they were like, oh, and I was like, see, I was like, look,
I'm a mom. I wouldn't want my 17 year old
who's applying to colleges to beon the news right now.
(26:45):
There's bad reason. There's this whole world of kids
that doesn't realize like how this carries over.
But then but the flip side is then we have again a president
who he's been caught in every which way and we've still
elevated him to the Hyatt. So they're probably like, who
cares? Well.
Here's the thing about that too.And cool saying it out loud.
(27:10):
You know, we've always had very specific rules for our girls and
our son when he gets ready, you know, to go on play dates
without us and for sleepovers and friend gatherings.
And you know, with this election, my friends don't go to
Trump supporters houses. And that's not because I'm
(27:33):
trying to be mean and it's not because I'm trying to be
punitive. Your kids.
OK, sorry. All right.
The kids obviously can't vote. But if the parents, if I know
that they're Republicans, if I know that they're Trump
supporters, my kids don't go over there.
And like I said, that's not to be punitive towards the child.
(27:53):
It's not to be punitive towards my child.
It's just I don't respect their judgement and if I can't trust
them to make the same decision Ihad to make last November if
they could not take the time to read Project 2025 like I could,
(28:15):
or even the Cliff notes of it like my husband, No you don't.
You don't get the privilege of being around my child and you
certainly don't get to be alone with them in any capacity.
So, you know, part of you. Just said I don't trust their
judgement. Oh.
Absolutely not. Because it's not even being
(28:37):
punitive towards them, right? This is my most precious this.
Is where parenting becomes political.
Because my, for instance, my daughter had an invitation to go
to a party of a very good and dear friend who we adore.
And unfortunately, one of her parents voted for Trump in
(29:00):
November and the mom did not, but the father did.
And unfortunately, the mom was not going to be at home at this
time because they have other children and it was just going
to be the dad. And look, before 2024, I
probably would have said, yeah, go over to so and so's house, go
(29:22):
have fun, you know, I'll pick you up at 3:00 this time.
I said, no, sorry, can't go. And she said, well, why not?
I was like, well, you know, I don't trust Mr. so and so's
judgement. And she's like, well, why not?
I was like, well, because he voted for Trump.
(29:44):
Yeah, but, but, but insert friend's name says he regrets
it. And I said, well, you know,
baby, I don't see what he's doing to repair it.
And you can regret it all you want, but regret without repair
isn't redemption. So I don't see how his judgement
has changed. And if I can't trust him to make
(30:08):
a good decision for his daughters, I certainly can't
trust him to make a good decision for mine.
Oh my gosh, that is basically wecan hang up now that I mean,
right like that because OK, thank you.
And you know, not everybody right, is not everybody is
(30:31):
thinking like you or thinking about this or maybe drawing
lines in the sand. And I don't want to say they're
lines in the sand, but maybe even having these standards like
my kids not going to go here forthis, which makes a lot of sense
to me reason. But but some people are being
completely silent in the face ofit.
And sometimes some people will say I just didn't even vote for
(30:51):
anybody. That's how much I don't like it
I'm. And I get that a lot.
And that's such a silence. What do you think that costs us?
Silence. You know, listen, one of my very
dear friends from I mean, we will, we will both just not say
how long we've been friends. It's that long, but we've known
(31:16):
each other at every stage of ourlives.
Teens, young 20s, young wives, young mothers, old mothers,
mothers of teens. We've known each other a long
time, and we've been through just about every evolution that
you can go through as young women to whatever this
perimenopausal state of ours is.And she does not like to talk
(31:41):
politics to which I I go, she goes, well, I'm just, I'm just
not into politics. I'm like, well, politics is into
you. So what do you if there's a
fire, are you just going to shoparound for quotes or are you
going to call the fire department?
And she's like, well, that that's not political.
(32:02):
I'm like, it absolutely is your tax dollars.
Who to fund the fire department?And she's like, you know what I
mean? I I don't, I don't want to talk
about Trump. Why not?
Because. Because we're not going to
agree. What are we not going to agree
on? Well, you don't like him.
What makes you think I don't like him?
(32:23):
Besides the everything about me?But you know, she's like, well,
you know, you, you call him a pedophile and where's the lie?
And I, I finally, you know, I'll, I'll text her pictures of
Trump with Ivanka and she goes, this isn't real.
(32:44):
I'm like, yes, it is. OK.
There was an AI in 1991 when this picture was posted.
And I'll say, would you leave him with your kid?
No. If you wouldn't leave him with
your kid, why would you leave him with your country?
(33:06):
Why would you let it? Just when you get down to brass
tacks like this man has bankrupted everything he's
touched, including his own children, who, I mean, their
businesses aren't exactly on theup and up.
I mean, we're talking stealing from cancer charity.
(33:32):
What about people who say, you know, I've heard this too, and I
this is weird, like so I am not,I am going to keep people on
this podcast episode for so long.
I'm so sorry, but I need to knowwhat about what do you say to
you know, there are there are quite a few people that I know
that voted for Trump that but that say they don't like him.
(33:52):
They don't like him. But you know, he's he's the best
choice to lead the country. He's what he's doing is is good
for the country. Just out of curiosity.
I would say, is it good for yourchildren?
Is it good for your daughter to see?
Do you want your son to be like Trump?
(34:14):
That's what I would say. Because and, and that's the
thing so much of your work asks the question, what kind of
people are we raising? Because and why do you think is
mothers in particular have so much at stake in politics?
Because and so much potential tochange it?
Well, you know, I think a lot ofdefault parenting rests on the
(34:35):
backs of mothers. I think unfortunately that is
the way our society has organized.
We have crap for maternal healthcare in this country.
We have crap for postpartum resources for paid leave.
Just as just as a just a reference point, when my oldest
(34:59):
was born my husband got a week off one week for paternity
leave. I had AI had AC section and he
got an extra week for that. So I had two weeks of help at
home before my husband had to goback to work.
(35:22):
I wasn't even fully recovered from C-section yet.
Now thankfully I was a stay at home mom, but had I been the
sole provider in our family and had to go back to work, I don't
know how I would have done that.Our country does not really
value what we do, but definitelywants us to keep doing it.
(35:50):
Now when my last child was born in 2021, my husband had a
standard month off and because Ihad AC section with my son, he
had an extra 2 weeks. And then he was able to take
family medical leave. And so, you know, if thankfully
my husband was able to be home and he's kind of taking on some
(36:10):
of the default parenting with our son, but you know, I just
feel like mothers we're, we justknow how to get it done.
But so for so long, I feel like motherhood was treated as like
private, domestic, apolitical, right?
We're just. Well, think about, you know,
coming from coming from a place in the South.
(36:34):
And even though New Orleans is a, is a blue dot in a very
RedState, we're still Southern. You know, it's, oh, you want to
be polite? You want to be polite.
I'm not interested in making youcomfortable.
I'm interested in making sure that my children have better
than I do. And that's kind of the whole
point of parenting is that we leave them better than what we
(36:59):
had. And going back to that Roe V
Wade overturned moment, Mama wascrying because they don't have
it better. And that's not how it's supposed
to be. It's not how it's supposed to
be. So I think mothers, you know,
our whole goal when, when we meet our children for the first
(37:22):
time, whether it's in our arms at the hospital or given to us
by a surrogate or a birth parent, we have a connection
where and a promise where we saythis is for you, this is for
(37:42):
you, I am for you. And sometimes they take that a
little too literally and they will take all of your stuff.
They will come in in the night and you're like, what are you
doing? They're like, I need your
Airpods. How do I connect your Airpods?
How do I I need them on my phone?
I'm like, it's 7, it's a Saturday.
(38:03):
What, you know, I think a lot ofus, especially parents with
careers outside of the home, at the end of the day, how you
define yourself. I bet if you're a parent, parent
(38:23):
comes in there. Look at how politicians define
themselves. Even like Mikey, Cheryl in this,
you know, last New Jersey race, I was, I was watching Obama
speak and he introduced her and he's introducing her saying, you
know it, she's got these children, but she wants to take
(38:45):
on, you know, politics. And I'm, I'm, I'm like, yeah,
I'd rather deal with politics too than than other people's
children. But yeah, I got it.
You know, it's, it's just mom isgoing to be in your bio, Dad is
going to be in your bio somewhere.
You know, when politicians send out their Flyers, it's not just
(39:07):
a big picture of them next to a flag.
Most often they've got the wife,they've got the three kids.
Some people put in that token golden retriever.
And you know, it's just parenting is part of your
identity. It's not all of it, but it's a
big chunk. But I and I feel like though
what I'm even just on social media, maybe it's just me and
(39:29):
it's my feet and stuff, but you see more moms.
I don't see a lot of movements that have the word dad in it.
And I'm not knocking dads. They certainly got they're
doing, they're doing their thing.
But a lot of like movements, there's moms running, Moms
Demand Action. You resist like a mother.
(39:52):
There's something about that. And I hate the phrase the Mama
bear, but there is something so fierce about the way we'll be
willing to protect our children.You know, I think bear with me
through this metaphor, but you know that that choice, it was
very viral last year or maybe even the year before.
(40:14):
I don't, I don't know. I'm lucky.
I know my own name. Sometimes it was do we choose
the man or the bear? And a lot of women said, oh, I
definitely choose the bear. If you have to be alone in the
forest with a random man or a random bear, who do you choose
to be alone with? And my feed is blowing up with
(40:37):
this question. And every woman is like bear,
bear, bear, bear, bear, bear, bear.
And I made a meme with Belle from Beauty and the Beast and
Beast. And I was like, since the early
90s, we've been choosing the bear.
And I kid you not, all of these men were like, he's technically
not a bear. He's technically a beast.
(41:00):
He's he's not a bear. Like, are you mansplaining
Beauty and the Beast to me on this?
Like, are you really doing that right now?
This is why I choose the bear. The bear's just going to eat me
and get it over with. You are going to mansplain,
probably rape me, God only knowswhat else.
Worst case scenario, I'm going to have to meet your mom.
So, you know, yeah, I'm going tochoose the bear.
(41:22):
But I think a lot of women choose the bear because we are
the fucking bear. We are the bear.
We are the Mama bear. And you may not really like that
term, but hear me out. Mama bears.
We'll fight till the end. You mess with one of our Cubs,
(41:44):
we will come get you. We will find you.
We will find your mom and you'regoing to apologize to my cub.
Oh yeah, I like that. And you know, it's funny.
I'll. I've seen memes of like, you
know, you say like that mother who's still mad at like
(42:07):
something that happened to theirkid in preschool and their kids
like 35. You know, I'm like this.
This relates so much because youdon't forget either.
You're. You know.
Held your child up. You remember you.
Didn't and listen, my mom, we we're looking at preschools for
my son right now and my mom one particular preschool and she's
(42:29):
like, isn't that where so and sosends their child?
And I was like, yes. And she's like, he broke your
heart. I was like, yeah, yeah, he did.
He he did in 1997. Yes, he did.
And she's like you're. Like I'm OK now he's.
Like, don't send Julian there. I'm like, I I really don't think
(42:51):
Julian's going to have beef withsomeone he doesn't know exists,
but go on. And she's like bad.
Never liked him. Never.
I told you that. I mean, this was a 30 minute
conversation. She's still on.
Still on. Quick pause to invite you into
the ROAR community. War is all about amplifying
women's voices, and you can be part of it.
(43:12):
I share the messy, unfiltered behind the scenes stuff in my
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Sign up at listen to roar.com and get in on the real talk.
And hey, if this episode hit home, don't keep it to yourself.
Share it. Drop a comment or pass it to
that one friend who needs to hear it.
Every share helps bring more women's stories into the
spotlight. All right, let's get back to the
(43:34):
episode. Here's the thing.
When I I, I made it a point to say this specifically, your cub
is going to apologize to my cub.Not I'm going to take your Cub
out. Not I'm going to destroy your
cub. As much as I would like to
throttle your cub, I'm not goingto do that because all kids
belong to us. If I see your kid hurting, I'm
(43:58):
going to try to make him feel better.
Every mom has had this moment where we've been in a store,
we've been in Barnes and Noble, we see a toddler having a
meltdown. We feel for that mom.
If you're one of the moms that is side eyeing in judgement, or
worse, you're one of the grandma's side eyeing in
(44:19):
judgement. Shame, shame.
Insert Game of Thrones meme because real moms don't do that.
Real moms say, how can I help Real moms hold the door while
you carry out your child's surfboard style.
Real, real moms, you know, we get it.
(44:41):
They don't shame other moms. Right, because mom, mom shaming
is kind of like one of the dirtiest things she can do.
You know, I, I just, when I say like your cub is going to
apologize to my cub is because we're going to teach our Cubs to
treat each other with respect and come together.
(45:03):
We're not going to teach our Cubs to hate each other.
My children, when we're watchingthe news and we, we see
politicians that we don't agree with on a moral level, not just
a policy level, but a moral level, we don't hate them.
(45:25):
We pity them and we want them todo better.
That is very big of you. Look, I'm not saying it's easy,
but I don't think any parent wants their kid to grow up.
Hateful. No.
Well, you don't think so? Nobody wants to be mired in
hate. I don't think anybody wants
(45:46):
that. I think at the end of the day,
what we want is a safe place to land.
I personally a cold Diet Coke from McDonald's preferably and I
want to know that my babies are OK and unfortunately a lot of
people can't say that at the endof the day because.
(46:06):
The people. In charge, making policies that
aren't humane. Yeah.
Well, and I was going to say, you know, there's first of all,
there are, there are so many people who are being affected by
these policies. You don't have the luxury of
checking out, right, because they're literally worried about
somebody knocking at their frontdoor.
(46:27):
Then put this into you. Right then there are people like
you and I who, by the by the luck of the draw, happen to have
skin that isn't putting us a color that isn't putting us at
risk. So some and and and here's the
thing, universally, we're tired.This has been going on a long
time. It just seems to be getting
(46:47):
worse. People are both exhausted but
then also incredibly awake. What do you say to them?
How can people start resisting without without burning out and
checking out? Actually, I kind of want to
bring something back because it it reminded me of something when
you said, why do you think mothers are are kind of
propelling these movements and dads are kind of not on the
(47:08):
sidelines, but always kind of maybe not the first to step up.
It's because from the time womenare born we are taught to not
take candy from strangers to When I started driving, make
sure I park under a street lightin the parking lot.
Make sure I lock my car doors when I get out.
(47:31):
When I'm walking back to my car,make sure my key is in my hand
like this. Make sure I look under the car
so there isn't a someone hiding under there ready to slice my
Achilles tendon. Make sure someone isn't in the
back seat. We are taught to be hyper aware
of the person following us through a store.
We are, we're taught to be hyperaware of the person that looks
(47:52):
at us a little too long. We are taught to be hyper aware
of our surroundings, the exits, where we go, who we go with,
what time we left. Make sure a friend knows from a
from. I mean, from the time I was a
kid, it's the buddy system. And my husband certainly didn't
have to do that. And you know, when I go out with
(48:17):
our children, we have a code word for if you want to leave
because you feel unsafe for any reason, you say this word.
I drop what we have. We're at the store.
My husband, he's like, what? What?
And my daughter's texting me andshe's like, I seen some weird
guys staring at me and I'm like,leave, you know, like I'm
(48:41):
telling my husband leave. He's like, I didn't see the guy.
I'm like, because you're not trained to focus on it.
And moms have pattern recognition.
We know the guy that doesn't belong at the park.
We know that when we're watchingour kids on the merry go round
or the swing set and there's this weird guy that just keeps
walking around, maybe taking pictures, maybe just sitting
(49:05):
there on his phone. We don't know.
We don't want to find out. We get our kids.
We tell the mom sitting at the bench over there, hey, see the
creep, let's go. We've got pattern recognition.
And with that pattern recognition, I think a lot of
moms are using that to say, oh, that creep at the park.
He's now in the White House. And and I think too, what you
(49:30):
mentioned about your like everybody's children are our
children. There is that idea of universal
mothering, like even when you just said this a few weeks ago,
months ago, weeks slash a few months ago, I took my daughter
to see The Lumineers. We love The Lumineers.
And it was just the two of us. And he's like, well, my awesome.
And in front of us there was, you know, there's a row and
(49:52):
there were there was a couple. And at first it was super
annoying because this couple would not stop making out and
like the PDA was over the top. I mean, and it was so they were
so intense that other people in other rows were commenting like,
I guess they're missing the whole show because they even
when they sat down, they were just like looking at each
other's faces And just so it wasintense and it was a lot.
(50:14):
It was enough to draw your eye. But I'm like, OK, move on.
Like the show's going on. Like just don't pay attention to
them. At some point, this couple who
obviously have been drinking, itwasn't like they started
fighting and they're arguing Andnow like now they're sitting
down and the guy's got his head in his hands and he's like, like
(50:35):
very frustrated. And the girls like
simultaneously like she's like silent, like maybe crying or but
then she's texting her friend and then they start talking and
we don't, it's loud. You can't hear what's happening,
but you can hear that this is you can tell this is not going
super smoothly. And all of a sudden you see the
guy, the girl starts texting andI can see because I'm right
(50:56):
behind her that she's texting Uber.
She's like, she's going to get aride home.
And he grabs her phone and I'm like, and she real quick got it.
She real quick got it back and it's me and my daughter and
there's another family next to me, a mom dad and three
daughters. You're like in the family
(51:17):
section. This couple men right in front
of me tutors 2 seats down from the girl is another mom and I
tapped that mom and she's like Igot it.
We're watching like, and it was all of us moms watching this
girl and making sure and like and checking in.
And that is just what you do as a mom.
(51:38):
You. Yeah.
Because. Because any day that could be
your girl, right? Any.
And yeah, anyway, I feel like it's that kind of thing.
Not that my husband wouldn't getinvolved or wouldn't stand up
for somebody, but I feel like a lot of times men, and not
wrongfully so, they will say another guy is stepping another
(52:02):
somebody else is handling it andthat guy often looks like them,
right? So that's not I.
Just don't wait. You know, if I see your kid fall
on the playground and hit his head, I'm getting up.
I'm getting up off of the bench,I'm going over there the same
time you are. I'm not waiting for you to get
up. And you know, that's not out of
(52:25):
disrespect or anything. That's not saying you can't
handle it. It's saying I see hurt child,
what can I do to help? And I just, I don't, I don't
know if that's translates universally across the sexes or
not, but I I think parents, yeah, you definitely have more
(52:49):
of an instinct to do it. And I think mothers, yeah, we
can have it more than dads a little bit.
But you know what? I know some really involved
dads. I know some really kind of LAX
moms. But I know this totally true.
I know this. I will never not see a parent
(53:09):
get involved when they see a hurt kid.
And when I mean get involved, I mean in front of them.
I'm not talking about when they see it on TV and they can change
the channel. I'm not talking about when they
hear about it happening in Chicago or they hear about it
happening in LA or DC. I'm talking about when it's
(53:30):
right in front of them. And when it's right in front of
them, there's not one that doesn't rush.
And a case in point, last night my daughter has a lacrosse
practice. You know, you get hit in the
face, you're going to bleed. OK, Happens moms, dads, coaches,
(53:51):
everybody is oh, can we get, canwe get this?
Can we get this? The medical personnel of the
parents are coming in, You know,they're like, Oh yeah, it looks
good, you're fine, you're fine. Just sit out for a little bit.
You're fine. You just, you know, everybody's
coming in to check. And the only thing I can say is
if you're not one of those people who would check, maybe re
evaluate your parenting style. And that's not shaming, that's
(54:15):
asking you to evaluate. Or even just your humanity,
right? You know, I, I feel like at that
point I'm just by asking, I end the conversation there.
Yeah, let me ask you one last question because I can have you
here all day. When you imagine what it the
idea, the concept of resist likea mother, what do you think that
(54:37):
looks like in practice, not justonline, but in daily life for
other people who maybe aren't asoutspoken or aren't as brave
with the vitriolic responses or what they're, you know may be
perceived. Get over it, get over it.
Pick yourself up, get over it. I'd like to refer to November
(55:00):
6th, 2024 me as Offred, and I like to refer to November 7th,
2025 me as Mad Men's Peggy Olson.
Walking out with her, you know, box and her cigarette hanging
out of her mouth. From Offred to Olson here, you
(55:22):
you don't get the luxury of staying quiet anymore if you're
still staying quiet at this point in the game, you're making
an active choice. You are making an active choice
for you. You are making an active choice
for your children, and honestly,you're making the wrong one.
Because if you are silent right now, you're complicit.
(55:52):
Oh, Renee, if you are silent, you.
I want you to know what I think of you.
I want you to know that I think you don't even have the balls to
be on the other side of my viewpoint.
You have the balls to be neutralwhile while citizens.
I'm not talking about your illegal aliens, which is just
(56:16):
how are you still using that verbiage in 2025?
But I'm talking about U.S. citizens, US children being
detained by ICE by mistakes in 2025.
Are you telling me that the country you love, that the
so-called greatest country in the world that you love, is not
(56:42):
worth speaking up for, That you are going to be quiet?
I would much rather hear that you think Trump is the greatest
president and have a viewpoint than for you to sit on the
sidelines because it's more comfortable, because it is going
to get to a point where it's notcomfortable for you anymore.
(57:04):
And I think women know that because while you and I have
have said a few times during this podcast that we are lucky
enough and sadly we have to say lucky enough to be born with the
skin color that we do, we're still women.
We are on that. We are on that hierarchy of
(57:26):
where we go. OK, so right now, yeah, it is
black and brown people, but thenit's going to go to women and
eventually it will trickle down to the very privileged white men
maybe. I don't know, but I know it's
going to be the black and brown people.
(57:48):
Then it's going to go to all women.
And I don't want to live in thatworld.
So if you're still silent, you're comfortable.
Now you are paying for that comfort on like high interest
credit. You are borrowing from your
children's comfort and that's not OK.
(58:09):
It's not. Renee.
I can't thank you enough for everything that you're doing,
both here spending this time with me and our guests, and also
for what you're doing on your own.
You are. Thank you so so much.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
This is actually the very first podcast that I have ever done.
So this is my I, this is my first time Danielle, I'm.
(58:34):
Thrilled that I could be that person.
Thank you, Renee. It.
Was good for me. I hope it was good for you.
It was great. Thanks so much for listening to
Roar and huge thanks to Renee Neiman for such an honest,
thought provoking conversation. If you enjoyed this episode,
please follow rate and share Roar.
It really helps other listeners find the show.
Next week, I'm joined by Alex Gailey from Bankrate for a deep
(58:55):
dive into the gender wage gap, what's driving it, what's
changing and what women can do to reclaim their financial
power. I'm Danielle Davies, thanks for
being here. We'll see you next week.
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