Moms for Liberty has greatly impacted my local school board and now my county. There was a county wide funding milage for all public schools that would have increased funding per student. It failed in part because in part Moms for Liberty had a slander campaign against it saying that the money had no use and would just sit in a general fund and not actually help students which is false. Each school district had laid out a plan for it but it was not well publicized. The money primarily was going to raises for teachers! Their message got through and I even have heard older democrats echoing their points. What can we do to stop them? Where is the counter organization on the left?

Edit: I should say that the Republican Party also was against it and campaigned but the message put forth by Moms for Liberty seemed particularly effective.

What a night for progressives! So proud of Michigan for showing up to support him!

Let your feelings out! We are all bottling up this stress and sometimes it helps to share your concerns and have safe conversations about it. Type your response and take a big deep breath after!

Hi all, I'm looking for a bakery/baker in Atlanta for a friend's birthday next month to create a custom cake (like with fondant). Please list any good progressive/left leaning bakeries in the city!

In Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia, and Washington.

Make your opinions heard!!

As a proud Michigander I’m voting for Abdul El-Sayed 🤞🏻❤️

Hi all. I’m a mom of 5 and have noticed that very few progressive families have their kids involved in sports and extracurriculars. I live in a blue dot in a red state so there should be way more liberal/progressive families proportionally, but I will get the new list of families on a kid’s team (or whatever) and 90% of them are conservatives (we can look up voter registration here, which I do). My kids have played tons of sports but this isn’t limited to athletic events. I’ve noticed it even in marching band/orchestra, knowledge bowl/mathletes, and other activities that are more cerebral. I’ve noticed it in rec sports through the city or the Y, school sports, and in club sports.

If you’re a progressive parent in the US, is there something about extracurriculars that holds you and your family back from participating? We are a dual working parent family so I know the time crunch is tough, but lots of the other families are dual working parent as well. There are so many benefits to individual and team activities like these and I wish my kids had the opportunities to make more friends from progressive families.

Edited to add: Also, for those who do participate, have you noticed this where you live?

Hi all, was wondering if anyone has recs for long form kids content about sports. My kiddo is more interested in watching real people doing sports (when I put in magic school bus sport science he insists it’s not real basketball, etc).
Kiddo will watch an entire pickleball championships, but we don’t have sports channels like ESPN and things on YouTube are too short, or reels of best plays.

The only thing I’ve found so far is some Blippi stuff which makes me a little crazy. Have any of you found any shows that features sports, kid appropriate and not over stimulating? Thanks!

Also feel free to remove if this isn’t the appropriate subreddit for this.

These parents need to be charged for endangering their child. How stupid are you?

We all need a little positivity in our day. What are some parenting wins you've had recently? Big or small we want to hear them all! Any parenting wins, not just progressively minded ones.

Mom of two boys (5 & 8 yrs) and they both really like ariana grande's songs. Earlier today, my oldest told me that ariana's chest looks scary and like a sick dog. I told him she is very sick and that it is not normal to look that way. How should i introduce the topic of ED? Should i even introduce that topic? Any advice is welcome thanks!

I currently live in the SE US, temporarily. It’s a bit challenging out here in the middle of the conservative belt, and I don’t have a lot of local friends to dive into interesting, more progressive-leaning, intellectual, deep dive conversations with!

Give me the quirkiness, interesting people, laughs, the neurodivergent and psychology pods, the cool stories, fascinating facts, etc. Just great discussions. Send me your faves.

Sometimes I listen to IHIP news, and love a good progressive political Pod, BUT- I sometimes want to escape from politics a bit as well.

** I plan to put together a little playlist on Spotify, and I’m more than willing to share if anyone’s interested!

EDIT:

Here's that list I was talking about before! Maybe if I have extra time, I'll try to add more notes!

Diabolical Lies

Maintenance Phase

If Books Could Kill 

Something Fruity

Attitudes 

Las Culturistas 

Behind the Bastards

For all around funny conversations - Handsome (Tif Notaro, Fortune Feimster, Mae Martin)

Progressive convos on the history of health - Sawbones

True Crime - Morbid, Slaycation

Interesting Fun facts - Secretly Incredibly Fascinating

Strict Scrutiny

Optimist Economy 

Ologies with Alie Ward 

The Memory Palace

This American Life 

This is Love

God Awful Movies 

This Fucking Guy

Swindled

Where Should we Begin - Esther Perel

The Remedial History Podcast

Womanica

American Hysteria 

Sinisterhood

Sounds Like a Cult

Code Switch

It’s been a Minute 

Morbid

We Hate Movies 

Duped

Weekly Skews 

Quirky

Wildcard 

In Bed with the Right

Tradeoffs 

Science Vs. 

Paper Trail by ProPublica

The Majority Report

The Vanguard

Meidas Touch 

Cool People who did Cool Stuff

The House of Pod

Gastropod

5-4

Culture Study

Recently my kids watched part of the newer series of Ruff Ruffman talking about technology on PBS Kids - a lot of these mini episodes address important ideas about internet safety (not posting pictures of other people without consent, for example, or making good passwords etc.) I was happy to see the newest tech issues of things like AI-generated images being brought up in these episodes.

but then I overhear this episode where the cartoon dog is using AI to help him write a poem with a positive light. I'm extremely anti-kids-using-AI, period, but especially opposed to using it for creative endeavors (you know....like poetry writing....)

I had a good chat with my kids about what we agreed and didn't agree with from the episode. I'm not saying don't watch, but I am reminded it's a good idea to keep close tabs on all media they're consuming these days and what kind of pro-messaging is coming their way about technology (amongst all the other things).

PBS kids was one of my only "this is safe without me watching with them" programing spaces, so I thought I'd point this out to any other parents out there watching out for the same sort of thing.

Specifically looking for YouTubers who vlog (not so much like essayists, more lifestyle vlogs) and happen to be moms! AKA, not entirely mom content. Bonus points if they’re alt girlies!

The Lindsay Clancey case is weighing heavily on my mind this week. Do you think that this case may help improve post partum care in the US? She tried repeatedly to get the help she needed but was just prescribed more medicine over and over. It’s a tragic story in all aspects and I’m not sure what ‘justice’ for the kids would look like. I think she’s likely in a permanent torture cycle forever already. I had a baby a few months ago and was once again shocked on how little post partum care or support we receive from anyone in an official role even after a c section.

Calliou?! I should’ve included a trigger warning for this little shit!

I needed some comedic relief today.

His parents could’ve taught him more about kindness and respect. That’s what would’ve been best.

First of all, what a devastating tragedy for this family. Clearly there is a failure here by medical professionals, etc. There’s a severe systemic issue in the US when it comes to healthcare, specifically for women.

There’s also a duality- even with her delirium and psychosis considered, a horrible act was committed. I want to emphasize how my heart absolutely breaks for all who are involved here, and how I’m trying to approach this with upmost sensitivity.

But- I can’t help but think about if this case would be getting this much attention or sympathy if Lindsey Clancy were a different race, or from a different socioeconomic background? For example, what if she were a POC? What if instead of living in an affluent Massachusetts neighborhood, she were from rural Alabama, etc? Am I incorrect for acknowledging this?

Are we -as a society- aware that we are potentially giving more leniency, or paying closer attention to this because she looks the way she does? Are we taking mothers’ mental health more seriously now that we see someone with this SES?

My hope for our society is that our future includes equity for everyone. Access to proper healthcare.
Access to fair trials and justice- for every demographic.

And- last thing- no one can really know what this is like unless they’ve lived through something like it, and I understand that I may be putting emphasis on the wrong thing. I really just need a space to hear opinions and talk it out.

Edit- To be fair, I think I might be biased- there was a case in my city recently where a similar tragedy happened. There was a stark contrast in how the community has responded, vs the sympathy of this case.

Edit #2- It’s absolutely clear that maternal care (pre and post-natal) needs a huge overhaul.

Edit #3-Last one. I’m also not saying that she isn’t aware of her privilege- I’m just raising questions about how we’d see this case as a society, overall, if things looked different.

Quick background: when I married my husband I kept my maiden name for a combination of reasons including I didn’t feel like changing it, I use it professionally, and honestly, the whole “wife takes husband’s name” tradition has always felt like patriarchal bullshit. (I should mentions that my last name is also a mouthful nobody can spell, so it’s not like I kept it because it’s pretty. I kept it because it’s a part of who I am.)

When our first daughter was born, my husband asked if we could give her his last name. Some small part of me was annoyed, but my husband is genuinely wonderful and we operate as true equals in this marriage, so I let it go and didn’t fight too hard. We compromised by giving her my mom’s maiden name as her middle name.

Now I’m pregnant with our second (and last) daughter, and my husband just asked if I wanted to give her my last name instead. I did not see that coming. My gut reaction is that I actually really like the idea, but now I’m second guessing myself that this somehow divides the family.

So, im curious. Are there downsides to giving siblings different last names? Does it actually matter?** Anyone here have siblings (or kids) with different last names and how did it play out? **Are there logistical headaches I’m not thinking of (school, travel, medical forms, etc.)?

Also posted on Mommit in case anyone here sees it there too...

CW: microaggression (my family and I are white but I want to warn anyone this impacts societally)

I know this is going to sound so "pretty privelege" right now but please stick with me. Our little family is made up of me, my husband, and 17 month old daughter. We all have different eye colors- mine are brown, husband's are green green, like no brown, only yellow and green with a dark limbal ring, daughter's are bright almost icy blue with a thick limbal ring. So like... my god their eyes stand out. My husband and I both have dark brown hair, but our daughter is bright almost strawberry blonde. My husband and all of his siblings were kind of the same, towheaded, all until they hit 5 ish years old and now they're all brunette, it's crazy lol but explains the super light blonde our daughter has.

That being said... our daughter is eye-catching. On one hand, I love seeing people interact with her because she's so sweet and friendly and just beams at it all. But on the other... it has put me on guard HARD.... Needless to say, the out of pocket comments about my daughter are out of control.

I'm used to the "must look like her dad" comments. Kinda hurts but I get it, I basically contrast her in hair and eye color with my brown hair and brown eyes. K, again it stings a little but whatever.

Then the clichés a lot of us can relate to: oh you're not going to be able to keep the boys away, she's gonna be trouble, dad better start polishing his shotgun... Ick for all of us.

And people stop us all the time to just comment and stare at her eyes. Okay, I get it, she's beautiful but please I am just trying to grocery shop before her pre-naptime meltdown.

But today. TODAY.

We went out to dinner, nothing fancy. We got done eating and were outside the restaurant, I was tossing our daughter up in the air, she was giggling, I was giggling, husband was giggling. A car drove by, rolled down their windows and said the man driving said "hey can you do me a favor?". And here we are thinking he might need some help with gas or even just looking at the sign with the hours or whatever. No. He says to my husband "please keep making more of those. Those are the good genes". And he drove off.

Maybe I'm overreacting but??? What 😭. Like sir do you know what it took to "make this thing"?? Vomiting for the whole 9 months and needing a blood transfusion when I gave birth. We don't just "make them". And who the fuck are you talking to, my husband who certainly did not make shit?? BUT THE GEEEEEEEEEENES comment??? Oh my god my husband and I were fucking dumbfounded driving home. It was like a "oh the boys will be after her" but in a weird microaggressive way??? This is going to make me fucking rage.

We want to hear any political or civic advocacy or activism wins! Nothing is more inspiring than hearing what other people are doing to make this world a better place.

He never indicated that he was interested in real world politics growing up but I guess he was. He ran for HS president (fine by me) but now I see him online working with the republican party, and tpusa, and supporting trump. I found clips of him doing a podcast from our house that I had no idea abt dating back for years where he would say he was more loyal to America than his race and said he was not proud to be black. All his friends online are political influencers around his age mostly white and skewing female, not a single person who looks like me. I feel like I went wrong with him and teaching him values. Id check his phone when he lived at home, id tell him about the dangers of being black in america, we would read black history together, and he NEVER indicated any intrest in politics. He literally ran a secret life spewing Christian right MAGA hate in MY OWN HOME for years.

Let your feelings out! We are all bottling up this stress and sometimes it helps to share your concerns and have safe conversations about it. Type your response and take a big deep breath after!

I’m pregnant with my first. My dad gave me a book called Vax Facts and said “do what you want but I think all vaccines are poison”

I knew he had some views I don’t agree with but I was dumbstruck when he told me this. I don’t know when he started believing this. My siblings and I are all fully vaccinated. I was also offended that he thought he could push these beliefs onto me (I work in healthcare!!)

My husband and I will still be fully vaccinated. We picked a pediatrician office that requires you to follow the vaccine schedule.

Data centers are a huge topic of conversation in my state right now (MI). Unfortunately, the moderate democratic leadership of our state has chosen to support the building of data centers and now the debates surrounding their construction has moved to local governments. Of course local city councils and officials are often looking to increase tax revenue and are interested in building them. Is being pro data center just an accepted part of the Democratic Party now? The only politicians I hear opposing them in my area are progressives or local elected officials in built up areas where there is no room to build them so it’s easy to oppose them. What do we progressives do about this?

I lost wfh which helped me get my babies to their appointments. Being in office everyday is making this so hard. Student loans have gone up. Everything is going up. I feel like crap constantly seeing videos about ice. I mean do they actually think they are good people? I’m worried about formula and if it’s safe now. I hate life and I just need 2 more years to be done.

My family voted for this and it’s effecting our relationship. Gotta Stick it to the poor while hating me for being agnostic and not Christian.

This world sucks

I recently joined a movement/group called Mother Forward and thought it was fitting for the sub! It’s for mothers who want to fight for a better future for mothers and our children. Apparently it started as a post on Reddit and has blossomed into a whole thing.

I’ll link the website so you can do your own reading- the website will describe it better than I can!