The Mother Of It All

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit motherofitall.substack.comSarah and I will be back in force for Season 4 (!) in September, but for now, here’s a little summer treat for you beautiful paid subscribers! Sarah is on summer break but will be back with the new season, not to worry. Known to many as ‘the voice of our generation,’ writer, lovely human, and icon of millennial motherhood Meaghan O'Connell joins Miranda for an casual, c…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit motherofitall.substack.comHappy New Year, sweet paid subscribers! Thanks for making us rich! Just kidding. Thanks for keeping the lights on, though. Your support means a lot, and we’re filled with gratitude as we cruise into 2026. 2025 was quite a year for mom movies AND dad movies and we’ve been dying to talk about it. Sarah saw most of them, and Miranda saw some of them, despi…

Welcome to our ✨Holiday Special✨! In an episode that is ostensibly about Elf On The Shelf (or Mensch On The Bench — for Sarah), we explore our collective annual search for meaning and self with the great Meaghan O’Connell, author of And Now We Have Everything and noted Elf On The Shelf apologist. Pressing items interrogated lightly include: Should Elf On The Shelf be a Dad thing? Does holiday magic necessarily include lying to our kids? What do we say when our kids ask if we’re Santa? What is the true magic? How do we even know what we enjoy and what we don’t in a season this busy, and should we take Miranda’s recommendation to do a witchy ritual to remind ourselves? Links: * Meaghan O’Connell’s book, And Now We Have Everything * St. Nicholas day* Mr. Willoby’s Christmas Tree* ‘Lazy Mom’ Elf On A Shelf* Elf on a Shelf Book* The first Mother of it All holiday special, featuring Sara Petersen* Mensch on a Bench (“as seen on Shark Tank”)* Sarah on Boo Baskets (The Cut)* When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron* Miranda’s Grandma Ruth’s Peanut Butter Balls* Meaghan’s Substack This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit motherofitall.substack.comIn this bonus episode for paid subscribers, Sarah and Miranda go long on the PTA (Sarah is this year’s PTA President for her school—something she thought she’d never do) — balancing anxiety about your kid with collective goals and getting involved without losing your boundaries. Also radio nostalgia and whether your clothes just look like pajamas. Links:

With the (yes, weird to make it a footnote but) footnote that the global environmental, cultural, social and real human costs of AI are massive, today we are zeroing in on just one question about AI: the impact of AI on kids and parents. How will the coming ubiquity of AI tools in our homes, schools and workplaces impact child development, parenthood and the world our children will inherit in their adulthood? Our guest today is Doctor Dana Suskind, founder and Co-Director of the a Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago, Founding Director of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Program, and Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics, and Public Policy at the University of Chicago. She is the author of “Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain” and “Parent Nation: Unlocking Every Child’s Potential, Fulfilling Society’s Promise.” Her next book, on AI and early childhood development, will be published by Penguin Dutton in the Fall of 2026.In this meaty episode, we talk to Dr. Suskind about about how using AI impacts our minds and how she is thinking about its influence on developing brains in particular. What do we know right now about what happens when kids interact with AI? From the episode: “The vast majority of brain development happens, some 90 % happens within the first five years of life, and it is almost entirely dependent on their exposure to language and nurturing interaction. That’s what wires up the brain. We call it serve and return between caregiver and child. Nurturing interaction builds the social brain, and our ability as humans to connect. What does it mean when all of a sudden you have AI tools that want to step in and take over some of those serve and return? Infants’ learn not from perfect interaction, they learn from the imperfect. From that emotionally rich dance between parent and caregiver — those slight mismatches, our imperfect parenting. It’s actually biologically required to [help our children] become human that we are imperfect. This is an important moment. A.I. could fundamentally change who we are if we’re not careful.” - Dr. Dana SuskindTwo Princeton professors wrote in a paper on AI recently that AI will “supercharge capitalism.” Will AI also supercharge what is expected from us as humans, and as parents? If we want to insulate our kids from this technological moment, but we also want to raise nimble, adaptable kids who can get jobs in a world where using AI will be a must-have skill, how can we think about this cultural and practical tension in the context of parenthood without having a panic attack?Dr. Suskind helps us think through this rapidly evolving moment with clarity and humor, and she shares a simple strategy from her forthcoming book that Sarah and I will definitely be implementing ASAP.Links: * Dr. Dana Suskind * UNICEF and World Economic Forum paper: Children and AI: What are the opportunities and risks?* Empire of AI by Karen Hao* Your brain on AI (MIT study on ChatGPT’s impact on learning)* Miranda on AI and kids in The Atlantic* AI and colonialism (supertopic at MIT) * Brian Scassellati, Ph.D. at the Yale Robotics lab* Wait Until 8th pledgeIf you love the work we do on Mother Of It All, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers get access to everything behind the paywall, like subscriber-only episodes, book reviews and more. If you subscribe at the founding member level, we’ll send you one of our awesome tote bags. And it’s always free and helpful to follow, share, rate and review our show here and everywhere else you listen to podcasts you love. Thank you!* Visit our Bookshop storefront to find all the books we’ve mentioned here and in previous episodes. When you shop there, we get a small affiliate fee (yay, thank you!).* Visit motherofitall.com to send us ideas for a future episode or learn more about the show.* Follow the podcast on Instagram (@themotherofitall) or Bluesky (@motherofitallpod.bsky.social) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe

Sarah and Miranda are joined by Taylor Harris, the author of a new column, You’ve Always Been This Way, about her later-in-life AuDHD diagnosis. We talk Autistic burnout, empathy for the neurotypical parent, the Enneagram, RFK, and sneaker deals.Links:* Taylor’s column (McSweeney’s)* This Boy We Made (Taylor’s book on our Bookshop storefront)* Holotropic Breathwork* Climbing inside a Tauntaun * Spoon Instagram* Celebrity Height Instagram* Follow Taylor on Instagram This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe

Sarah and Miranda talk to journalist Abigail Leonard, author of Four Mothers: An Intimate Journey Through the First Year of Parenthood in Four Countries, about the social, cultural, and political forces that shape what it unfolds when women become mothers in Kenya, Finland, Japan, and the U.S. Would Leonard have had a third child if she hadn’t been living in Japan at the time? What is it about Finland that makes an ambivalent dad stick around? We explore what’s harder, what’s different, and what seems to be universal about motherhood in four very different societies. Show Links:* Buy Four Mothers in our Bookshop* Abigail on Instagram* Helpful Tips from a Parent with Covid* It Feels Like Every Mom I Know is Medicated in RomperIf you love the work we do on Mother Of It All, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, which you can do at motherofitall.substack.com. Paid subscribers get access to everything behind the paywall, like subscriber-only episodes, book reviews and more. If you subscribe at the founding member level, we’ll send you one of our awesome tote bags. If you can’t become a paid subscriber, that’s OK! It’s always free and helpful to follow, share, rate and review our show here and everywhere else you listen to podcasts you love. Thank you!* Visit our Bookshop storefront to find all the books we’ve mentioned here and in previous episodes. When you shop there, we get a small affiliate fee (yay, thank you!).* Visit motherofitall.com to send us ideas for a future episode or learn more about the show.* Follow the podcast on Instagram (@themotherofitall) or Bluesky (@motherofitallpod.bsky.social) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe