Podcast Episode 313: Vote Like a Mom: Because Our Kids Deserve a Brighter Future Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

JoAnn (00:01.044)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host Joanne Crone joined here by the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:06.8)

Why hello hello everybody, how are you?

JoAnn (00:09.312)

And happy Halloween to you all. Happy Halloween. All of the Halloween decorations have been making me so happy, especially with all the politics going on. I was in a car yesterday and there was like a skull looking back at me and like a scary face. And I was like, my gosh. I’m like, people are getting very creative with their Halloween decorations.

Brie Tucker (00:32.442)

I’ve been a big fan of Halloween and being born in October, you would think I would love that holiday, but I don’t know. think it’s like, it’s always just, it’s never been a huge thing for me. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all about the free candy. I love the candy. But even as a kid, I dreaded having to dress up. right?

JoAnn (00:52.189)

yeah, I didn’t really like it either at the dressing up. You know why I didn’t like it though? I didn’t like it because I felt fat in everything and unpretty in everything. No, that’s true! It’s true! Like I always felt that way as a kid.

Brie Tucker (01:03.53)

Well, I’ve told you stories about being in the Midwest and the weather was cold. So I had at least one year where I went as a fat witch. And that was like, because I had my big fat snow jacket underneath my witch’s costume.

JoAnn (01:09.326)

Mm-hmm.

JoAnn (01:14.689)

Cause you’re in a little bit.

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (01:20.232)

Yeah, so maybe that’s why I also didn’t like it. Like the weather was never good in Kansas City for Halloween. It was always bleh.

JoAnn (01:28.204)

Yeah. Blah. Well, on this Halloween, we have something scary coming up here in the US, our elections. It’s true.

Brie Tucker (01:35.51)

Okay, that was a pristine lead-in, girl, because that was not only true, but it was true. I know, I said it twice.

JoAnn (01:43.278)

Uh-huh.

It’s true. It scares the Jesus out of me. Like I can’t I can’t even with these elections. Like I am on such a like state of just anxiety and unease with everything I see around me. And I know people in other countries are too, because when we were traveling in New Zealand this summer, we ran into a couple in Australia and they were like, what is going on? And this is before Biden like resigned.

Brie Tucker (01:50.816)

But GGs, yeah.

Brie Tucker (02:12.074)

You’re like, I wish I freaking knew!

JoAnn (02:15.542)

I’m like, I wish I knew I wish I knew there’s just so much worrying stuff out there and so much misinformation that Bri and I really wanted to do a podcast about the election and the state of affairs. wanted it to be rooted in truth, but we also want to have a positive bent to it. So that is the episode today. If you are as scared about the elections as we are, you are not going to want to miss this one.

Brie Tucker (02:18.346)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (02:38.64)

Or, right, or you’re just interested in hearing other people’s thoughts that will not be doing any name calling, we will not be putting anybody down, but just having an open conversation with nobody arguing back. Either way.

JoAnn (02:56.258)

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. So let’s get on with the show. Music, music. Okay, so over the weekend, Brie, I was on a plane flight and I took your recommendation about this movie called Civil War. And if you do not watch Civil War, is starring Kirsten Dunst to a great throwback there. And they’re in a America where, first of all, you brought this up, Brie.

Brie Tucker (03:16.448)

Yeah.

JoAnn (03:23.822)

California and Texas have banded together to secede from the nation, which I was like, Texas?

Brie Tucker (03:28.354)

Yeah, I don’t, yeah, I’m not sure I know where they were going with that. mean, yeah, I just don’t know if I can ever think of a time where California and Texas were like, yeah, where I could ever picture them as like two little kids holding hands, running through a meadow. Hi, love my best friend. No.

JoAnn (03:38.892)

Yeah, I didn’t…

JoAnn (03:45.094)

I on anything.

JoAnn (03:53.26)

Yeah, no, no, but I California and Texas were the Western forces. And I noticed through the movie, they had the flags with two stars on them and they had this whole army and whatever. And they were banded together against the rest of the U.S. against a president who is mentioned throughout as being a third term president, as disbanding the FBI, as like all these things. And so now there are

Brie Tucker (03:55.966)

I don’t think so.

JoAnn (04:21.334)

all these skirmishes going on in the US, bombs going off, like tons of killing, gas rationing where like these journalists are trying to get from New York to Washington DC to interview the president. And just the sheer amount of devastation and just grotesqueness, like do not watch this movie with kids. That’s all I can say. You’re gonna see like horrible war-filled examples of humanity.

It really like made me scared. As you said it would.

Brie Tucker (04:54.752)

So it was an interesting movie because from what I had read online, they were trying to show you what that was like from the journalist’s perspective. And I feel like they did a good job of showing that, like, because you felt every single person, every single scenario that they came across, you felt it. And because they were coming at it with a genuine curiosity, I felt like, as to what’s…

JoAnn (05:06.476)

Mm-hmm.

Brie Tucker (05:23.962)

what is motivating you to do X, Y, Z. And like I said to you, yeah, it’ll be a little hard to swallow because I think a lot of us can see that movie and go, wow, like when you hear about the civil war that happened in the US, like back in the 1800s, you’re like, that could never happen. And then you watch this movie and you’re like, I could see that. I could see that. And it’s a little scary. Yeah.

JoAnn (05:48.802)

I could see that happening, especially now, yeah, with the recent reports of the militias, like stopping the FEMA help. Yeah, I think it’s North Carolina. They’re cleaning up the devastation of Helene and they’ve stopped the FEMA help because they’ve seen armed militias, which is just scary. So there’s a lot of rhetoric out there that I think is really progressing this chain of thought, i.e. a certain orange man.

Brie Tucker (05:58.034)

in North Carolina? Is that where it’s at?

JoAnn (06:19.4)

And I don’t think that I, I’m not saying anything against Republicans in this. It is not Republicans. It is merely the rhetoric of violence, of blaming, of really like crafting the situation so that he ends up on top. And it’s, it’s a thing I am so confused as to why his supporters can’t see it, Brie. I don’t know, like no rationality.

I can’t make it rational. I can’t make it rational. Could you?

Brie Tucker (06:52.614)

No, no, because we were talking beforehand and we both have, we both lean more towards the agenda that is often termed liberal because we believe in like more of women’s health rights, more of family rights, more of equality. To me, it’s really big that,

In my personal opinion, it does not matter to me if the person sitting next to me or the person that I have never met that lives down the street or that bags the groceries at my local grocery store chooses to use different pronouns or has decided that their sexual orientation is different than me. As far as I know, that does not affect my life. That does not affect what I do. And just as they may feel that

food coloring and high fructose, you know, high fructose, thank you, can’t, I’m like, whatever, that that’s bad for you and that you should never use that? They don’t come back and take that away from me, so why would I take other things away from them? Like, I just, I have a very hard time understanding why we need to…

JoAnn (07:54.808)

Corn syrup.

Brie Tucker (08:17.672)

it feels like make everybody think the same way we do. And I’m not trying to make, yeah, right? And I don’t think at any point in time you or I have ever been like, you need to think our way. We’re just like, let’s just all be tolerant.

JoAnn (08:21.676)

Yeah, I don’t get it either.

JoAnn (08:29.431)

Yeah, I’m.

I’m like, I’m more curious than anything else. Like I am not out there being like, my gosh, all the people who support Trump, how dear they like they should, I’m more curious. I’m like, what happened that makes this a good option? And obviously there is a bit of judgment in there, but I’m not gonna go back from the judgment. And I’m like, so I know there is a friend of mine who did support Trump in the past. I don’t know, I haven’t talked to her for a while, but.

she and I had very different political views. That was when Republican versus Democrat, it was pretty sane political views. However, I do know that she was against homosexuals at some degree. I really didn’t dig into that part of it because I knew how much we disagreed in it. She was not a fan of affirmative action because of a situation that happened at a local high school here.

where some students lost their scholarship for spelling out the N-word in pictures and it got to the universities. Do you remember that? That was like eight years ago.

Brie Tucker (09:41.814)

and she felt like those kids should have been able to stay?

JoAnn (09:45.794)

Yeah. So that was a point of contention as well. we did. Yeah, we did drift apart about a lot of things like that. And it’s so hard, though, because I sincerely liked hanging out with her for the most part. I really did. I had fun with her. Like we had.

Brie Tucker (09:51.232)

Bye!

Okay.

JoAnn (10:12.32)

We wanted our kids to do the best, although we had very different child raising philosophies. Like she still used spanking and I did not, of course. But it was one of those things where people always asked her, how could you guys stay friends where you have such different political beliefs? And I’m like, how can you not be friends with somebody who has such different political beliefs than you? Because when it came down to it, when you had these political discussions between her and I.

A lot of it was like, don’t think the government should be involved in it. So she’s like, it’s not that I’m against homosexual marriage. It’s that I don’t think the government should have a point in marriage at all. And I’m like, okay, but there’s all of these other things that go in. like understanding her viewpoint and asking those questions gave me a greater understanding of her the way she thought. And although I don’t agree with all the things that she thought, I understand

I listened to it. And I think that is something that is not going on today in society, the listening to other perspectives. I mean, I would say you’d agree. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (11:19.082)

I would agree with that. Yeah, feel like when, yeah, I feel like both sides, if you feel very strongly one way or another, politically, I feel like you’re done listening to the other side. I’ll be honest. mean, like I am exhausted from trying to keep…

JoAnn (11:36.364)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (11:45.812)

my balance on what I say and what I do because I have some people very close to me that have very different political views of mine. And quite honestly, I do believe that their political views do directly impact other loved ones of mine. And so I have a hard time understanding where they’re coming from. But every time we’ve tried to have a conversation, it’s

I feel like they’re not hearing me and they clearly don’t think I’m hearing them. And so then the voices get louder and louder and they’re people I don’t want to argue with. I don’t want to argue with you. I love you. and when it comes to seeing people like on social media, the flippant attitude towards the other people is what sparks anger and rage in me, which I know when it comes to social media, that’s what a lot of people are trying to do. They’re trying to spark that

JoAnn (12:21.516)

Yeah, it becomes hard.

Brie Tucker (12:39.776)

big emotional response, more likes, more interest, more comments, more all of that, but it sparks something in me that I don’t wanna feel. I’m done feeling that anger and that hostility, so just done. I just want us to all get along, can’t we all just get along?

JoAnn (12:58.83)

I know I want that too. Well, coming up, we’re going to have some strategies on how, if you’re feeling that way too, just done with all the hostility and anger, some concrete things that you can do to help out right after this.

Brie Tucker (13:01.269)

Yeah.

JoAnn (13:24.166)

OK. So, Brie, like I wondered this after perusing some social media posts last week about one post in particular was saying, yeah, the liberal media is presenting it one way. And so I really wanted to dig into it. I wanted to see, like, if we think that, like, the people who are voting for Trump, who are under his ways,

If we think that his side of the media is distorting it, how is our side of the media, like the one that we agree with, basically when I say our side, CNN has a pretty liberal bias, so does MSNBC. How does that side distort it for us? And so I was really interested in it. And so for the first time ever, I did go to the FoxNews.com website. Well, you know, I was a broadcast journalism major in college.

Brie Tucker (14:11.485)

Ooh, tell me more!

Brie Tucker (14:16.192)

Yeah. Yeah.

JoAnn (14:17.748)

And one of the things that they really hammered home in broadcast journalism is that you are supposed to be an unbiased view of the story. Now, I don’t believe that today’s news does that at all because you could see bias in so many things. Like the news is inseparable today from opinions and analysis.

Brie Tucker (14:27.072)

I like that.

JoAnn (14:41.388)

Like on CNN, they will list the analysis on the front page, but that’s not really news, like quote unquote news, that’s opinion, but it’s listed as analysis. And so you see all these things presented as almost fact, it’s very, very small print. They’re not, they’re not fact. So looking at the two pages and seeing like what’s presented, you’ll see on CNN’s page, it’ll talk about all of Trump’s flub ups and everything. And I mean, let’s say like,

Brie Tucker (14:55.84)

when they’re not.

Interesting.

JoAnn (15:08.398)

He has a lot of them and I am seriously concerned about the nature of these flubs, such as leaving his people in the desert in Coachella and then all of his people blaming the Democrats. They had something with the buses not coming out to get them. I don’t know how this is possible. And then I go over to the Fox News site and none of those exist. There are none of those stories about Trump’s lies and Trump’s all these.

But there are stories about Kamala’s flubs, like Kamala lied to this person, or like Tim Waltz stumbled over his words. Like those are the stories people are getting about the liberal candidates. And it’s all negative on the Fox News site against them. the points of comparison are so huge, so huge. Trump leaves tons of people in the desert, says all these cities are like horrible, horrible cities.

Brie Tucker (16:04.201)

Mm-hmm.

JoAnn (16:05.422)

Kamala messes up her line and stumbles in one part of her interview. I mean, how? How, how, how? How are we neglecting the total picture? And how could we get like an unbiased news source out there who will actually present both sides of the issue, right?

Brie Tucker (16:11.702)

Ha!

Brie Tucker (16:25.234)

Right? Do you have an answer to that? Because I don’t know where that answer lies.

JoAnn (16:27.342)

No, I don’t. Well, it’s really funny because also New York Times looked at former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris’ stump speeches to the crowd, and they analyzed it for lies and mistruths and fact-checked it, basically. And they said Trump, who usually gives a very long address at his rallies, that’s frequently rambling for an hour and 30 minutes.

versus Kamala Harris, who usually gives like a 30 minute one at her rallies. She had six untruths and like Trump had 143. Now discounting for, yeah.

Brie Tucker (17:07.998)

If people could see my face, my eyes, think, hold on a second, let me get my jaw back off the ground, hold on.

JoAnn (17:13.858)

I mean, we may need a fact check on that. Maybe it wasn’t 143. I would probably need to find the actual New York Times article. But it was significantly larger. It was significantly larger. And counting for the time span of it, like an hour and a half versus 30 minutes, if you’re looking at like a comparable number, like Trump should have made about 18 lies compared to Kamala Harris’s six. And it was much greater than that.

Brie Tucker (17:18.666)

Well.

JoAnn (17:41.24)

But they also looked at the severity of the myths, truths. And it was calculated for like, there was like outright lies. There was just like a misrepresentation. Like you really needed more information there. And then there was like, like it was just a stumble or something. But did you find the numbers? Okay, what are the numbers?

Brie Tucker (17:59.062)

Okay, I found the article. Yes. Trump’s speech had 64, Harris’s speech had six. That’s still a-

JoAnn (18:06.637)

Okay.

Okay, so it was 143, so I greatly exaggerated.

Brie Tucker (18:12.022)

It’s still-

JoAnn (18:13.966)

It’s still a lot, but and so do you see like how it’s classified there? And we’ll put a link to this at the show notes as well. So you guys could check it out too. But like Kamala’s the big thing was I do know that she is talking about this Goldman Sachs thing, which says the economy will be so much better under her than it will under Trump. And it turns out it’s a 1.6 % difference. So that’s like the biggest mistruth there, but that’s the biggest one.

Brie Tucker (18:16.128)

Yeah

JoAnn (18:43.436)

That’s the biggest one compared to Trump’s, which is things like they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.

Brie Tucker (18:53.374)

No, I’m like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait I am just waiting for the Simpsons to do an episode on that. I think it would be hilarious. Have they? don’t think they have. Like I think that they need to.

JoAnn (19:00.61)

I feel like they already have.

I feel like they have in the past.

Brie Tucker (19:08.148)

They need to do an episode on that. think we just need that. I think we need.

JoAnn (19:13.646)

But it’s so hard to have a conversation when this is considered normal. cannot even tell you, like, I am not gonna compare these as like two equally suited candidates. One is just, he needs mental help and assistance. He really, really does. Like he obviously is struggling. He is struggling. And I am not one to make fun of him at all, but he is struggling and he is not good to lead the country.

Brie Tucker (19:30.742)

yeah, I have serious concerns. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (19:41.608)

Yeah. so one thing that I’m hearing that we can do to help is like, okay, it’s the young people. We need to have the young people be involved in voting. And someone who has two teens that are close-ish to voting age, I have my 17 and 16 year old. My 17 year old will not be 18 until March, so he misses the voting ability for this year. And I have talked to both of them about it. And

Neither of them give two crap about this election, nor will they take any opinion on it. Now, that’s their opinion toward like when they share it with me. Mom, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me. This doesn’t affect me anyways. I can’t even vote in this election. And I’m trying to get them to understand, because I feel like they don’t, that whoever gets elected in November of 2024, even though they’re not of voting age, is going to directly impact

what their life is like as soon as they leave my house. Because they’re both close enough that they will be going to college or moving out, going on with their life, becoming an adult under this person. And I don’t know if they don’t care because they’re just feeling overwhelmed like so many of us. And they’re just like, everybody just hates everybody. And no matter what opinion I say, I’m gonna piss off somebody. So I just don’t say anything.

JoAnn (21:09.016)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (21:10.01)

Or if they truly feel like they’re up a creek without a paddle either way, so what’s it matter? And I do know it’s hard for my kids too, because like I’ve said before, my ex is very conservative, very, very much on the conservative Republican side, and I am very much not. I can already tell you from when we first got married, I was a little bit of like, how is this going to work? And it wasn’t a big issue until.

JoAnn (21:38.73)

Until it became a big issue. Yes.

Brie Tucker (21:38.838)

until 2016. Yeah, until it became a big issue. But so I know my kids hear a lot of, cause I feel just as strongly about my political views as my ex does. So my kids hear an earful from both sides, but I am very disappointed in the fact that they don’t seem to care.

JoAnn (22:00.524)

Yeah, it is disappointing. But it’s more like, I don’t think I cared either at that age either, because you don’t see how it affects people.

Brie Tucker (22:02.484)

Yeah, disheartening.

Brie Tucker (22:09.097)

God, I cared when Clinton was elected and I was in middle school. Like, I just don’t understand how they don’t see it.

JoAnn (22:13.418)

I did. I mean, I guess, okay, I take it back. I think I did care because I was like, how could a sex offender be in the like, I didn’t even call him a sex offender then. But I mean, he took advantage of Monica Lewinsky and I was so mad at him. So mad at him. But I, I don’t, it’s hard. I think they’re.

Brie Tucker (22:33.14)

Right? It’s a different, this is the one time, one time, and thank goodness my kids don’t listen to the podcast, because if they did, they would never let me live this down. This is the one time I’m gonna say that when my kids say, don’t know what it’s like to be a teenager these days, I would agree. I don’t understand how they don’t care. I don’t understand how they don’t see the fact that they have a role and they have a voice. And it’s disheartening.

JoAnn (22:48.547)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (22:59.21)

And I feel like the more I push it, the more I’m pushing them away from wanting to do anything. They just turn off.

JoAnn (23:04.844)

Yeah. Well, let’s talk about what to do about all of the scariness right after this.

I think that the best thing we can do is also something that we encourage you to do in your parenting, and that is to remain curious. Just remain curious. Remain curious of everybody. Remain curious of other people. A lot of times, people don’t know what they think until they’re asked to explain it. Like, there’s so many situations where I can get into an argument with a friend.

because I counter them and I’m like, okay, why do you think that way? Tell me about that. And they can’t give me an answer. And they just get mad at me and start yelling at me or a particular family member does this as well who I don’t talk to anymore about these things. Because it’s so ingrained that you have to be a certain way and you have these thoughts and opinions that if like people aren’t given a chance to explore it instead they’ll dig in.

and they’ll sink in trying to defend themselves against our like widely held beliefs. So being curious is really the best thing we can do when talking with people and then refusing to discuss it anymore if they start yelling at us because that’s a boundary that I don’t deserve to be yelled at and you don’t deserve to be yelled at either and nor on Facebook as well.

Don’t go on Facebook right now, guys. Don’t go on Facebook. Don’t go on Facebook.

Brie Tucker (24:56.778)

Yeah, yeah. I’m feeling like it’s back to 2020 where it’s like, I just need to turn off all my news notifications for a while.

JoAnn (25:03.946)

Yeah, I seriously like that. Another thing is there is this build your ballot tool that we’re using now in Chamber of Mothers and you can go and you can list the issues that you care about and it’ll help you tell you who to vote for locally as well as nationally, which locally sometimes it’s hard because you’re like, who is this election supervisor I am voting for? Who is that? Like you don’t know the names. And so the build your ballot tool helps you because

A lot of times your vote does so much good, like makes so much more of a difference locally than it does at a national level. And you could really influence things at a local level. And I think we forget about that.

Brie Tucker (25:47.478)

think that is a huge one. while I haven’t been as involved this election cycle as you have on things, I also feel one thing that makes me feel hope is focusing on what are the positive changes that I’d like to see. And some of the things that I’ve heard. Now, I’m just gonna be 100 % frank. Do I feel like there’s going, if I’m good, do I feel like there’s any one candidate I can vote?

that’s going to help these items move along? No, because they’re all big and they’re gonna take a lot of people. But yes, yes, right. So I get that there might not be a lot of movement on the needle of it, but I do think I need to be more selective in who I am voting into office for things. So some of the things that I feel like I can focus on this and feel better about my vote is…

JoAnn (26:22.912)

And they require Congress to enact and agree with each other. Yes.

Brie Tucker (26:44.98)

supporting people that are gonna do things that are gonna be better for my kids, for their generation, for their life. I would love to see better mental health programs available. I mean, as a fam… Yeah, like as a family member that has like a family with a significant history of mental illness and like, and we’re talking like, you know, depression, anxiety, whatever. It is so hard.

JoAnn (26:57.804)

or mental health treated seriously at all?

Brie Tucker (27:14.09)

to find care and to be able to afford it these days. So mental health care needs to be more consistent across the states. And that’s where I feel like the federal government does need to step in and protect us and give us some basic rights there, some basic protections, and that there needs to be better services. So mental health services, I feel like we could do more to work with education to make it affordable across the board.

JoAnn (27:40.298)

Mm-hmm. yeah.

Brie Tucker (27:43.454)

my mind is still blown that when my parents were alive, college was free. It was free. Yes. Reagan is who changed it.

JoAnn (27:50.606)

Was that? Is this free? I didn’t know that.

Brie Tucker (27:59.09)

back when he was in California, sorry. So this is before the eighties. It changed in the sixties. Late sixties, early seventies, I think is when they started charging for state and there were private to it, private colleges, but state colleges like University of California was free. And so I was, both of my kids are freaking out about going away to college because we’re not millionaires. do not, I did not plan my life well. They do not have college.

JoAnn (27:59.714)

Was it?

JoAnn (28:13.783)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (28:28.662)

savings accounts that we started when they were born. So they know that there’s going to be some degree of loans and it’s scaring the crap out of them because all that they’re hearing is that they’re gonna be in debt the rest of their life. And I didn’t have that upbringing because in the nineties, I went to a small state college and it was affordable, like $3,000 a semester.

JoAnn (28:40.738)

Yeah.

JoAnn (28:51.948)

Yeah, that’s why elections should mean something to them. Ding ding. I know. They’re like.

Brie Tucker (28:57.29)

They should, I have tried, I, God, yeah. But like, so those like affordable education, mental health services, what are some things that are important to you that you would like to see changes made?

JoAnn (29:09.142)

Anything that helps women. like affordable childcare as well because paying $1,000 a month for one child, for one like toddler to go to childcare. So like someone could continue their career, most likely a female because that’s typically who gives up their career to stay home with the kids because of this long cycle of men getting paid more than women. It’s like a huge systemic issue. So like affordable childcare would be great. Education.

Brie Tucker (29:12.889)

God,

JoAnn (29:35.576)

changing the education system. And this is something that’s, don’t think talked about enough, but like it really got ruined during the W. Bush era with no child left behind. And this emphasis on state testing education just got ruined. Absolutely. It was not, it went from taking in like the whole child and their needs and their emotional needs to really teaching to the test. Yeah. And there’s still schools that like,

Brie Tucker (29:45.47)

yeah?

Brie Tucker (29:57.686)

test.

JoAnn (30:02.002)

I mean, they’re like, yeah, this will equalize all schools. Well, guess what they found with teaching to the test. The richer schools are fine and the poorer schools are still struggling because it’s not an issue of teacher quality or what they’re doing. It’s an issue of that whole dynamic, like trying to learn when you have no food in your stomach or your mom is working like three jobs and you’re sharing an entire bed together. Like

those make a difference on your life and on learning. And it’s not about just what happens in the classroom. It’s about what happens everywhere. some focus on like taking that, like those restrictions back from education and going more into the community. There’s this great community and I don’t know if there exists anymore. It’s called the Harlem. I forget the name of it, but it’s Jeffrey. And we’re going to have to put this in the show notes because I’m taking this off. But like it is a

13 block or 26 block citywide thing where there are schools and there is dental services and there is food and there is housing for this entire community. And it’s shown to like improve people’s lives and doing more stuff like that for communities is what’s going to improve education. It’s Jeffrey Canada is his name. He created it and it was the heart. Yes, the Harlem Children’s Zone.

Brie Tucker (31:23.488)

Harlem’s Children’s Zone?

JoAnn (31:27.71)

is what it was, but nothing else has been created as far as what I know. And that it just helps. It helps everybody instead of just testing and punishing.

Brie Tucker (31:37.45)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (31:42.012)

It’s, I like to think that we haven’t screwed it all up, that there are options that are gonna be there for our kids. And, you know, I think that we all feel things at different times. I could tell you, I kind of got checked out from politics when my kids were born because I was just focusing on getting by. Like, I remember even like just struggling to get to the polls to vote.

when I had two little kids in a tandem stroller trying to get in there and keeping them quiet and keeping them to my space in my little voting booth. God, I wish I had known about mail-in ballots back then. I did not know about them until later. But I know, I I love them. But I do think that I kind of got checked out from it. And now that my kids are getting older, I’m getting that like, I’m getting…

JoAnn (32:23.928)

I’m, they’re lifesavers.

Brie Tucker (32:36.65)

Guys, I am getting sweaty palms just talking about this from my anxiety about what kind of a world are my kids getting left because I’m not saying I’m checked out. Like I’m not even 45 yet. We’ll be in a couple of days, but not yet. But I do feel like I need to start passing the torch on. Like I need to start sharing that it’s important to my kids that you can’t just be laissez-faire about it. Because if you are,

JoAnn (32:51.702)

JoAnn (33:05.774)

Can’t be less safe here.

Brie Tucker (33:06.868)

Yeah, then you’re gonna end up in this place where it’s just, it’s not good. And I would hate for my kids to feel this much stress of people fighting so much going forward. I really want us to be able to join in the middle, our country, our people, because this much animosity, it’s not cool, man. It’s not cool freaking out about who you can talk to and what you can say. Yeah.

JoAnn (33:28.213)

It really sucks.

It sucks. I want the Bush election back where we were just fighting about him saying, read my lips, no new taxes. Like that would be great. I would love that. yeah, I would love that.

Brie Tucker (33:38.14)

wow, you went way back on the bush era there. I bet our kids don’t even realize that that bush was around.

JoAnn (33:44.95)

Yeah. Yeah. So we’re thinking of you if you feel like this electoral season is horrible, we’re right there with you. And just check out that Build Your Ballot tool because you could have such an impact locally as well as nationally by voting. We’ll put the link right below. And until next time, remember, best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (34:09.45)

Thanks for stopping by.