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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Caroline and I'm Kristen, and today we're

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Speaker 1: talking about how there is so much more to the

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Speaker 1: PTA than meets the I. You might assume that all

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Speaker 1: they do is hold bake sales, as the title implies,

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Speaker 1: there is so much more to these parent groups than

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Speaker 1: just that. And the reason I wanted to talk about

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Speaker 1: these groups is because in our podcast that we did

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Speaker 1: before on the Foster Care System, we sort of touched

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Speaker 1: on how these groups in the progressive air I got

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Speaker 1: their start. There were a lot of women in big cities,

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Speaker 1: for instance, who wanted to help uplift the immigrant population.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't just that. There was more to it.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to help the children of these immigrants learn

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Speaker 1: how to be proper quote unquote Americans and get them

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Speaker 1: off the streets and out of factories. And so there

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Speaker 1: was a large push by women in these big cities

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Speaker 1: to sort of fight for the rights of these people,

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Speaker 1: for better for worse, to help them, help them be

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Speaker 1: the kind of Americans that they thought they should be. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And one of the main organizations that we brought up

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Speaker 1: in the foster Care episode that will also touch on

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Speaker 1: in our episode on on the p t A is

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Speaker 1: the Children's Aid Society, which was founded in eighteen fifty

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Speaker 1: three by social reformers UM. And this is coming where

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Speaker 1: we're right UM on the heels of the progressive era,

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Speaker 1: which starts in nineteen hundred. So Children Aid Society gets

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Speaker 1: started in the eighteen fifties UM, and in eighteen sixty

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Speaker 1: three it establishes a forerunner to parent teacher organizations in

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Speaker 1: which teachers are helping mothers learn better ways to care

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Speaker 1: for their family. And as we'll talk about more there,

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Speaker 1: UM starts to be a bigger push for legislation on

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Speaker 1: state levels for mother's pensions, specifically to help out UM

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Speaker 1: widowed women, single mothers, because there is this notion that

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Speaker 1: actually evolved in the prior century that the mother child

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Speaker 1: relationship is crucial for a healthy household and UM family development.

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Speaker 1: And that comes directly out of enlightenment theory UM from

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Speaker 1: John Locke and Russseau, because before that the fathers and

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Speaker 1: the family actually had more of a control over the

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Speaker 1: children's education because we were talking about a grarian society.

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Speaker 1: Men were home more, they were the heads of the

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Speaker 1: household and had more purview over the kids learning and

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Speaker 1: religious education as well. But then in the seventeen fifties

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Speaker 1: and of course going into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,

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Speaker 1: that relationship of the mother and the children really becomes

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Speaker 1: that paramount uh family dynamic. And I do think it's

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Speaker 1: interesting that the precursor to the National PTA and General

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Speaker 1: PTO groups, it was really the focus was on teaching

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Speaker 1: parents how to be better parents. At this time, you know,

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Speaker 1: you can save children's lives through better hygiene, you can

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Speaker 1: teach them about this and that so that they're not

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Speaker 1: using their little hands and factories. You know, keep your

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Speaker 1: children in school and they can be more successful in life.

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Speaker 1: And all of these, um, all of these social pushes

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Speaker 1: were really led by women. And I think it's interesting

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Speaker 1: to point out that, you know how strongly women were

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Speaker 1: involved in some of these social movements because they couldn't vote.

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Speaker 1: So you know, as we talked about in our Women

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Speaker 1: as Peacekeeper podcast about women agitating for peace on the

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Speaker 1: sidelines traditionally, well, it was the same kind of thing

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Speaker 1: before they achieved the vote here in a Merica in

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Speaker 1: they were pushing for social reform sort of from the sidelines,

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Speaker 1: and they ended up winning suffrage in local school school

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Speaker 1: board elections before they actually won the right to vote

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Speaker 1: for the president. Right. The National Education Association was among

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Speaker 1: one of the first civil society organizations in which women

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Speaker 1: occupied positions of authority. And this isn't something that we

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Speaker 1: can go into great detail on this podcast, but this

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Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why teaching becomes such a

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Speaker 1: female dominated profession because it's one of the first arenas

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Speaker 1: open to women from the more administrative sidelines and also

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Speaker 1: from um professional opportunities as well. Yeah, and plus there

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Speaker 1: was the whole view that, um, you know, women are

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Speaker 1: mothers and mothers are teachers, and so they kind of

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Speaker 1: had this view of women and teachers um being interchangeable

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Speaker 1: and women being able to provide the most stable education

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Speaker 1: for a lot of these young children. And there's also

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Speaker 1: a big push from states and local districts as well

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Speaker 1: to educate children to make sure that kids are um

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Speaker 1: getting a decent education even if their parents might not

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Speaker 1: be wealthy enough to send them to private schools. We

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Speaker 1: have the establishment starting in Massachusetts of public education systems,

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Speaker 1: and that spreads throughout the country. Um. And and the

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Speaker 1: reason why a lot of this happens is not necessarily

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Speaker 1: because of the virtue of wanting all kids to be

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Speaker 1: able to read. But really it traces back to the

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Speaker 1: industrial revolution and low wage child labor and then adult

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Speaker 1: men losing their jobs because these kids can work for

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Speaker 1: cheaper and so you have you know, little ones in

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Speaker 1: the factory. Adults getting frustrated about that, forming trade unions

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Speaker 1: that then put political pressure to enforce things like compulsory

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Speaker 1: education and truancy laws to get those kids first out

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Speaker 1: of the factories and then off of the streets and

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Speaker 1: into schools. So for better for worse, their efforts paid off,

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Speaker 1: I think. Um, but yeah, as as Kristen pointed out,

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Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of these women entered the teaching

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Speaker 1: profession and um, the advocacy of of schooling for young

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Speaker 1: kids because a lot of other professions were close to them,

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Speaker 1: professions such as law, medicine, and theology. And then there

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Speaker 1: was that whole blue collar thing being inconsistent with notions

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Speaker 1: of femininity, so teaching seemed like a middle ground as

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Speaker 1: far as spears go, Like social spheres. And then for

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Speaker 1: the women who didn't necessarily need to or want to

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Speaker 1: pursue more professional careers in education, these upper and middle

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Speaker 1: class white women to be more specific, really clung to

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Speaker 1: a lot of social causes during and leading up to

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Speaker 1: the Progressive era. Yeah, during this time, these college educated

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Speaker 1: women took to association building as PBS called it. They

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Speaker 1: have an excellent section on the Progressive Era and the

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Speaker 1: women at activists of this time. Um and they said that,

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Speaker 1: you know, as these women were barred from from more

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Speaker 1: professional careers, or as Kristen pointed out, maybe they just

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Speaker 1: weren't pursuing them, um and they but they still wanted

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Speaker 1: to be a part of the process. They got involved

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Speaker 1: in things like settlement houses, which was where they would

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Speaker 1: bring immigrant women to learn certain skills like knitting or whatever,

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Speaker 1: to to basically to help you learn what being a

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Speaker 1: proper American and knitter is all about. And so they

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Speaker 1: were sort of, like we said before, working outside of

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Speaker 1: the formal electoral structure, and they exerted, they really exerted

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Speaker 1: during this time pressure on elected officials regarding social policies.

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Speaker 1: But we should back up a little bit because this

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Speaker 1: is you know, that's during the full swing of the

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Speaker 1: progressive era, and we should talk about what happened at

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Speaker 1: the end of the nineteenth century, which is basically the

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Speaker 1: purpose of this podcast. Exactly eighteen nineties seven is the

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Speaker 1: year that the National Congress of Mothers and later the

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Speaker 1: National Congress of Parents and Teachers was formed by two women,

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Speaker 1: Alice McLane Bernie and Phoebe Apperson Hearst and Phoebe Apperson

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Speaker 1: Hirst is the wife was she's dead now was the

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Speaker 1: wife of George Hurst, the very wealthy businessman who they

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Speaker 1: were the parents of William Randolph thank you exactly, just

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Speaker 1: just a little bit of trivia, but yeah, these women

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Speaker 1: met in and that is when they held the first

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Speaker 1: Mother's Congress. It's the gathering of two thousand people, not

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Speaker 1: just women and not just mothers. There were two thousand

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Speaker 1: various types of people who met in Washington, d c.

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Speaker 1: To basically get acquainted with all of these issues that

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Speaker 1: this group would be fighting for, right because Bernie was

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Speaker 1: especially concerned that there wasn't enough literature to guide and

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Speaker 1: educate mothers because you again, uh, well, you know, you

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Speaker 1: have to remember that this issue of the role of

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Speaker 1: the mother in the home and educating the children at

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Speaker 1: the home and creating a relationship between public schools and

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Speaker 1: the home was so important because this was a major

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Speaker 1: shift away from schooling inside the home, which had been

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Speaker 1: the standard for so long. Right and right away, right

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Speaker 1: out of the gate, this was a national organization, and

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Speaker 1: I don't I didn't really realize that before doing research

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Speaker 1: for this episode. I just assumed that PTA's started as

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Speaker 1: general parent teacher groups and then grew into something more national.

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Speaker 1: But we're right off the bat their national organization, and

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Speaker 1: in nineteen one they established national dues of five cents,

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Speaker 1: so reaching deep into your pockets, those five cents, I've

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Speaker 1: been five cents was still a pretty penny, yeah, or

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Speaker 1: nickel or whatever. Within just the first several years of organizing,

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Speaker 1: they had organized local parent teacher associations. They had advocated

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Speaker 1: for more adequate marriage, divorce and child labor laws, published

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Speaker 1: booklets on sex ed so there, you know, at the

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Speaker 1: forefront of that, and they formed committees on child hygiene

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Speaker 1: and juvenile court and probation work. All of this just

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Speaker 1: up until nineteen o nine, So they're doing a lot

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Speaker 1: of work in their first ten years or so. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: by nineteen sixteen, I was surprised by this fact. By

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, the National Congress was pushing for and why

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Speaker 1: state National Congress, I mean the mother's Congress, not the

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Speaker 1: US Congress was pushing for sprinkler systems and fire escapes

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Speaker 1: and schools. Yes, thinking ahead, and over the years, the

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Speaker 1: National Pta would take credit for things like creation of

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Speaker 1: kindergarten classes, child labor laws as you mentioned, public health service,

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Speaker 1: hot lunch programs, juvenile justice systems, and mandatory immunization. One

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Speaker 1: big thing that they took a stand on that Krista

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Speaker 1: mentioned earlier is mother's pensions. And in nineteen eleven, which

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Speaker 1: is the year that Illinois became the first state to

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Speaker 1: enact a mother's pension law, the National Congress voted to

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Speaker 1: work for mothers pension laws in every state. And these

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Speaker 1: laws basically provided pension payments that would allow mothers who

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Speaker 1: had been widowed or abandoned to continue to exert moral

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Speaker 1: influence over their children in the home, with the philosophy

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Speaker 1: being that children are better off with their mothers than

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Speaker 1: an orphanage is, and if you give mothers money, it

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Speaker 1: lets them stay home and provide that feminine motherly influence

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Speaker 1: that assure insures that the child will grow up healthy.

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Speaker 1: And then in nineteen sixteen, the National Congress President Hannah

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Speaker 1: Kent Scoff wrote that mother's pensions were necessary because many

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Speaker 1: children had been driven into the ranks of wage earners

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Speaker 1: before they were physically able to do the tasks required

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Speaker 1: of them, which makes sense if we're talking about UM

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Speaker 1: the you know, the Industrial Revolution and the problems with

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Speaker 1: child labor back then. UM and because of that, they

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Speaker 1: would deprive him a chance to receive a proper education.

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Speaker 1: And part of that education too, that we've both touched on,

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Speaker 1: is this idea of the melting pot. During this time,

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Speaker 1: there's a huge influx of UM immigrants into the United States.

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Speaker 1: And while some of the motivations are a little questionable

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Speaker 1: because UM, these are a lot of upper class white

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Speaker 1: women who are a lot of whom are concerned about

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Speaker 1: people who look different from themselves coming into society and

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Speaker 1: wanting to maintain some kind of order in schools were

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Speaker 1: a way of doing that, separating people into grades and

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Speaker 1: you know, sending them all into the same place, giving

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Speaker 1: them a uniform curriculums, all assimilating them into this new

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Speaker 1: and rapidly urbanizing and changing society right, and as deb

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Speaker 1: Reward points out in her book The White Welfare State,

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Speaker 1: which basically talks about race issues in America the history

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Speaker 1: of American welfare, she says that from the get go,

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Speaker 1: the primary actors in this mother's pension movement were women,

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Speaker 1: particularly these women's organizations, and she points out that members

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Speaker 1: of these groups claim that they were the true experts

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Speaker 1: on family policy, not doctors, are social workers, so that

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Speaker 1: they should be more involved in the process. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: mother's pensions which were in extension of widows pensions or

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Speaker 1: something that was difficult for legislators to say no to.

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Speaker 1: Because even today we hear politicians talking about how they

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Speaker 1: advocate on behalf of women. This goes back very far

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Speaker 1: in our political history. And Kristen mentioned Hannah Kent Shop

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Speaker 1: earlier and who wrote in nineteen sixteen essay basically addressing

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Speaker 1: the group's responsibilities, and she talks about, like you said,

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Speaker 1: how an organized school system is really the avenue for

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Speaker 1: providing home education for parents, and it wasn't until this

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Speaker 1: group form this National Congress of Mothers and parent teacher

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Speaker 1: associations that, uh, it really kind of filtered it all

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Speaker 1: down and enabled parents to learn as much as they can,

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Speaker 1: and she she goes into a little bit of the

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Speaker 1: history and talks about how after the National Congress established

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Speaker 1: headquarters in Washington, state branches were established and in nineteen

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Speaker 1: o two they started establishing child labor canmities to advocate

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Speaker 1: against the eppoyment of young kids in minds and factories,

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Speaker 1: and they also serve to educate mothers about hygiene, care

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Speaker 1: and feeding of babies and how that would be able

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Speaker 1: to save more children's lives. So it seems like the

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Speaker 1: roots of the p t A go back to educating

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Speaker 1: mother and children outside of school. But then we have

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Speaker 1: the major shift after nine women UM, when the right

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Speaker 1: to vote, they drop mothers from that title and it

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Speaker 1: becomes the National Congress of Parent Teacher Associations and the

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Speaker 1: focus shifts more to education outside the home, actually in

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Speaker 1: the schools. And already having that headquarters set up in Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. You have the you know, the basis of

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Speaker 1: now what is a very powerful lobbying force. UM. Matthew

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Speaker 1: Crimson and his book Building the Invisible Orphanage of prehistory

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Speaker 1: of the American welfare system writes about how getting the

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Speaker 1: vote in didn't bring an end too women's political activism,

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Speaker 1: but it just changed the nature of their participation. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's the shift from maternalist reformers as he calls them,

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Speaker 1: to professional educators. And this is similar to the way

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Speaker 1: that many of activists, many of the activists causes in

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Speaker 1: the progressive era, ended up being taken into the bureaucratic

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Speaker 1: fauld So they succeeded and getting a lot of their

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Speaker 1: concerns recognized and taken up on a national level, but

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Speaker 1: it's sort of separated those activists from the things that

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Speaker 1: they have been fighting for. And the PTA is a

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Speaker 1: little different in that respect because they still are the major,

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Speaker 1: the major organization fighting for this stuff. But what about

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Speaker 1: the p t O Because people who are members of

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Speaker 1: p t O s might disagree with that statement. They

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Speaker 1: might say that an ad when it comes to a

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Speaker 1: local level, the p t A is not where it's

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Speaker 1: a m. Yeah, this is coming from Tim Sullivan. He's

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Speaker 1: the founder of PTO Today, which is a nonprofit that

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Speaker 1: provides resources and information to parent teacher groups that are

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Speaker 1: independent from p t A s. And he basically specifies

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Speaker 1: that PTOs are independent groups that don't pay dues to

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Speaker 1: a national organization or focus on issues really outside of

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Speaker 1: their own school or town, and they don't have lobbyists

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Speaker 1: like the PTA does. Now. It came as a surprise

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Speaker 1: to me in studying this is that the p t

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Speaker 1: A numbers wise is not as powerful as it used

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Speaker 1: to be, and largely in because of the PTO and

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Speaker 1: groups on the local level realizing that they might not

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Speaker 1: need to pay dues to a national organization in order

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Speaker 1: to get things done for the school that their child

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Speaker 1: is going to. UM and and just for an idea

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Speaker 1: of how those numbers have dropped, the PTA reached a

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Speaker 1: record high membership in nineteen sixty two with twelve point

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Speaker 1: one million members, and in the early nineteen eighties that

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Speaker 1: membership had dropped to about five million. And UM, we

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Speaker 1: should note that desegregation in the sixth season seventies was

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Speaker 1: a major reason for the drop in PTA participation because

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Speaker 1: of busting UM children from two different neighborhoods in order

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Speaker 1: to increase the racial diversity of schools, which sent parents

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Speaker 1: up in arms but also scattered a lot of those

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Speaker 1: those PTA groups. Yeah, one of the one of the

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Speaker 1: main issues then and now is that people are some

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Speaker 1: people are uncomfortable with paying dues to a national organization

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Speaker 1: and having some of their money leave the school, and

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Speaker 1: also the fact that the PTA takes stances on things

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Speaker 1: that not all parents and not all school districts agree

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Speaker 1: with UM, and sometimes that advocacy work just bother some parents.

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Speaker 1: And the Associated Press quoted one Georgia father is saying

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Speaker 1: that you think you're joining a group to support your school,

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Speaker 1: but your act really joining a quote massive political action committee.

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Speaker 1: And I think that it's also the stereotype of the

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Speaker 1: p t A that might turn some parents off or

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Speaker 1: think that it's not something that would fit their lives. UM.

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Speaker 1: You know that the PTA was initially founded by middle

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Speaker 1: and upper class white women. By the nineteen forties and fifties,

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Speaker 1: it became this community event for housewives, and you talk

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Speaker 1: about you know, the you know, we're not talking about

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Speaker 1: bake sales today because they do so much beyond big sales,

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Speaker 1: but that kind of fundraising that was led primarily by

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Speaker 1: women who were not working outside of the home. I

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Speaker 1: think it's a stereotype that has has plagued it up

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Speaker 1: until today, and especially with the rise of the PTO

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Speaker 1: as an alternative to the p t A, the national Organization,

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Speaker 1: the National Parent Teacher Association has been trying to break

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Speaker 1: away from that stereotype of the organization is something specifically

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Speaker 1: for UM. You know, upper class women who don't have jobs,

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Speaker 1: to be blunt about it, right, and they're they're taking

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Speaker 1: on different tax to try to get people to join

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Speaker 1: to to increase the ranks of the p t A.

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Speaker 1: And incoming President Oatha Thornton when he takes over, he'll

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Speaker 1: be the PTA's first male black president, So that's totally

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Speaker 1: different from the origins of the PTA back in the

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Speaker 1: progressive era. And he said that his strategies are encouraging

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Speaker 1: urban parents to become more involved in their local schools,

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Speaker 1: expanding outreach to rural schools, and training a whole new

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Speaker 1: wave of leaders from minority groups. And we should mention

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Speaker 1: too that the National PTA elected its first male president,

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Speaker 1: Charles J. Saylor in two thousand nine. And UM the

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Speaker 1: group has gotten together in recent years with the National

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Speaker 1: Center for Fathering to try to get more men, specifically engaged,

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Speaker 1: because there are plenty of studies that have found that

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Speaker 1: the more engaged parents are with their children's schools, typically

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Speaker 1: as a correlation with kids um improved academic achievement. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this has brought up in a New York Times article

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Speaker 1: talking about men's involvement in the p t A, and

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Speaker 1: they cited two thousand nine study by the National Congress

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Speaker 1: of Parents and Teachers There you Go and the National

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Speaker 1: Center for Fathering. They found that five hundred ninety out

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Speaker 1: of a thousand fathers surveyed nationwide said they attended school

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Speaker 1: parent meetings, which is up from four hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: out of a thousand a decade earlier. And so the

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Speaker 1: New York Times is looking into why more men are

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Speaker 1: getting involved, and the reasons are kind of interesting. It's

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Speaker 1: it's it's multi facim it. I'll say that. They point

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Speaker 1: out that more women have more demanding jobs, more men

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Speaker 1: are under employed during the recession, and there's more shared

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Speaker 1: parenting responsibilities going on. But they also bring up the

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Speaker 1: issue of the professionalization of the PTA, which could be

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Speaker 1: construed as a good thing or could be construed as

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Speaker 1: kind of offensive to the women who have historically run

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Speaker 1: the PTA. It's a little snarky, I'll I'll go ahead

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Speaker 1: and say it. Uh yeah. The New York Times points

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Speaker 1: out that, you know, women are coming in with more

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Speaker 1: advanced degrees and all of this job experience managerial experience,

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Speaker 1: and with that, they're coming into these meetings running them

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Speaker 1: more like board meetings than big sale organization will get togethers,

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Speaker 1: which I say, is you know, for for the plenty

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Speaker 1: of women out there who have raised a lot of

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Speaker 1: money from brownies and doing plenty of other things. It

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Speaker 1: was a little bit of a snarky jab on the

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Speaker 1: part of the New York Times. Yeah, and they say

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Speaker 1: that this whole professionalization thing makes men more comfortable, which

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Speaker 1: sounds like, I don't know, make the office nicer, put

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Speaker 1: out drinks. Let's all just be in madness. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I know it's not I know it's not to that extent,

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Speaker 1: but I think it's sort of silly to say that, um,

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Speaker 1: women being more professional and running companies makes men more

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Speaker 1: comfortable to join the p t A. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think that what we what we can agree on with this,

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Speaker 1: with this coverage of more men in the p t A,

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Speaker 1: is that a that is a fantastic thing. Yes, get

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Speaker 1: more men involved with their children's education, absolutely, and get

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Speaker 1: more men involved with improving school systems. That totally needs

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Speaker 1: to happen, especially because state and local governments are running

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Speaker 1: such major deficits right now and having to close down

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Speaker 1: schools entirely. UM. And they've found that, you know, the

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Speaker 1: more people that you get involved, men and women included,

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Speaker 1: the more of a community voice they have and more

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Speaker 1: of a local um force they have to every do

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Speaker 1: everything from get ineffective teachers out to getting more resources in. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there are other types of organizations springing up. There

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Speaker 1: was a Huffington Post article about parents Unions and how

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Speaker 1: there's this Los Angeles based nonprofit Parent Revolution that in

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Speaker 1: helped push a law through giving parents the authority to

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Speaker 1: force turnarounds at failing failing schools through petitions. And this

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Speaker 1: is great, but a lot of teachers are saying like, ah, oh,

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Speaker 1: not everything is the best idea. Not everything that parents

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Speaker 1: say should be law. Right. Um. The parent trigger laws,

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Speaker 1: which have also um, I don't know that they've taken effect,

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Speaker 1: but I know that they have been introduced in a

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Speaker 1: number of other state legislatures, are pretty controversial. But you know,

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Speaker 1: it's still the same issue of getting more parents involved

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Speaker 1: because a number of schools are failing and a lot

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Speaker 1: of times the most effective voices out there and the

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Speaker 1: most forceful voices are those parents because they have a

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Speaker 1: direct interest in their children succeeding UM. And and then

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Speaker 1: there's the issue two of organizing p t o s

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Speaker 1: and even UM p t as, although it's harder because

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Speaker 1: of that financial burden that comes along with it of

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Speaker 1: having to pay district, state, and national dues, but reaching

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Speaker 1: out to low income schools, to minority groups, to especially

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Speaker 1: talking about these these parent groups in California, reaching out

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Speaker 1: to Spanish speaking parents who might not be particip painting

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Speaker 1: because of language barriers. There's still so many um sort

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Speaker 1: of class and race barriers that still carry over from

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Speaker 1: when the roots of the organization were first formed. And

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of school districts that either don't

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Speaker 1: want you to have an independent parent group or who

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Speaker 1: don't want you to have a p t A. So

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Speaker 1: it kind of depends on your school district too. So

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Speaker 1: to me, the most enlightening thing that I learned about

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Speaker 1: the p t A is that it is certainly not

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Speaker 1: that stagnant image of of a bake sale of just

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Speaker 1: women getting together and chatting while their children are in school.

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Speaker 1: It's it's such a it's still evolving organization. And then

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Speaker 1: when you think about the p t o s and

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Speaker 1: then Parent Revolution and other parent groups that are getting involved.

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Speaker 1: It's the social progressive movement that continues even today, and

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Speaker 1: it's probably needed even more today than ever before because

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Speaker 1: of the failure rate and low grades in schools. Absolute

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Speaker 1: like it can only help to have parents involved at

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Speaker 1: some level in their kids schools. So tell us are

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Speaker 1: you are you a p t A member or are

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Speaker 1: you a PTO member? Or do were you turned off

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Speaker 1: from the school organization? There are plenty of blog posting

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Speaker 1: columns out there from teachers or parents, i should say,

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Speaker 1: and probably teachers who went to a meeting and were

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Speaker 1: immediately just sort of put off by the whole thing,

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Speaker 1: and teachers to do p t A s and p

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Speaker 1: t O s help your make your job easier or

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Speaker 1: are they a hindrance? There is so much information in

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Speaker 1: this podcast we kind of had to to gloss over

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Speaker 1: some things, but I hope to hear from a lot

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Speaker 1: of you because it is a it's an important topic

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Speaker 1: that has to do with a lot more than brownies exactly,

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Speaker 1: So send us your thoughts. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot

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00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: com is where you can direct those letters, and you

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Speaker 1: can also post stuff on Facebook as well and tweet

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Speaker 1: us at mom Stuff Podcasts. In the meantime, I've got

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Speaker 1: an email here on our episode of Yoga from Anne Marie,

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Speaker 1: and she was writing in specifically about the book we referenced,

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Speaker 1: The Science of Yoga Risks and Rewards by William J. Broad,

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Speaker 1: because Broad got a lot of press coverage from this book,

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00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: specifically focusing on the risks involved um in that in

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00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 1: that title, and so she writes, h the author of

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00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: that book is not anti yoga at all and is

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00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:26,520
Speaker 1: quick to point out the benefits of yoga. He has

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00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,719
Speaker 1: don yoga for years and acknowledges his part in his injury.

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00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 1: He's really trying to be accurate and factual about a

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00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: topic that seems to be defensively protected when its claims

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00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 1: are challenged. Yoga is not perfect, and it is a

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00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,159
Speaker 1: multimillion or billion dollar industry, so its proponents are not

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00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: necessarily going to be objective when their livelihoods are scientifically examined.

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Speaker 1: She also recommends listening to the NPR interview with William J.

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00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 1: Broad that shows more of his point of view, and

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00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: she also mentions that hot yoga does not sweat out toxins.

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Speaker 1: The whole toxin removal crisis pretty much all exaggeration. One

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00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: hint is that while people will claim removal of toxins,

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Speaker 1: they usually don't say specifically what these toxins are supposed

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Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, I mean, I have no idea. All

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00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: I know is that I was sweating out sweat, lots

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00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: of it, maybe because it's so exhausting. When you sweat

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00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 1: out so many things, you imagine that something terrible must

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00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: have exited your body, exactly like demons in. Okay, and

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00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,360
Speaker 1: I have an email from Katie. We are We're still

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00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 1: getting a lot of response about our potty politics episode.

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00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 1: I love them. So many squatting debate I know, and

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00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: and here's one of them. Sort of Um, she said,

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to share something that I realized about myself.

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00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 1: You made the comment that teaching young girls to squat

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Speaker 1: while urinating was the major segregation between the sexes growing up,

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00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: although that was us quoting someone else. Yes, yes, that

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00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: was in literature that we were quoting. Um. She said

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00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: that I was recently in a relationship and I was

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00:27:57,400 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: ashamed to learn that my boyfriend at the time would pee.

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00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 1: He's sitting down. I know his reasons for doing this

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00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: are likely because he works on a ship, and it's

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00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 1: just easier, But I have to say it really upset me.

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00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: I felt less attracted to him and hated the idea

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Speaker 1: that other people might found out find out that he

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00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:15,360
Speaker 1: did this. I know that this was just some really weird,

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00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: some subconscious thing that had nothing to do with who

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00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 1: he was or what he did, but it just bothered me.

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00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 1: I find nothing wrong with squatting to p for women. Sure,

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00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: if someone were to figure out some really great new

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00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: way to pee, I'm sure I would jump on board.

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00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:31,119
Speaker 1: But I have to question this ideal that everyone should

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00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: be the same. I am all for the equal rights

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00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,400
Speaker 1: women should have their own bathrooms, and as for transgendered people,

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00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: I would like to think that we were heading to

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00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: a world where if someone identifies themselves as a woman

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00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: or a man, then they can just use those bathrooms.

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Speaker 1: There is no secret to it. Everyone excreets to get

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00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: over it. I just want to get across it. Whether

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00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: you're a woman or a person who identifies as a woman,

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00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: it's all right to be feminine because there are so

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00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: many ways to be feminine that there is no way

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00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: you can go wrong if you just stick to what

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Speaker 1: you believe in. And yet the you of being ashamed

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Speaker 1: of of a guy peeing while sitting down. I'm raising

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00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: a wary eyebrow. Any any piece sitter mails out there,

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00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: I want to hear from you. I want to know

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00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: what you think about that letter. Mom Stuff at discovery

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00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: dot com is where you can send all of your thoughts,

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00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,280
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00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, and of course you

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00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: can read up on a lot of education policy over

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00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: at our home website, how stuff works dot com. Be

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00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from

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00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:41,160
Speaker 1: the Future. Join how stup Work staff as we explore

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00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house

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Speaker 1: stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it today

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