Dealing with a personal, national, or global tragedy?

Start a podcast network.

That’s what Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer did in 2019 when they launched Lemonada, “a women-run podcast network that shares the unfiltered version of the human experience.”

“We had this idea about making life suck less, through podcasts,” Cordova Kramer tells the New York Times.

Both women had lost brothers to drug overdoses, so they did a podcast about opioid use disorder. Then they launched other podcasts about things like policing, raising children, and healthcare. 

“What makes a show a Lemonada show?” the New York Times asks. “The founders have a checklist. Is it about a big problem? Does that problem affect a lot of people? Can the show offer solutions? ‘It’s not just, This sucks,’ Wittels Wachs said. ‘It’s like, What can we do?’ At times, that doing involves big-swing policy suggestions, but most recommendations are local and limited, often attitudinal, something typical listeners might achieve.”

Last winter, the Boston-based, early childhood nonprofit Neighborhood Villages asked Lemonada to do a podcast on the challenges of child care.

Lemonada said yes, and the brand new, limited series podcast “No One is Coming to Save Us,” was born. The Times calls it a mix of “history, first-person testimony and on-the-ground reportage.”

The first episode – “You’re Not Crazy. Childcare Is.” – is hosted by former television reporter Gloria Riviera and features actress Kristen Bell. It also features Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey from Neighborhood Villages, as well as the parents, teachers, and administrators from the Ellis Early Education Center in Boston.

This episode cuts to the bone, pointing out, as the episode summary explains, that “Parents are languishing on waitlists or drowning in tuition bills. Teachers are underpaid. And providers can barely afford to keep the lights on.”

In the second episode – “Birth of a Broken System” – Riviera “digs into the shame, guilt, and divisions baked into our earliest day nurseries, and reveals how old-fashioned gender norms and blatant racism killed promising federally-funded, early childcare programs.”

Rivera also interviews her mother about the issue.

Two more episodes will be released for a total of four.

A reader commenting on the Times article offers this review: “Click and listen to the child care podcasts everybody. They are amazing. I was weeping much of yesterday morning listening and remembering that trauma from 20-25 years ago. Can’t believe that it hasn’t gotten better, and of course Covid made it worse.”

Want to participate in the conversation?

Join the “No One is Coming to Save Us” Facebook group.

And please join us in thanking everyone at Neighborhood Villages and Ellis who shared their stories!