Reporting In From Maternity Leave
Episode 493 | Author: Emilie Aries
2025 is here, and it’s … a mixed bag. Let’s talk parenthood, politics, and podcasts.
While my loyal listeners won’t have seen a decline in episode frequency, this episode marks my return from maternity leave (I recorded the last episode back in September)...and I have thoughts. I’m kicking it off with my recap of the past few months and sharing my vision for Bossed Up in 2025.
I’ve transitioned from raising one to two children, nursed and diaper-changed my way through the dawn of Trump 2.0, and given a lot of thought to where I want this podcast and blog to go in the coming months. Let’s catch up, boss!
Getting political: election 2024
The last time I recorded a Bossed Up episode, things were looking up for the Kamala Harris campaign. Admittedly, that feels a bit naive in retrospect. I want to touch on two things that stood out to me over this tumultuous time:
First, this election was a lot more about men and masculinity than I’ve ever noticed before. The hyper-machismo version of masculinity that saturated the Trump campaign seems to have resonated with young male voters on a quest to redefine masculinity in the current moment.
The progressive alternative, embodied by Tim Walz as Kamala’s VP pick and Doug Emhoff as the supportive “second gentleman” figure by her side, provides a starkly different approach to modern manhood. As Ross Douthat put it in his NYT Op-Ed, Masculinity is On the Ballot, this election was “a referendum on masculinity in America.” What this highlighted to me most is our historical lack of venues for talking about men and masculinity. I’d like to begin exploring that topic a lot more in the year ahead.
The second thing I noticed was how political the podcasting world went during the campaign. From Trump’s record-shattering turn on Joe Rogan to Kamala’s highly publicized, if somewhat belated, interview on Call Her Daddy, we’re seeing podcasts becoming tools of persuasion in a whole new way.
This merging of two worlds I’ve long loved and been much a part of—politics and podcasting—made me question why I’ve kept my politics to a minimum on Bossed Up, even while our primary mission—closing leadership gaps—is inherently political. We have our advocacy page, Take Action on Systemic Solutions, full of ways you can get involved, but I’d like to explore politics even more going forward. But that doesn’t mean I only want to explore concepts from one side of the political aisle.
The echo chamber I and countless others found ourselves in during the election cycle is partly to blame for how convinced I was that Kamala’s ascendance was inevitable. I think political diversity is so important—and critically lacking—in our micro-targeted silo’d media channels, so I want to start talking to more people I don’t see eye to eye with and strive to do more than reinforce my pre-existing beliefs. In the face of DEI shutdowns, I think it’s radical to embrace political diversity alongside other forms of inclusion, too.
Becoming a girl mom in the era of Trump 2.0
Until my daughter Jojo was born, I honestly wasn’t sure which shift would be more groundbreaking for me and Brad the Dad: going from zero to one child or from one to two. I definitely have my answer now.
The transition from child-free to being a new mom was tumultuous in so many ways. At least for me, adding a second kiddo to the roster has been vastly easier. A big part has to do with what an easy baby Jo has been (at least so far). Max, my first, screamed for seven months straight, and mercifully, Jojo is just the opposite—such a happy baby. I am immensely grateful for that.
Furthermore, Brad and I just have so much more experience this time around. Our routine had already shifted dramatically when Max was born, so baby number two didn’t change much there. Plus, we learned how important it would be to accept help and be prepared. As a result of copious meal planning and the most amazing support from family and friends, we didn’t cook ourselves dinner for an entire month after Jo arrived.
But becoming a girl mom while my country reelected Donald Trump to the highest office in the land was a stark reminder of our nation’s discomfort with women in power. I’m curious how fellow parents of girls (and boys) old enough to understand are explaining America’s willingness to look past so much misogyny just because they weren’t ready to accept a woman in office. I’ve certainly got a battle ahead of me there.
What’s in store for Bossed Up in 2025
All that takes me back around to the more immediate consideration of what the Bossed Up podcast will look like this year.
My general theme for 2025, one I plan to adopt into the podcast as well, is integration. I wear a lot of hats— I’m an employee, an employer and entrepreneur, a mom, a wife, a friend, a podcaster, a real estate investor, and an advocate…I want to start exploring the interplay of all these roles.
Leaning into more political topics may also mean releasing more timely episodes reacting to what’s happening in the world right now. That means I can’t record episodes three months in advance, so we all might have to accept a slightly less polished final product. In exchange, though, you’ll get more unfiltered views, personal perspectives, and timely topics.
Thank you so much for being here for the ride as I experiment a bit with format and delve into varied content close to my heart in the coming months.
Now, I want to know where you’re at—what did you make of election 2024? If you’re a parent of two, what were your own experiences with adding a second child to the mix? You can always reach me at emilie@bossedup.org or weigh in in our Courage Community on Facebook or our group on LinkedIn.
You can also help the future of the Bossed Up podcast tremendously by rating or reviewing it on your chosen platform and telling your friends about the show. There are almost 500 episodes in the vault now, so I like to think there’s something for everyone!
Related Links From Today’s Episode:
Episode 479: America’s Parents Are Not Okay
Episode 477: The Impact of State Abortion Bans on HR Politics
Episode 469: Surprising Trends Impacting Women At Work
Episode 463: A Different Approach To My Second Maternity Leave
Boy Mom: Reimagining Boyhood In The Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman
NYT: Masculinity is on the Ballot
Discover new ways you can TAKE ACTION
and make your voice heard:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 493. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up, and this is my return from maternity leave episode.
[INTRO MUSIC ENDS]
This is the first episode I've recorded since, I want to say, September. Yep, September 2024. So everything you've been receiving in your earbuds for the last few months was recorded before the election, before the arrival of my beautiful daughter, Jo, Baby Jo, Jojo, as we like to call her, who is four months old as of this week, as of this recording. And wow, it's been a wild ride these past few months and just this first month of 2025. Oh, my god, what a s*** show. So bear with me, buckle up.
I want to just kind of share with you where my head's at and what I'm feeling and share a little bit about my vision for the podcast moving forward in 2025 and how that pertains to you. And frankly, I want to get your thoughts and feedback on how the show is evolving a little bit. I also want to share a little bit about the transition from one to two kiddos on my end and kind of where my head's at on that front. I know a lot of you listening, our parents or our aspiring parents someday, or who at the very least work with parents. And so just weighing in on that is something I want to talk about briefly, as well as the concept of becoming a girl mom in the age of Trump 2.0.
So that's a lot. I'm all over the place. I am not sure I remember how to podcast, so bear with me. But let's start with this election, shall we? November 2024. I was sitting there pulling my hair out, thinking, holy s***, I just recorded all of those episodes where I'm like, hopeful, and ignorant, and just sound so naive in retrospect at the prospect of having America's first black woman, Indian American woman president. Something I thought we were headed towards, and clearly we were not. I have a lot of feelings about how this election went, but two things in particular I think are relevant here.
One is, everywhere I looked, every headline I consumed, every data point I looked at throughout this election cycle always came back to men and masculinity for me. I think the Trump campaign really embodied this hyper machismo quest to redefine masculinity. Whether it was Hulk Hogan tearing his shirt off at the Republican National Convention or it was the just breakdown in terms of how young voters went for Trump in really great numbers when it came to young men in particular, and young women are more pro-liberal and Democratic policies than ever before. There are some really interesting things happening in the world of men and masculinity.
Now, that was really ironic considering the historic nature of Kamala Harris's candidacy. She did not make her gender a big deal, quite frankly. Nobody seemed to make gender central on the feminist side of the equation, even though conversations around reproductive justice were so central and have been so central to our federal politics in the past few years. And so everything I was reading and consuming had me really thinking a lot about men and masculinity, a topic I want to dive into so much more on the podcast moving forward, so more to come on that front, because I just think there's a lot going on with men, and there's not historically been many avenues or venues really for men to talk about masculinity or for anyone to talk about masculinity. It's just like how talking about racism has historically meant talking about people of color and minority races, as opposed to white people talking about being white and whiteness and white supremacy. So that, to me, is sort of the radical next step of the feminist movement is to talk more about men, and I'd like to do some of that myself.
The other thing I saw that really stood out to me and feels relevant here is, d***, did podcasts go political or what? Right, Podcasts. And this sort of micro targeting of our communication channels was really on display in this election cycle. You know, Kamala Harris appeared on Call Her Daddy. I don't know if you saw the video version of the podcast or listened to that audio. But podcasts really were leveraged as a tool, some would argue a little too late and a little too sparingly by the Harris campaign. But we really saw Donald Trump on Joe Rogan's show, on a lot of different podcasts, again, related to this hyper masculine sort of manosphere around podcasting that has emerged.
But podcasts really seem to become tools of political persuasion in a way that I haven't seen before, which I found really interesting and actually really inspiring, because I think if you've listened to the show for a while, you may know my whole background is political, and I've stayed away from politics on the podcast somewhat. I think that's changed in the past year or so, as I've talked more about things like the CHIPS act, the CHIPS and Science Act here on the podcast, or talked more about abortion politics in the podcast in recent years. But my whole background is as a political organizer. I was a poli-sci major in college. My first real job, as I like to call it, was working for the Democratic National Committee. I was a state director with the Obama campaign.
So seeing this merger between two worlds that I care much about, like politics, politics and podcasts, was very interesting and called into question for me why I have kept politics, especially partisan politics, out of my podcasting world and out of the Bossed Up brand. In some ways, because Bossed Up is about leadership development and career development. We're not a political organization. And yet, as an organization committed to closing the gender leadership gap and other kinds of leadership gaps, like racial leadership gaps and whatnot, this work is inherently political. So in the past year we started our advocacy page over bossedup.org/takeaction. A lot more of what I've covered on this show has expanded beyond the personal, hyper individualist sphere of what you can do, right, to advocate for yourself, into what we need to do as a country and as a world, and what we need to do as women to advocate for systemic policy change.
So that shift to me feels like it's continuing and I'm headed in a more political direction moving forward. That's not to say that I don't really value political diversity. In fact, something I found really concerning about this year's election was just how much of an echo chamber most of us found ourselves in. Part of the reason I thought this election was headed in a different direction is because that's every bit of data and information that was headed my way from the algorithms that determine what information I get on social media, reinforced my pre-existing beliefs.
And I really am feeling, especially after going through the Governor's Fellowship program that I went through last year here in Colorado, run by a great nonpartisan nonprofit organization called Civico, all about civic engagement. I not only made more friends across the political spectrum than I've ever had before, but I just engaged in more political discourse that was from a place of curiosity and seeking to understand as opposed to seeking to persuade. And with that lens, I could recognize how much of an echo chamber I and so many of us were in in 2024 in terms of our political news media diet. And that really concerns me.
So, when I say that I'm going, I'm interested in going more political on this podcast. I am interested in talking politics, but I'm not interested in only talking with people who I agree with or only reinforcing beliefs that you might already have. So if we don't agree politically, if we're not coming from the same place on the political spectrum. I think that's a really good thing. I think that's a healthy kind of diversity that we should continue to embody, especially in the age of diversity, equity and inclusion going extinct. I think political diversity is a form of diversity that we should value and advocate for. So more on that in, in future episodes coming your way.
Now, at the end of the day, to me, the personal is political. And so I want to also share some more personal realities and personal updates with you all because I feel like we're friends, right? And this is what I've been telling my friends about going from, you know, having a three year old to now having a three year old and a four month old. I'm interested maybe in bringing Brad back on the podcast, Brad, the dad, my husband, to get his take too. So let me know if you'd be interested in that because we've been doing a lot of talking and intentional sort of planning around our family life lately. But for me, one of the biggest questions going into this pregnancy and just going into this maternity leave was what would be more groundbreaking and like identity shattering for me? Was it going from zero to one, you know, going from child free to having my first baby, or would it be going from having one kid to two kids?
And for me, the answer has been a resounding, clear, definitive answer. Which is going from 0 to 1 was way harder than going from 1 to 2 kids. In fact, I found the transition of adding Baby Joe into our lives to be one full of joy and relatively easy in retrospect. And that's really different than a lot of my girlfriends and a lot of my family friends who I'm around right now who are navigating the similar transition. But for us, I think it had to do with a few factors. One, Max, my first, was a really challenging newborn. He had a ton of feeding issues. Breastfeeding was a nightmare. He was basically screaming all the time for seven months on end. And JoJo has been the opposite. I feel like I really got the redo, the do-over that I'd been hoping for in this maternity leave, in having four beautiful months with a baby who is relatively chill, happy, go lucky, charming, giggly, cute little baby who's been feeding really well.
So she had her own fair share of issues. She had reflux, which is no walk in the park. But compared to Max, she's a much, much easier baby. And for that I am forever grateful. The other reason, I think that going from one to two kids was a lot easier than zero to one is because your life already has to radically change, when you go from zero to one, right? For us, at least, that means we are almost always having dinner together as a family. That means my workday has to end at 5:00 and so does Brad's. That means we're already managing daycare pickup for Max. Like that whole compression of our free time in the morning and at the end of the day, that has already happened. So you might as well add another kid onto that in terms of the economics of scale, in my opinion. So having another baby is like, yeah, that's definitely more of a juggle logistically, but your time is already not your own, [LAUGHTER] so it's a lot less surprising to me this time around.
And that brings me to the third element of what made this easier is just a little more experience going in, just being a little less naive around what having a kid is all about and what having a newborn is about. We really did prepare better, which is funny because that was the entire point of the episode I recorded before my maternity leave about how I was preparing differently this time around. And I can now kind of go back in time and pat myself on the back from the past to say, you were right, because asking for support is something I did a lot more explicitly this time. Getting really helpful support when it came to postpartum meals. And doing a lot of meal prep absolutely paid off and was super clutch. I mean, we didn't cook dinner for an entire month after the baby's arrival. So between friends coming over with meals, loved ones from afar, sending us doordash gift cards and my own freezer stash of casseroles that I prepared and baked in, you know, froze ahead of time. We were set up for success and that made it really, really easy.
So, yeah, let me know if you'd be interested in an episode with me and Brad talking more about this, because our family dynamics are definitely shifting and influx, especially because I'm about to go back to work full time. So I said, I'm recording this, you know, post maternity leave, but technically I have one more day of maternity leave. So this next transition, you know, next week when I go back to work full time, will be interesting. But overall, 10 out of 10, adding a second kiddo to the family has been joyful, has been fun, and seeing Max become a big brother has been the most fun part of it all. But more on that later. I'd be really curious to hear about your experience if you've gone from zero to one, or one to two kiddos in your household, which did you find more earth shattering?
There's an episode coming out soon on Matrescence, which is coming out next week with author Lucy Jones. And it's one of the interviews that I recorded before JoJo arrived. And I kind of asked her, like, what should I prepare for when it comes to my identity crisis of motherhood? And she had some really interesting things to say that I can now verify. Like, yeah, there's definitely more of an identity expansion or identity crisis, if you want to call it that. But to me, it really rocked me the first time around and so far I'm feeling f****** pretty good going into this second time around.
That said, even though personally, it feels like everything in our household is going pretty well right now, this state of the world is not being on the sidelines with a new baby girl at home. Watching this past election, this past November play out was really painful in a new kind of way. Watching my fellow Americans re-elect Donald Trump, it felt like such a rejection of women and girls. Being a girl mom just puts in such sharp focus how much it feels like this country hates women. And you can't help but think, like, am I raising a daughter who genuinely will have fewer rights than I do? And maybe she already does, right? Because the right to an abortion nationally has already gone away with the overturn of Roe v. Wade. And so just knowing that, okay, sure, we had a ballot initiative that passed here in Colorado in November to codify a woman's right to an abortion in our state constitution. That's great. We've got state protections, but that doesn't mean those things can't go away with federal actions that might be coming our way any week now, any day now with a Trump 2.0 administration. So part of the deep sadness and grief that I experienced after Election Day was that I was on mat leave at that point with a two month old. JoJo was born at the end of September. So yeah, a month and a half old. So like 6 week old baby girl sitting in my arms watching this country re elect Donald Trump, thinking to myself, what message are we sending to you, baby Joe? Like, how are we okay with this? How are we okay saying to our daughters or even having to explain to our daughters how this country could just look past so many disqualifying experiences that Donald Trump brings to the table, not just characteristics, but crimes this person has committed because we don't want to elect a woman. It just really felt like America was saying, no matter how qualified a woman is. And to be fair, Kamala Harris wasn't the perfect candidate. Okay, you don't have to, like, love her. But to say that we can look past, as an electorate, look past all of the shortcomings of Donald Trump, all the misogyny, it's just, it feels hard to explain. And someday I might have to explain that to Baby Joe.
I tip my hat to all the parents out there listening who have school age kids who actually know what's going on. And literally, like, if you have a teenage daughter, having to actually explain that to her the day after election day breaks my heart. So I'd be curious to hear from other folks who are girl moms, girl dads, girl parents out there, or even boy parents. Like, what does that feel like for you? One of the books that I'm really interested to see just came out this past summer by Ruth Whippman, Boy Mom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity. She covers a lot of what I'm talking about when I talk about men and masculinity being top of mind for me this past election cycle. Like, what message are we sending to our little boys by re-electing Donald Trump? Just as much as it's important to ask, what message are we sending to our little girls?
So it's a weird time and it's a bad time. It's a scary time. And I'm hopeful that we can do two things. Protect ourselves, advocate for ourselves. You know, grab for and reach for whatever rights we have left. And also not forget that those around us who are most vulnerable need our advocacy too.
Okay, let me wrap this up by just talking a little bit about my vision for the podcast. This year I am feeling called, generally speaking, beyond the podcast, just in general, I'm feeling called towards integration. I feel like I have a lot of different hats that I wear, especially since I took on that full time job in house, in leadership development for an aerospace company last February. So about a year ago now. I just have a lot of different identities that I'm juggling right now. Mom, wife, friend, sure, but also employee, and employer, and real estate investor, and like lots of other aspects to what I do, there's just a lot going on. There's a lot of perspectives that I bring to the table.
I want to talk more about all of them. I want to integrate them. I want them to all show up and inform how I do what I do. And that might mean covering more topics on the podcast beyond something that perfectly fits into the leadership development or career development boxes. And you've already seen me do this over the last year. In some ways, I just want to do more of that. And that includes more advocacy and more politics. And what I have to remind myself of, which is hard for me as this type a Virgo, overachiever that I am, is that that might mean less polish. I want to be a little more timely. I want to speak to current events. And that means maybe getting episodes out without recording, I don't know, three months worth of episodes, months in advance of their release.
And I have an amazing team behind the scenes here at Bossed Up that really helps me because come across as polished as I can be. But maybe I need to lower the bar for myself a little bit. Like, if I want to be more timely, if I want to be more unvarnished in a way, then less polish is what I'm aiming for. A broader array of topics beyond that, which is just my area of expertise. I need to give myself permission, or I want to give myself permission to have a broader array of discussions with you. And frankly, to make these a little bit more personal and give you some more, like, heads up as to what's going on in my life.
Someone who does this really well is Marc Maron. His podcast is WTF with Marc Maron. And he always kind of starts with personal musings and the current events and the news of the day, and then he digs into an episode interview and I don't know, I'd be curious. I might experiment with format here because we've been doing a very similar super concise podcast structure for years now. And I do respect your time. So I want to get to the point quickly. I don't want to babble constantly like I am right now, but I want to experiment a little bit more. And so you might see me try some new things, try some different formats and just experiment a little bit with different topics than that which perfectly aligns with my content pillars and blah, blah, blah, entrepreneurship best practices, you know what I mean?
You might also see some reruns come your way because we've almost got 500 episodes in the bank. And I guarantee you, if you're listening to this episode, you may have missed one or two in the past 500 weeks that I've been producing original content. So you may hear some reruns not often, but coming your way so that I can kind of free myself a little bit to be responsive and be timely, and be a little less super ahead of my production schedule all the time.
So let me know what you think. And thank you in advance for coming along for the ride. I really do appreciate you being here. I respect your time. I respect the fact that your attention is in constant demand by a million other sources beyond me. And I hope that I make the most of it. I hope that you get something really meaningful and productive out of your time here, our time spent together. Because at the end of the day, that's what I want to do. I want to deliver to you the resources that help you boss up in your life. So I'd be curious to hear what you're looking for more of or less of, and what you make of my vision for the podcast in the year ahead.
So please know that my inbox is always open. I truly, genuinely love hearing from listeners like you. So shoot me a note emilie@bossedup.org or the best way to let me know what you're thinking and how you're feeling is to rate and review the show. I'm very proud of our 4, 8 out of 5 star rankings on Apple podcasts and I always read any review that you leave me. The most recent one was a five star review, thank you very much titled A Must Listen. And this person wrote, “Emilie covers relevant topics with actionable takeaways. Love her conversational approach”. Oh, I love that. Thank you, LHN546, whoever you are. That's what I'm hoping to do. Keeping it conversational, keeping it personal, but also keeping it relevant and actionable for you always. So if you haven't in a while or you haven't yet, go rate and review in Apple podcasts or the absolute best thing you can do for the show, which I am looking to really focus on growing our show in the year ahead, is to share this show.
You know, share Bossed Up the podcast with the folks in your world who you think would appreciate it or share specific episodes when they come out on social media via email as a discussion topic with your friends. Because your recommendation is how the show grows. And so I'm looking to do that in 2025. We're going to experiment with a few things and I really appreciate you for being an OG and being here already. All right, I've rambled enough. Thank you for bearing with me. Thank you for being here throughout my maternity leave. I am so excited. Like the mama bear in me, I think surprises me how much of an appetite I have for work right now.
[OUTRO MUSIC IN]
But as someone who's coming off of four months of being at home full time. I am so rearing to go. I have so much I want to talk about and I cannot wait to dive into it all with you. So thanks as always for listening and for being here. And as always, let's continue to lift as we climb.
[OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]
