Relationscapes: Exploring How We Relate, Love, and Belong

Adoption is often framed as a loving and selfless decision made by women who want to give their babies a better life—but many relinquishing mothers say it doesn’t actually feel like a real choice at all.
Private domestic adoption in the U.S. operates under conditions of high demand, limited supply, and deep economic inequality. Researchers say women rarely choose adoption over abortion or parenting, and many relinquishing parents report long-term trauma. 
Sociologist Gretchen Sisson draws on a decade of interviews in her book Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood to examine who adoption really serves—and who it leaves behind. 
She invites us to rethink adoption from the ground up, and asks what real support for families would actually look like.
Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 
Show Notes
Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children, by Viviana A. Zelizer
The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion, by Diana Greene Foster
Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation, Ruth Wilson Gilmore 
Fellow Traveler Episodes
Relationscapes, "The Truth About Transracial Adoption, (with Angela Tucker)"
Relationscapes, "What Disabled Parents Can Teach Everyone About Parenting (with Jessica Slice)"
Relationscapes, "The Rebellious Act of Disabled Parenting (with Eliza Hull)"
Relationscapes, "The Growing Perils of Pregnancy in America (with Irin Carmon)"
About the Guest
Gretchen Sisson studies abortion and adoption in the United States as a sociologist at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, based on hundreds of in-depth interviews with women who have relinquished infants for domestic adoption over the past 60 years.

We’re a little over halfway through January and already it's been...well, a lot. The Trump administration kidnapped the de facto Venezuelan president. The chairman of the Federal Reserve announced he’s being targeted for prosecution because the president wants to control monetary policy. A queer mother in Minneapolis was shot in the head in broad daylight by ICE, who is occupying the city, and the government has been trying to portray her as a terrorist. And etc.
Andrea Pitzer is one of my favorite political analysts right now, and I asked her how we might make it out of this mess. She explains why the current moment feels so destabilizing, how mass detention becomes normalized, why exhaustion and disengagement are themselves political dangers, and what history tells us about stopping things before they get worse.
This is a conversation about realism without despair, urgency without panic, and about how ordinary people can still matter. Especially when the future feels uncertain.
Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 
Show Notes
Next Comes What? podcast
Degenerate Art newsletter
Megan Piantowski's ICE zines.
Dan Sinker's ICE whistle project
About the Guest
Andrea Pitzer is a journalist and author, known for her books One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps, The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov, and Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World (2021). She hosts the popular podcast Next Comes What and writes the newsletter Degenerate Art.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade, which allowed states to outlaw abortion, has had devastating consequences for women across the country—especially because the American health care system was already making pregnancy more dangerous and more unequal in blue states and red states alike.
In her new book Unbearable, journalist Irin Carmon tells the stories of five women whose experiences uncover the realities of pregnancy in America: infertility, abortion, miscarriage, criminalization, racial inequality, and more. Their stories reveal a central truth: America has made choices that make pregnancy more unbearable for more of us. They also reveal how none of this is inevitable or permanent. 
Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 
Show Notes
Irin Carmon's New York magazine archive
About the Guest
Irin Carmon is a senior correspondent at New York magazine and co-author of Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her latest book is Unbearable: Five Women and the Perils of Pregnancy in America. 

What happens when you stop chasing romantic love entirely?
After ending a catastrophic relationship, acclaimed author Melissa Febos took an unexpected step: despite being a serial relationshipper, she decided to take a personal vow of celibacy.
What began as a three-month break became a full year that transformed how she understood desire, boundaries, people-pleasing, and love itself. In her latest book The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex, Febos reflects on addiction-like romance, the freedom of solitude, feminist role models across history, and how abstaining from sex helped her reclaim agency to build healthier, more generous relationships. She joins us to talk about it in this episode. 
Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 
Show Notes
Annie Dillard, “Living Like Weasels”
Audre Lorde, "The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power"
Radiolab, "Choice," November 17, 2008; Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Top ten Roadrunner cartoons as curated by some guy on YouTube for his nieces
What Your Therapist Thinks podcast 
About the Guest
Melissa Febos is the author of five books, including the national bestselling essay collection, Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Her craft book, Body Work (2022), was also a national bestseller Her new memoir, The Dry Season, was published by Alfred. A. Knopf in June 2025.
The recipient of fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the National Endowment for the Arts, the British Library, MacDowell, the Bogliasco Foundation, the Black Mountain Institute, LAMBDA Literary, the American Library in Paris, and others, Melissa's work has appeared in publications like The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Best American Essays, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Elle, and Vogue.
She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is the Roy J. Carver Professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program. She lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly. From melissafebos.com.

We grow up swimming in gender stereotypes: men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Men are rational and women are emotional. The binary cliches are everywhere, but are they true?
Daphna Joel is a neuroscientist who wanted to know what the science actually says. When she looked at real brains she discovered that each person carries a unique mix of traits, a true mosaic that defies the old binary.
Daphna Joel joins us to talk about her groundbreaking book Gender Mosaic: Beyond the Myth of the Male and Female Brain.
Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 
 
Show Notes
Do your own gender mosaic at https://gendermosaic.tau.ac.il.
 
About the Guest
Daphna Joel, PhD, is author of Gender Mosaic: Beyond the Myth of the Male and Female Brain. She is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. She has combined her expertise as a neuroscientist with her interest in gender studies to revolutionize the field of sex, brain and gender.

The Bible remains one of the world's most influential books, impacting  believers and non-believers alike. As Christian nationalists gain more power over American politics right now, it's as important as ever to understand how the Bible is used to justify laws about abortion, gay marriage, child abuse, and more. Luckily, Bible scholar Dan McClellan is here to give us the data. He's become wildly famous on TikTok unpacking what the Bible really says about these contentious issues, and many more besides.
His new book is called The Bible Says So: What We Get Right and Wrong about Scripture's Most Controversial Issues. Dan joins us to talk about it, about what it's like being a prominent TikToker, about his personal background, about comics, and more.  
Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 
About the Author
Dan McClellan is a public scholar of the Bible and religion and author of the New York Times bestseller, The Bible Says So: What We Get Right and Wrong about Scripture's Most Controversial Issues. He received his PhD in theology and religion from the University of Exeter. He enjoys confronting misinformation related to the Bible and religion online. He goes by @maklelan on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. 

The Department of Education is being dismantled before our eyes. Why does it matter, and can it be rescued? Reporter Laura Pappano joins us with updates on these things, and her latest visit to the Moms for Liberty conference in Florida, where a new tactic is emerging. 
Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 
Show Notes
"Moms for quote-unquote 'Liberty,' (with Laura Pappano)," Relationscapes (September 2, 2025)
Relationscapes, "How Children's Rights Impact Everyone (with Adam Benforado)."
Recent Laura Pappano articles: 
"Moms (and Cool, Young Podcasters) for Liberty," Slate (October 20, 2025).
"At Moms for Liberty summit, parents urged to turn their grievances into lawsuits," The Hechinger Report (October 20, 2025).
"The new reality with universal school vouchers: Homeschoolers, marketing, pupil churn," The Hechinger Report (November 6, 2025).
 
About the Author
Laura Pappano is an award-winning education journalist, author, and founder of The New Haven Student Journalism Project. Her latest book is called School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics and the Battle for Public Education. She is a former education columnist for The Boston Globe, and has published work in places like The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Salon, The Washington Post, USA Today, Slate, The Atlantic, and The Christian Science Monitor. 

Shen Yang broke the law simply by being born. It was the 1980s in China, and according to the One Child Policy, her parents weren't allowed to have her. They sent her away with relatives, and what followed were years of cruelty and neglect, but also defiance and the will to thrive.
It's hard to find stories directly from excess children. Shen Yang's book is a rare gem. It's called More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter. She joins us to talk about it in this episode. 
Full transcript is available here at relationscapes.org. 
About the Author
Shen Yang is author of the book, More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter.

Chelsey Goodan says that for too long, teenage girls have been undervalued and overlooked. As a longtime tutor and mentor to hundreds of girls from many different backgrounds, Chelsey realized why so many were anxious and hurting. Because too many people treat teenage girls as problems to be controlled or solved. Chelsey says they have much to offer on topics like perfectionism, friendship, identity, shame, power, and more. 
Whether you’re a parent, teacher, mentor, or just curious, this conversation will help you better appreciate what teenage girls have to offer. 
Full transcript available at relationscapes.org. 
Show Notes
DemocraSHE, empowering young women to become leaders. 
About the Author
Chelsey Goodan is the founder of The Teenage Girl Cabal, which is a secret society of girls who are changing the world. As the author of the USA Today bestselling book Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls, Goodan reveals how the wisdom of teenage girls can create positive change for society at large.
After 16 years working as an academic tutor and mentoring girls from underserved communities, Goodan gathered key insights about teenage girls’ struggles with self-doubt, authenticity, confidence, leadership, connection, and power.

What does real support for trans kids look like in this fraught political moment? Ben V. Greene audaciously but persuasively suggests we try a joy-centered approach.
Greene explains what parents and other loved ones can do when they’re uncertain about how to be there for trans kids, and why curiosity and compassion—not being perfect—makes all the difference.
Green also explores what affirming therapy really is (and isn’t), how belonging improves mental health, and why love and understanding—not panic—save lives. This is a hopeful, human conversation for anyone trying to support a trans child or teen.
Full transcript available at relationscapes.org. 
 
About the Guest
Ben V. Greene is author of the book, My Child Is Trans, Now What? A Joy-Centered Approach to Support. As a transgender man, Ben works as an LGBTQ+ inclusion consultant who has dedicated his career to spreading empathy, awareness, and understanding about the transgender community. He is active on the speaking circuit, with audiences ranging from the UK’s Diversity Live! to NASA. Ben is a guest lecturer on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Cornell University in addition to serving on the board of the Tufts Master’s Degree in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He resides in St. Louis, Missouri.