Parents Talk Back

Two weeks before journalist and podcaster Anna Stoecklein was set to interview Cherie Blair, international human rights lawyer and wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, she made a bold request.

Stoecklein asked if Blair would text one of her close friends to see if she would do the interview along with her.

The gamble paid off: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be joining Blair on Stoecklein's podcast, "The Story of Woman."

Stoecklein had never done an in-person interview before. Her podcast -- about women's long march to equality, how we got here and what still needs to be changed -- was barely a year old with fewer than a hundred subscribers on YouTube. So, how did this former ER nurse from St. Charles, Missouri, nab an exclusive interview with two of the world's most influential women?

Stoecklein, 32, has been remaking her own life in recent years. She was born and raised in a conservative suburb in the Midwest, graduated with a nursing degree from the University of West Florida, came back to work in St. Louis and, within a year, moved to New York City with her boyfriend. They married a year later.

She worked as an ER nurse in Manhattan for a few years -- overworked and burned out -- until she realized her job had become untenable and dangerous.

"I spent all my days off Googling nonclinical nursing jobs," she said. She landed a position in the medical device sales industry. A few years later, her husband was offered a job opportunity in London, and the couple jumped at the chance to live abroad. Stoecklein found another position in medical device sales, then moved to a health tech startup.

During the pandemic, she started reading nonfiction books centered around gender and feminism. She said she had never really thought about how the world was designed by and for men.

"It was the first time I was exposed to some of these ideas," she said. "Reading these types of books really blew my mind."

This new knowledge gave her the words to understand her own experiences and ideas. She felt compelled to share what she was learning with others. Around the same time, she was realizing that her marriage was no longer working, despite the couple still loving and supporting one another. She quit her job to start her podcast, moved out a few months later and took on freelancing work to pay the bills.

"When something doesn't feel right, I feel like I have to change, even when I don't know exactly where I'm going," she said.

But wasn't it daunting to tackle so much life-altering change at once?

"My parents instilled in me a belief and confidence in myself," she said. They taught her that she could figure things out on her own. She credits that with her ability to adapt and thrive in the midst of uncertainty.

So when her podcast caught the ear of a friend who worked at Blair's foundation, Stoecklein put together a proposal for an interview and persisted for months to lock it down.

Once she nabbed her high-profile guests, she reread their autobiographies, watched Clinton's documentary and prepared for the interview around the clock. The day of the interview, she was full of emotions.

"I felt the enormity of the weight of history in the room," she said. Clinton's warmth and kindness put her immediately at ease. The conversation between Blair and Clinton flowed like banter between good friends.

"They had this incredibly beautiful energy," Stoecklein said.

She used the moment to launch a series of woman changemakers on her show. In addition to world leaders, she's interviewed Nobel Laureate and Yemeni journalist Tawakkol Karman, Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, and several bestselling authors, CEOs and global activists.

Stoecklein's passion for her work is evident when she talks about her own journey.

She's living proof that big ideas can transform lives.

Driving has been getting deadlier in America for the past three years, and one popular theory suggests that it's because of reduced enforcement of traffic laws.

When drivers know they are less likely to get caught or punished, they're more likely to drive recklessly. Increasing enforcement and creating harsher penalties for the most egregious infractions are likely to be effective deterrents for a particular group of deliberately dangerous drivers.

But the rising number of fatalities on the road has multiple causes.

Consider the rate of traffic fatalities in Missouri -- significantly worse than the national average and in the bottom third among states. The state's laws contribute to deadlier driving: We're among the minority of states that do not require new drivers to take a driver's education course before getting a license. Riders in the backseat are not required to wear a seatbelt, even though wearing one reduces the risk of dying in an accident. In 2020, Missouri repealed its helmet law for motorcycle riders over the age of 25. Unsurprisingly, motorcycle fatalities jumped 35%. Unlike those in other states, Missouri's texting-and-driving law only applies to commercial drivers and people under the age of 21. And anyone is allowed to use a cellphone for calls, making the texting law hard to enforce.

Speed, distraction, impairment and fatigue all contribute to accidents and traffic deaths.

Attempts to create safer drivers for the long haul have fallen flat here. Many schools cut driver's ed programs years ago -- if they had ever offered them at all.

In 2021, then-state Rep. Mark Ellebracht, a Democrat from Clay County, introduced a bill requiring driver's ed after one of his constituents lost a grandson in an accident involving young drivers. Ellebracht said there was support for the proposal from the insurance industry because teens who have gone through a structured course have a lower risk of getting into an accident or getting a traffic ticket.

Even so, "no one took it seriously," Ellebracht said. In 2017, Rep. Galen Higdon, a Republican from St. Joseph, also proposed bringing driver's ed back to Missouri schools and proposed a funding mechanism to pay for it.

It went nowhere.

Rob Droege, president of the Missouri Driver Safety Education Association, also teaches a classroom-based driver's ed course in the Lindbergh school district. Students can sign up for behind-the-wheel driving lessons offered after school, but they cost $200 for four hours. (That's much lower than what commercial driving schools charge.) He said it's hard for schools to even find instructors because fewer trainers obtain the certification now that the course is not required.

While some school districts offer free in-class instruction, it's the practice behind the wheel that is crucial for young drivers. Making that education and experience free in the areas with the highest accident and fatality rates would improve traffic safety for every driver on the road.

Missouri requires a new driver to practice for 40 hours with a parent, grandparent, guardian or instructor before obtaining a license, but that's a far cry from requiring instruction from a certified professional.

"How many are even doing 40 hours, truthfully?" Droege asked. Plus, practices have changed since many adults first learned to drive. For example, new drivers are no longer taught to hold the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions, he said.

Simon Anderson, owner of the Coach Harder Driving School, said his company is seeing student drivers with more anxiety and stress than they did five or 10 years ago.

A parent may not be well-equipped to teach their teen how to drive. Meanwhile, the lack of a required class means fewer new drivers understand the risks involved.

"We are doing a disservice by not having it," Anderson said. While he understands there would be a cost associated with requiring driver's ed, like the majority of states in the country do, there's also a cost associated with having large numbers of poorly trained drivers on the road.

"In many ways, we're paying for it," Anderson said.

A few weeks before Christmas, Amanda Mullen was up late at night with the family calendars, trying to plan her school-aged kids' summer activities -- more than six months away.

Dawn Morgan sets alarms an hour in advance of when camp registration begins in the winter.

Every year, as February inches closer, Ben Westhoff feels his blood pressure start to rise.

"I know camp applications are coming up," the father of two said.

Parents of school-aged children across the country are familiar with the anxiety and stress that come with finding summer childcare -- and it's only getting worse.

Parents are dealing with summer camps that are short-staffed, along with rising prices and waitlists as soon as registration opens. It's an indictment of America's broken child care infrastructure, which is vital to keeping people working.

Mullen said her daughter has participated in a Girl Scouts camp every year since kindergarten. This past month, Mullen logged in to sign her up just a few hours after the registration began. Now, she's on a waitlist.

"It's really hard to find a full-day program," she said. She tries to keep track of the different registration times for each of the four or five different camps her children attend over the summer. She has to juggle pickup and drop-off times for the various locations and relies on her parents, who live locally, to help out during the weeks when camps aren't available.

Even though she sets a series of alarms for each registration -- 15 minutes before, then 5 minutes before -- things can slip through the cracks.

"It's pretty cutthroat," she said. For now, her son is signed up for an astronaut camp about 45 minutes away from where they live.

"We just have to figure out a way to get him there," she said.

Westhoff, who has two elementary school-aged children, said the stakes are high for working parents: If kids don't get into camp, you can't work that week.

Plus, many camp offerings only run from 9 a.m. to noon.

"Who only wants their kids in camp for three hours a day?" he asked.

The process of signing up is a byzantine hodgepodge of paperwork and outdated websites. Westhoff has to gather medical records and other information from doctors for the five different sets of forms required by the various camps his children will be attending.

One of the forms has an extensive section for parents to describe their kids' personality traits, fears and activities, as well as their hopes and dreams for the camp experience.

"It feels like a Myers-Briggs test," Westhoff said. "Who is going to fill this all out?"

He doesn't understand why there can't be a universal camp form, like colleges use for applicants.

Part of the problem is that America expects families with full-time working parents to figure out child care with little support or resources. The need for affordable, full-day summer care options has been a persistent problem for years.

Morgan, who works as a paralegal, says she coordinates with another parent so they can share summer carpool duties. The camp they are trying to get their children into gives preference to local residents, so Morgan has to wait a week before she can even attempt to sign up.

"If I can't get in, (my friend) has to cancel, and we have to find something somewhere else," she said. They need the transportation help from one another.

"It's a pure struggle," she said. "Most parents work nowadays, and no one understands that."

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 81.2% of employed mothers with children ages 6 to 17 worked full-time in 2021, compared with 77.2% of mothers with children under age 6. Among employed fathers, 95.7% of those with older children and 95.3% of those with younger children worked full-time.

Plus, there's the guilt of having to send children to a camp all summer that they may not want to attend simply because of logistics, timing, location and cost.

"This isn't a new problem," Morgan said. "It's been going on for years. No one seems to care to help or fix anything."