706: The Second Slap Plus Leah Libresco Sargeant  ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Liam Ramos Returned After ICE Detention** - Phil recounts the ICE detention and court-ordered release of five‑year‑old Liam Conejo Ramos, noting media pressure likely influenced compliance. - He emphasizes local churches' practical responses supporting families fearful of deportation. Transcript: Phil Vischer The good news this week. The good news this week is that five-year Liam Conejo Ramos is back home in Minnesota. Now, if you say he was abducted, people will get very angry with you. He was obviously, he was just taken into custody by babysitters, by professional armed and masked babysitters who took great care of him all the way to Texas and then kept him there for A week, taking wonderful care of him to keep him safe from the cold in Minnesota until a judge said, you have to stop keeping him there, let him go and get him back home. Skye Jethani Was he with a parent the whole time? Phil Vischer Yes. His father was, yeah. So here's the deal. This all happened in his driveway. This didn't happen out in the middle of nowhere. His father was bringing him home from preschool and Ice followed him into his driveway and he saw them and ran out of the car. He says to yell to people that Ice was here to warn them. Ice says he was abandoning his child. That's why he ran away from the car, which was running with his five-year in it. And then Ice wanted to take care of the child. So they brought him to the back door and told him to knock on the door so that his mother could come out and take care of him and not get grabbed by the masked men who were going around grabbing People. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what they were going to do. They just wanted to make sure he was okay. And when her neighbors advised her not to open the door because they were pretty sure she would get grabbed, Ice took the husband and the child because they couldn't just leave him there Standing on the door of his own house. That's dangerous to be that close to your own house with your mother right inside. She would never let him in. It's like when a baby bird falls out and humans touch him and then the smell of human is on the baby bird and the mother won't take him back. Now the smell of ice was on the baby, so mother's not going to take him back. So what choice did they have but to ship him to Texas, which is where safe children are. Anywho, an activist leftist judge said, this was not done correctly. You must send him home. And he's back home now. With his father. With his father. And his brother and his people said he was abandoned by his parents. And that's why ICE had to take him. His brother was there the whole time. How could he be abandoned by his parents if his father's with him? Yeah. Oh, because he was in custody. Because he ran away from the car. I know, but that's not the, whatever. Anyway, a judge ruled he and his father had to be released. The Trump administration complied and released him. Skye Jethani Do you think it's because they, would they have complied with this order had this story not gotten so much media attention? Yeah, I don't know. Phil Vischer That's interesting because they have defied 96 court orders just in the month of January, just in the city of Minneapolis. Okay. Skye Jethani That's a lot. That's a lot defying court orders and i i assume when the administration defies a court order from a lower court it just gets bumped up to a higher court again like are they just playing The the delay game here um like what are the consequences when the when the executive branch defies the order of the legislative branch oh well the consequence is a constitutional crisis Phil Vischer Eventually because obviously you I mean, the federal judge, the highest ranking federal judge in Minnesota was about to call the head of ICE into court to declare him in contempt of Court for continuously defying court orders. Which would do what? Well, ideally, someone would get arrested, except since the Justice Department is also under the same leadership, nothing's going to happen. Skye Jethani Exactly. That's my point. Phil Vischer Yes, that's why we've been flirting with constitutional crisis for the last year. Skye Jethani I almost wish the crisis would just get here so we can deal with it. Phil Vischer I don't know how you... We don't know how to deal with it. It's territory we've never been in before. Skye Jethani My non-expert reading of the constitution would be when you have an administration which is continually defying the authority of another branch of government. Yeah. Then the third branch of government steps in, which constitutionally has the authority to remove the president. Phil Vischer Yeah. The third branch of government has already capitulated. For not upholding his constitutional oath. They have capitulated. Skye Jethani I know, but that's... That's a fun word. Whenever you dig deep enough into the dysfunctions of our government right now, it always comes back to the fact... Phil Vischer That Congress isn't doing anything. Skye Jethani That Congress, particularly the Republicans in Congress right now, refuse to uphold their constitutional oath. Phil Vischer Well, we should do something about that. Anyway, the good news is five-year Liam Conejo Ramos is back at home with his mother and his brother and his father. Do you think he'll ever step outside the house again? I do wonder what this experience does to a five-year I'm thinking it's probably not good. Caitlin Schess No. Phil Vischer Or his brother or his mother. Right. Caitlin Schess Yeah. That's not without consequences. ([Time 0:08:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/616403d3-dabb-4d1e-bcea-34cd33002ecf)) - **Prepare Congregations To Accompany Migrant Families** - Train church members to watch for ICE activity and prepare practical, nonviolent responses like accompaniment and documenting raids. - Equip communities with legal knowledge, whistleblowing tactics, and support networks for impacted families. Transcript: Phil Vischer It's funny because that's usually when ice melts. I know, but no, not here. Christians are training to be able to help their neighbors during what we expect as a second wave. My own little church is having a training session next week so we can learn how to be ice watchers and how to blow whistles. I've never blown a whistle before myself, so it takes some lessons, I think. I was thinking about following ice around playing the recorder. I don't know. Caitlin Schess That could be more effective, yeah, actually. Phil Vischer And you think you can just annoy them out of West Chicago? ([Time 0:17:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ee9fb1d0-18c1-4218-a38b-3520b8d39d54)) - **The “Second Slap” Of Deconstruction** - Joshua Harris describes a “second slap” when leaving one abusive religious space only to find similar dynamics in progressive circles. - Skye and Caitlin note this reveals how identity-driven certainty, not theology, often fuels group othering. Transcript: Phil Vischer So do you know who Josh Harris is? Do you know who Josh Harris is? I do. Can you just tell us in a brief sentence? Caitlin Schess I think he's most famous for having written, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which people might know from the man in the cowboy hat on the cover. Phil Vischer That's not a cowboy hat. It's like a fedora, isn't it? Caitlin Schess Well, yeah. Okay. A fedora. Some hat. I can't picture it. There's a man with a hat on the cover, sort of like tipping his hat. Phil Vischer It was after I had already kissed dating goodbye because I was married. Because you were married, yeah. Yeah, when was that book published? Caitlin Schess That's a good question. I'm gonna say 95. Phil Vischer 94, I'm gonna say. Caitlin Schess It was 97. Oh, I went the wrong one. College. I was born. I had been born by then. Yeah. I don't think it's totally fair to pin all of purity culture on him, but he is often the name that gets thrown around. He was a purity culture celebrity. He was a purity culture celebrity. I mean, his two brothers, brothers wrote a book called Do Hard Things. Like he had family members that were very involved in like evangelical publishing, speaking, but he was the one that was very focused on the purity culture. Phil Vischer They were influencers. They were influencers. Because they weren't pastors. No. They were barely adults. I was going to say all of them published quite young. Yeah. Almost as young as you. Caitlin Schess Almost as young as me. Phil Vischer We were talking about that earlier. I was an adult. Yeah. When did you get your first publishing contract? I was 23. Oh my gosh. That's too young. I'm sorry. That's amazing. Can anyone, do we know how old, so Josh Harris probably, Harris, was probably in his teens still. He was probably quite young. Caitlin Schess Yeah. Yeah. Phil Vischer So he's probably got you beat. Yeah. But his book was not as heady as yours. Well, and his had more influence than mine did. No, but only barely. Only just barely. So Josh Harris kissed dating goodbye. And then how many years later kissed Christianity goodbye? Caitlin Schess Quite a few. It's only in the last few years. I mean, he, a few years ago, was involved in a documentary talking about the effects of his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and just his talks on purity culture on a generation of evangelical Teenagers. And for a while there was sort of a symbol of the deconstructing, you know, ex-evangelical type, and then announced that he was no longer a Christian and getting divorced. Skye Jethani For background, he was 22 when that book was published, which means he probably wrote it when he was 21. Yeah. Or younger. Caitlin Schess Yeah. Phil Vischer Did he even have time to date before he could kiss it goodbye? Caitlin Schess Well, yeah, he didn't, which is the right thing to do. Phil Vischer Did he never date? Did we know? Caitlin Schess I think he courted. Phil Vischer He courted. Okay. Where your parents- Your parents arrange things. There's a chaperone. And you have to have a sitting room. Caitlin Schess Or a parlor. A horse must be involved. Phil Vischer And a carriage. A horse and a carriage, yeah. So Josh Harris posted something on Instagram, which I've just learned is a thing. Good for you. It's fascinating. Posted something on Instagram, a multi-page message that has blown up a little bit and really caught our eye. On the first page, it just says, is Trump leading me back to Jesus? Hot take. Hot take. That's provocative. That's clickbaity. I clicked. What does that even mean? It says, I don't know how to say this and it probably won't make sense, but it feels like President Trump is leading me back to Jesus. Eight years ago, when Donald Trump was first elected president, I gave him partial credit for the unraveling of my faith. Trump broke my faith. Watching the evangelical world embrace him was a moment of significant disillusionment for me. It felt like seeing behind the curtain. This is not an uncommon reaction. Like realizing what had really been driving much of the church all along. It made everything feel compromised. In the years that followed, I went through a season of overcorrection. I can admit that now. I lived in reaction. If Trump and his supporters were for something, I was automatically against it. Not being like them became a defining force in my thinking. Skye Jethani All right. Can we pause there? Yeah. Because I think a lot of, I've seen this a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate that he's acknowledging this because a ton of people are going to resonate with this narrative. Yeah. I agree. Okay. Is that all you wanted to say? Anyone wanted to add to that? Wow. I'm not sure you've ever interrupted with such a concise statement. Phil Vischer I will continue. I adopted a condescending posture. I othered people. And whenever we do that, we lose some connection to our own humanity. At the same time, I started noticing the same bully energy in progressive spaces that I'd experienced in conservative ones. There was just a different orthodoxy, a different list of correct beliefs that made you righteous and acceptable. But underneath it, I felt the same fear I had felt in the church, the same anxiety that if you said the wrong thing or didn't signal hard enough, you'd be judged, labeled, or pushed out. I thought I'd left a high control environment, but I had mostly just joined a new one. Now you've brought this up before. Caitlin Schess Yeah. Skye Jethani This idea. I love your name for it. Or did you come up with that or someone else? Caitlin Schess Me and a friend, we talked about the second slap. The idea that you get slapped once by the conservative evangelical world that you grew up in. And that slap is not just being hurt by them. It's the sense that I thought that these were the people who cared about scripture, who wanted to be faithful to Jesus. I believed them when they said they cared about those things. And then they acted in ways that made clear that that wasn't true. And then you go and you find more progressive Christians and you find those spaces online, I think mostly. And it feels like, oh, wait, these are the people. They're reading the prophets about wealth and poverty. And they're talking about the injustice that's happening in the world. And they're reading Revelation as this unraveling of earthly power. And they're the people who are serious about their faith and they care about scripture. And I can put my lot in with them. And then the second slap is, oh, wait, actually some of the same dynamics in that first group are here again. And part of the dynamic is you have to believe exactly the same things I believe or you're out. There's a kind of certainty with which all beliefs are held that make it impossible to ask questions or to make mistakes and get forgiveness. And so the second slap is not just, oh, the same dynamics are replicated in this environment as the one it came from. It's also, where are the people who actually care what scripture says and are trying to be faithful to Jesus? It feels like in different ways, both of these camps are really concerned about different kinds of power or different kinds of virtue signaling or different kinds of in-group behavior. They're not actually concerned with following Jesus. Skye Jethani And it sounds like what Harris is saying here and what you've expressed to him and I've certainly experienced is that both groups have deep fear and contempt for those outside their Group, right? It's about othering and demonizing the opposition. They're the bad people. Yeah. Caitlin Schess Good guys and bad guys. Skye Jethani Exactly. Phil Vischer How do you draw the other people in your political cartoons? Yeah. What do they look like? Do they look slightly less than human? Yep. Josh writes, fast forward to now, Trump... ([Time 0:19:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/15df9129-03a1-4af0-ad52-9f1c147ff071)) - **Power, Politics, And The Image Of Jesus** - Harris says Trump’s blatant use of power pulled him back toward biblical stories of resistance and awe at standing against unchecked power. - The hosts warn that seeing Jesus only as a political revolutionary misses his nonviolent, self‑sacrificial resistance. Transcript: Phil Vischer This time, the use of power is more blatant and ruthless than ever. It's authoritarian and dissent crushing. It looks like ice raids. It looks like families being torn apart. It looks like people being detained, disappeared into systems with very little recourse. It looks like people being shot in the street. Go into the next page. And as I sit with all of this, afraid and unsettled, I find myself drawn back to the stories that shape me, the stories of the Bible, the stories of kings and prophets, of Nebuchadnezzar And Daniel, of Ahab and Elijah, of Pilate and Jesus, not as doctrine, but as story. Story is a way of making sense of the world. And when I look through that lens, I find something new. I find a fresh awe at what it takes to stand up against unchecked power. I'm seeing Jesus not as a mascot for anyone's politics, but as someone who stood alone before the bullying power of his day and refused to bow. Which brings me, he says, to the old Keith Green album cover I shared at the start of this post. And this really resonated with me because I had that album. Caitlin Schess When I saw this, I literally thought Phil's going to get excited about the album. Oh my gosh. And I don't know anything about it. Phil Vischer The cover it's one of the better illustrations i've ever seen on a christian album um of of a daniel like figure standing up when everyone around him is bowing before a you know nebuchadnezzar Like king and and the interesting if you can google that picture keith green no compromise but google the image because josh talks about he says i used to stare at this album cover for Hours as a kid. Everyone is bowing before the king. Everyone is face down. Maybe they bow because they believe. Maybe they bow because they're afraid. Maybe they bow because it's easier. But everyone knows that if you stand, if you refuse, if you will resist, you will be crushed, except for one man. I always assumed that man was Jesus. I think it was Daniel. But he's still standing. And what I always stared at in that picture wasn't the guy standing, but the friend next to him. If you go to the... Oh, yeah. Trying to pull him down. At his friend saying, what are you doing? I care about you, stop it. And that kind of social pressure, not even negative social pressure, you idiot, but concerned social pressure from a friend to say, don't put yourself out there like this. This is not going to end well for you. What if the evangelical church's blind support for Trump doesn't disprove the Christian story, but actually points to its deeper truths? What if Trump is just the latest example of the pattern of people being deceived by the false promises of earthly power? What if he's just another manifestation of the bully spirit that followers of Jesus are called to humbly resist? So yes, I'm thinking about Jesus again. And weirdly enough, I have President Trump to thank for it. ([Time 0:26:43](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c3d6b5cd-8596-4552-a004-1ec9efc9e736)) - **Stories Reframe Faith, But Need Guardrails** - Caitlin and Skye highlight story‑based engagement with scripture as powerful but slippery without theological boundaries. - Karl Barth is invoked as a model: expect surprise and correction when scripture confronts assumptions. Transcript: Phil Vischer It's funny. Caitlin Schess I read this and thought this was so interesting because I'm writing a dissertation about, I mean, a very specific example of this, but broadly my dissertation is like, what do we do with The fact that I think it is a good thing that we take biblical narratives and try and inhabit them to understand our own circumstances and find both the courage to act faithfully and direction As to how to act. And yet those are also way slipperier. Like you give someone a story and say, live into it. You are, you know, you're Israel that's waiting to be liberated out of Egypt or you are Daniel or you're Esther. There's something powerful about that. There have been examples in Christian history where that motivated people towards great acts of faithfulness and justice. It's also slippery. You tell someone today they're Daniel. Well, are you right about the position of relative lack of power that they have? Or are they actually Nebuchadnezzar? Phil Vischer Are you sure you know who the Nebuchadnezzar or the Goliath is in your life? Skye Jethani They call this the Disney princess problem? Caitlin Schess Right. You're not the point of the whole story. So I'm writing a dissertation, which I will not fully answer this question. Phil Vischer Could you read us? Caitlin Schess No one is going to read it. No one's going to care. But just like, how do we both say we want to be able to do that? And basically, ironically, my dissertation is trying to figure out like, what are the theological kind of boundaries that can help discipline this so you don't go off the rails into Something that's really not faithful. So on one hand, I would say, yes, doctrine matters. But I also, I appreciate that I really liked this post in part because this is a description that sounds very similar to me of one of my favorite theologians, Karl Barth, who existed at A point in history, yeah, buy his merch, existed at a point in history where he not only stood up against great political evil in Nazi Germany, but he also existed in a theological moment Where he very famously said no to all these theologians that were mistreating scripture. We're not treating it as this revelation from outside of human knowledge that came to us from God. And he has this incredible little essay. It's one of his most famous called The Strange New World of the Bible. And he writes very similarly where he just sort of says, like, if you're looking for something specific in scripture, you will find it. If you are looking for boring historical details, you will find it. He doesn't say this, but you could say, if you're looking for verses that support your political position, you can find it. Like whatever you are looking for, you will find. But if you go in looking for the strange new world of God, which to him is, if you go in going, I will be confronted, I will be surprised. This is not going to conform to the things that I already believe. You and he gives this beautiful description of like wandering in the desert with Israel and the burning bush and, you know, hearing the voice of God and that being a way to encounter scripture Afresh. And so I appreciate this because I think anyone who is coming back to the faith or, you know, considering the faith anew, being in the stories and going, goodness, this says something That is true about the world, but it also feels outside of human knowledge. And maybe it's really, it could guide me and it's really powerful. I think that's a beautiful way to start. And especially for many people who were kind of beaten over the head in evangelicalism with like, know all the right things. If you know all the right theology, you'll do the right things. I think this is a good corrective to go explore these stories that have shaped Christians for a really long time. What you discover. Expect that it will surprise you. Can you go very wrong? Yes. But also, this is one of the risks of reading the Bible. You could get it wrong. But if you are going in going, there is something beautiful and surprising here, and I want to discover it. I just want to applaud that posture. ([Time 0:39:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b13beb08-49b5-413b-95ea-6b64bebc56e5)) - **Expose Young People To Broad Traditions** - Encourage exposure to multiple Christian traditions so young people avoid thinking one tradition equals all of Christianity. - Promote humility about doctrinal certainty and practice honest discernment across traditions. Transcript: Phil Vischer Encouraging? Yeah. Caitlin Schess That's my goal. No, no. Phil Vischer Like this. Oh, this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you were being like, could you be encouraging? Caitlin Schess I was like, I could try. I think it's encouraging. Yeah. And I think, I hope that this, I hope that this story from him encourages some people who might have had that second slap and gone, I don't know. I've been told actually maybe this whole thing is bad. Maybe this whole thing is evil. I hope that it prompts some people to go back and not only go to the stories of Christian history and say like, okay, maybe he's right. Maybe it's not all American white evangelicalism. Maybe there's other things. But to his point, to go back to scripture and see surprising stories, we have to be attentive to the guiding of the Holy Spirit. But also at the end of the day, we will get some of this wrong. And I think the failure of both of these camps to just acknowledge that whatever camp you are in is not perfect, that we will get some things wrong, that we will have to make mistakes and Learn from them and try again. That's where both of them have gone wrong. That's why you get slapped both times. It's like you can't acknowledge weakness or wrongness. And that's part of what healthy Christian communities should do for us is to say, we as a whole might get some things wrong. ([Time 0:45:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5054a5f8-e45c-4af9-bcac-898b622de1db)) - **Dependence As Core To Human Dignity** - Leah Libresco Sargeant argues dependence, not autonomy, is central to human dignity and women's equality doesn't require interchangeability with men. - She frames dependence as existential and societal, urging systems that welcome women as women. Transcript: Skye Jethani Guest today, Leah Labresco Sargent, says the world is not ready to welcome women as women. That's because our American culture fears dependence. Instead, our culture says everyone should aim for total autonomy and independence. Her new book, The Dignity of Dependence, aims to liberate women and men from this coercive and false ideal that we are strongest when we are alone. And it offers a different take on what it means to be a feminist. She argues that women's equal dignity shouldn't require women to deny biological reality or attempt to be interchangeable with men. Leah Labresco Sargent works on family policy in Washington, D.C., and she runs a Substack community called Other Feminisms. Here's Caitlin's conversation with Leah Labresco Sargent. Caitlin Schess Leah, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me on. I am so excited to talk about your book, The Dignity of Dependence. The cover, if people are watching, right behind your head, striking. I have had many coffee shop conversations with people about the book because it's so beautiful. And has a provocative subtitle, A Feminist Manifesto. One of the things I love about this book is that it brings together political, theological themes that in some corners of Christianity go together very naturally, but in many corners Do not and are often separated out, even in our partisan politics. Talk a little bit to us about the path that led you towards this framing and this book right now. Leah Libresco Sargeant Ideas of the book are that first, women's equality, both equal dignity, political equality, doesn't depend on our being interchangeable with men. And second, that dependence, not autonomy, is core to what it means to be human. ([Time 0:52:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1f65f65f-3e32-4836-b205-1aabbc84ab94)) - **Visibility Of Accommodations Creates Stigma** - Visible accommodations for women (like separate three‑point lines) generate stigma even when they increase fairness. - Leah shows resistance stems from equality framed as interchangeability rather than equitable tailoring. Transcript: Leah Libresco Sargeant You know, it's so funny. I saw someone on Twitter say, I really didn't expect there to be so much basketball in this book. And to be honest, as the author, I didn't either. That was kind of a surprise that emerged. But I like it because it's an example everyone has had some familiarity with. So there's been a long running controversy that's kind of settled into equilibrium for now about where the three point line should be for women's basketball in contrast to men's basketball. And the question is, should it be equal in that it's the same distance from the hoop for men and women? Or should it be equal in that it's equally hard for men and women on average to sink a three-point shot from their respective lines. Because however much you train and practice, women on average are shorter than men. So the equal, equal distant line isn't really equally hard for them any more than the equal 10 foot hoop is equally hard to dunk on. And it's been really controversial. And it's a matter of inches is the adjustment they're thinking of making in either case. But what's funny is for something that's a relatively small adjustment, whether you do it or not, it's provoked really harsh language on both sides, in part because there's a real fear. And I think a grounded fear that if you paint two lines on the court and everyone can see the lines, that when people see those two lines, they go, why are there two? And you say, well, the women shoot from the closer line. People say, oh, so they play an easier game. Like they don't play for real the way the men do. But they don't think this is equitable. They just go, it's lesser. And I think what's fascinating is amid all these fights, the women play with a smaller ball in the WNBA. And that's not as controversial because you don't start the game by bringing out both balls, which I think, honestly, from a bleacher seat, you'd have a little more trouble telling The difference. But you don't show everyone the difference before you start, but women get a ball that's better sized for their hands. But the lines you can see, and that's where I think you can kind of tell that this isn't about justice. It's about shame and stigma. The more visible an accommodation for women is, the less likely we are to get it. Because to show the accommodation is helpful is to concede there are some real ineradicable differences between men and women. ([Time 1:00:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/91c95e72-f5aa-404b-ac82-36943d7ab5ba)) - **Policy Penalizes Informal Caregiving** - Policy often treats care from loved ones as having no cost, penalizing informal caregiving in benefit calculations. - Leah recommends caregiver credits and pension adjustments to honor unpaid care economically. Transcript: Leah Libresco Sargeant This are that when we see people who have a big care responsibility, there's sometimes the impulse of policy of like, well, how do we take this responsibility away from this person so They can be freer? And I love Eva Feder-Kide, who's a kind of philosopher of dependency and need, who says often in those circumstances, people don't say, I want to be free of this person I love. They say, I'm not free to give a yes to them right now because it's too much for me to sustain. I want to be given what I need so that I can give a yes. So I think more often thinking about supporting caregivers rather than just privatizing or subsidizing getting care in the market. It'll vary when your large dad has intense memory care issues that may or may not be something you can do at home. But I think a lot of folks are kind of in the middle for at least some periods of their life where they'd like to be able to do more if they were free to say yes. And one way that France addresses that is that in their pension system, kind of, you know, analogous to our social security system, people get caregiver credits in the same way that Paid work helps build up what you'll receive in social security. So when moms are staying home with very little kids and they're out of the workforce, they may not be getting the full amount of credit towards their pension that they would if they were Working at a wage, but they're also not being zeroed out the way they are in America. And I think that's really valuable so that you're making sure you're not borrowing too intensely from your future to give care in the present. In America, in particular, there's often the tendency to treat care from the people who love you as though it obviously costs them nothing to provide and therefore doesn't need to be Compensated, or as though it's kind of scammy to do in the first place. And so one that we think that really stands out is the SSI program. And this is a disability program for people who don't have a long work history, who don't qualify for a more generous disability program. So SSI doesn't give you that much support. But what it does that's really pernicious is that if we were sisters and I was on SSI and you bought me groceries sometime in the month, they're like, oh, let me go pick up some of the things Leah likes and drop them off. I'm not going to ask her to pay me back. She's on a really limited budget. I have to deduct the cost of the groceries, send the receipt to the government and get that much less in benefits per month. If my mom is letting me live in her spare bedroom, she has to calculate the imputed market rent for that bedroom, even though she would never take in a random order so that the government Can deduct it. Because if I'm getting this free from someone, the government shouldn't have to support me. This is something that the Biden administration was going to soften a little bit so that you could get meals from your family. That was the amount of softening that we're doing. And it looks like that's getting rolled back. It's not being fully implemented as a rule. But I think that's one of the simplest, things we do where we treat people's care as fundamentally suspect or kind of cheating. ([Time 1:09:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/36e5faa7-33f9-4fc7-8b92-342bc77790d1)) - **Make Work More Flexible For Caregiving** - Leaders should expand flexible and hybrid work to let employees say yes to caregiving needs without career penalty. - Make small workplace changes that make caregiving tasks 10% easier to enable mutual care. Transcript: Leah Libresco Sargeant Think, especially in the workplace, the best fruit of the COVID pandemic has been more room for hybrid work, telework, and flexible work. That, you know, giving people a little more room to say yes to something that someone else needs in their community makes our community stronger. It makes it easier for people to have those relationships of love, whether they're familial relationships or friend relationships. And I want to say I was the beneficiary of this today, because I usually take my piece onto the pediatrician by bike or walking. I don't have a driver's license for a variety of reasons. And it's 10 degrees with wind chill here. So my husband's work was generous. He's a teacher, but they got someone to cover giving his test in the morning so he could drop me off at the doctor. And then a friend of mine came and picked me up from the doctor. So it's those kind of little moments where you just say, okay, well, when I look at the way my work is ordered, if I'm a boss or if I'm running an organization, if someone has a friend who's Sick, is it easy for them to find a way to help? And if it's quite hard or it'd be a weird exemption, well, can I do something so that those small interruptions that come from someone's passing needs of, I need to bring this person soup, I need to pick her up from the doctors, I need to go grab her prescription. How easy is that for someone to do where you are? ([Time 1:13:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5d9c6147-1ba0-4853-b93e-4f5c63df9cdc)) - **Manifesto Intends Disruptive Reframing** - Calling the book a manifesto signals Leah aims to unsettle cultural and legal foundations built on autonomy. - She warns reform will break some social structures but is necessary to rebuild on a dependence‑aware foundation. Transcript: Leah Libresco Sargeant It's funny. I really liked having the word manifesto in because, you know, to look at the cover, right, it's pink. It's got a woman carrying a baby. And I really liked the cover because of my friends said, the baby looks heavy. So it's not just idyllic. It takes costs or something to carry the baby. But still, when you have this kind of cover, it's easy for people to think like, oh, yeah, this is kind of just women are valuable. Let's think about that. Maybe I'll put one of the quotes on Instagram and it will be kind of warm. And I want people to know, like, my book is saying that we've made a fundamental mistake legally and culturally about the human person. And I want us to, you know, mess stuff up to put that right. And I want to be frank that, you know, when you make this kind of error, there's big injustices that come with that. But you also build a lot of load bearing stuff on that false idea. And so trying to rework it will break some stuff as you go, as you're trying to rebuild on a firmer foundation. I think manifesto conveys, if you read this book, like it's going to be a little dangerous to change your mind about stuff. ([Time 1:15:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/46fd0590-c51f-46ba-9547-e03ece0e45e9)) - **Start By Asking For Help Soon** - Ask for help with a practical need within two weeks to normalize dependence and strengthen reciprocal community ties. - Small, visible asks teach friends that dependence is ordinary and part of faithful relationships. Transcript: Leah Libresco Sargeant My big advice for people is that if you read this book, if you're persuaded by it, ask for help with something in the next two weeks. And I know it may feel more natural that you read it and you feel fired up to say, well, where can I help? And if you see an opportunity, you have my permission to go for it. But the reason I put my emphasis on asking for help is I think what people often need is the testimony from their family and neighbors and friends that it's normal to ask. I was asking today for that ride from the pediatrician when everyone knows I could have called a lift. It was possible for me to do something else. And I think it's easy to feel like if it's possible to have an alternative, is it fair to ask your friends? I could have solved this problem with money. But I didn't want a stranger in 10 degree weather who was watching me try and load my car seat into the back in my neighborhood for a five minute drive. I wanted a friend to come pick me up. And so I asked. And I think those small asks, especially the ones that everyone knows you could have done without, offer a testimony of, I think this is part of what our friendship is about. It's about asking even when you have an alternative. ([Time 1:21:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ae15cded-90c0-42f2-8887-ce832b624855))