How Busy Moms Can Make a Real Political Impact in 60 Seconds or Less (with Cynthia Levin)

In this episode, I sit down with advocacy expert Cynthia Levin to challenge one of the biggest lies busy working moms believe: that making a difference requires more time than we have. Cynthia shares how she began advocating while raising babies, not after life got easier, and explains why moms are uniquely equipped to create real change. We talk about simple, practical ways to use your voice, why even small actions matter, and how advocacy can fit into an already full life. If you've ever cared deeply about an issue but felt like one person couldn't make a difference, this conversation will completely shift your perspective.

In this episode, we unpack:

  • Why moms are some of the most powerful advocates in the world

  • Simple ways to create change in just a few minutes a day

  • How to advocate even when you're overwhelmed and short on time

  • Why your personal story matters more than being an expert

  • Easy first steps to help you confidently use your voice

Work with me:

Connect with Cynthia:

Transcript

You get emails, right? The one that says, "Sign this petition. Call your congressman. Take 60 seconds," they say. And you read it, and your immediate thought is, "I don't have 60 seconds."

I've got two kids, a job, laundry piling up. And honestly, what difference is this really going to make? One more name on a petition, one more voice in sort of a sea of thousands.

And so you don't do it.

Here's the thing. The problem isn't that you don't have time or energy to be an advocate. The problem is that nobody has ever really shown you that it doesn't have to take much time, and it doesn't have to look the way you think it does.

So my guest today, I'm so excited, is Cynthia Levin. And she started her advocacy journey when her child was an infant. Not when she had more time. Not when she felt more equipped. But when her baby was born.

And then she kept going, and kept showing up, and kept finding ways to advocate alongside her kids as they grew up from babies to teenagers.

And here's the thing. She didn't do it by becoming some full-time activist. She did it in minutes, in moments when her kids were right there with her.

Today, we're getting really practical about what advocacy can actually look like for busy moms who care but don't feel like they have the bandwidth.

We're talking about why your voice actually matters, even when it just seems like it's one in a crowd. And we're busting through every excuse that has kept you from doing something that you know in your gut you really want to do.

The show notes are loaded with resources. We're talking names and phone numbers and addresses, the easiest ways possible to take first steps that you can do right now. Some of these things literally just take a minute. I'm not exaggerating.

So stick around. This conversation is going to absolutely flip the way you think about advocacy and the possibility of you going all in to things that really matter to you.

Are you ready? Let's get to it.

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Rebecca: All right, working moms. I'm really, really excited to be bringing you a very special guest today. Today we have Cynthia Levin. She's all about advocacy, and we're going to be talking about Advocacy Made Easy, specifically for us as moms. She even has a book on it. I'm so excited to dig in with her.

But we have such a fun, unique story. We actually just met, I don't know, like a month ago or something like that. We were both at a conference called Mom 2.0, and we randomly reached out and got in an Uber together, going to the same conference.

Cynthia: Our planes were coming in at the same time.

Rebecca: They were coming in at the same time. And we both reached out to the whole conference like, "Anybody want to share an Uber?" And we got in an Uber together. And here we are, as things turn out, on a podcast episode. And I'm just so excited that you are here. Thank you for being here, Cynthia.

Cynthia: I'm thrilled. This is like a kismet thing. You don't know who you're getting in an Uber with. It's a pretty safe bet with Mom 2.0. Yeah, that's safe, but you don't know you're going to click, so that's great.

Rebecca: That's right. That's right. So tell us a little bit about you, Cynthia, what you do, a little bit about your work, your family, all the things. Give us an overview.

How Motherhood Sparked a Lifelong Advocacy Journey

Cynthia: My full name is Cynthia Chang Levin. My pronouns are she, her. I live in St. Louis, Missouri. I am the mom of two. I am an empty nester. My kids are at college.

But for the last 20-plus years, I've been an advocate, mainly for global health. But as life has gone on, and I care about so many things, I advocate for many issues that affect my family and families around the world.

So primarily, global health for me. I started out working on hunger issues in the United States and around the world, and then realized how linked it is to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, and then those links to education. Boy, you could really go down a lot of rabbit holes this way.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: But my entryway to advocacy was actually motherhood.

Rebecca: No way.

Cynthia: Yeah. I think a lot of times we think motherhood excludes us from things.

Rebecca: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Cynthia: Unfortunately, for some people, we are very busy with caretaking. And if you are a working mom, you have to do that and all the things. And so advocacy can seem like this thing that you want to do because you care about the world, but you just don't have time to do.

Why Cynthia Left Her Engineering Career After Becoming a Mom

For me, it turned out to be a little bit the opposite because, when I got pregnant, I was at a job that I wasn't entirely happy with, and they were laying everybody off. Great combination right there.

I was a mechanical engineer by training. And that's something we didn't talk about before.

Rebecca: No, we did not. No, we did not. Yeah.

Cynthia: So I hold a master's in mechanical engineering. I was working for an automotive supplier company. And times were tough. Everybody was being laid off.

I was pregnant anyway, and I was really unhappy with how much my job depended on working around chemicals on a production floor, which is something that I wouldn't recommend if you're pregnant.

Rebecca: Right.

Cynthia: So I elected to quit at that time, preemptively. And also, childcare costs being what they were, we couldn't make the math... math.

Rebecca: Yep, totally.

Cynthia: We're highly educated people. We could math a lot, but it didn't make sense for us at the time. So I found myself as a stay-at-home mom, suddenly, when I had thought that I was going to be a career person.

Rebecca: Yeah. Higher degrees, all the things. Yeah, absolutely.

Cynthia: Yeah. My mom had a PhD and, you know, raised us while working. And that's what I thought it was going to be like for me.

But what happened was something that I could never have predicted. My first child was born in the depths of a Chicago winter. And I did not know this about myself, but I'm a person whose breast milk comes in later.

Some women are super lucky, and you get this baby, and you breastfeed and say, "Yay." For me, it takes about four or five days for breast milk to come in.

So I was trying to do my best, and the baby just wasn't getting enough nutrients. And I was trying to breastfeed constantly. I didn't know what the problem was. There were no wet diapers. This little soft spot in the top of their head that's supposed to be nice and squishy was sinking down.

So I called my doctor, and she kindly but bluntly told me, "That baby isn't getting enough food. So you need to go to Walgreens or CVS or something like that. Just get some formula. It'll be fine. Your milk will come in."

So, you know, it's kind of scary when you look back at that, that essentially this baby was starving.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: And you want to do the best for your child. My husband went out on Christmas Eve and got the formula, and you never saw a baby chug as fast as that.

Rebecca: Oh, my gosh.

Cynthia: Yeah. But we got to see the wonderful effect that it can have when a simple intervention of formula and water comes at the right time, because it was a complete and instant rebound.

The Moment That Sparked Cynthia's Passion for Advocacy

But it took me down that thought path of, what happens to moms that don't have the resources? Like, to have a doctor to call right away, don't have that access. Moms around the world who don't have access to clean water, much less formula.

All those what ifs. And throughout that year, I would be just sitting up in the middle of the night when things just seemed really bad. I'd been listening to the news on NPR, to terrible things that were happening in the world, and just feeling like I couldn't have an effect on them.

And at that time, like I mentioned with the child care, we didn't have a ton of income. So I would try to donate to places, but it's like, there must be something more I can do.

I'm going to fast forward a little bit, and some of these stories are in my book, which is called From Changing Diapers to Changing the World: Why Moms Make Great Advocates.

Rebecca: Oh, I love it.

Cynthia: How to get started.

Rebecca: Yeah.

The Small Step That Made Advocacy Feel Possible

Cynthia: So somebody from church noticed how I was feeling. And that's a great thing, to have a friend who actually notices when you're bothered by something or in crisis, and said, "Well, maybe you'd like to be involved in this group called Bread for the World. They write letters to Congress."

And so I learned that when a baby woke me up in the night, and I was just laying there, like, couldn't get back to sleep, I could do something. I could write a letter to Congress about, you know, moms who need these resources around the world.

And Bread for the World would have all the resources online to educate me. And that's part of, you know, I'm an engineer, so what was I doing if something bothered me? I was reading stuff.

Rebecca: Yeah. Researching.

Cynthia: But it took an organization to teach me how to write that 92nd letter to Congress and write three of them to my two senators and my one representative. And then I could just close my eyes and think, "Okay, I did my part."

Rebecca: You did your part. Yeah, yeah.

Cynthia: Fast forward. I'll just say, if you jump forward, it was a lot of those little steps together that led me to learn how to do different advocacy actions.

And now it is my joy and my mission to reach out to moms and say, "This is really easier than you think. You can fit it into your life. It will benefit you, it will benefit your children, it will benefit the world."

And yeah, I want to say that to mothers and others, but particularly moms.

Why So Many Working Moms Think They Don't Have Time to Advocate

Rebecca: Yeah, I mean, this is why you're here on this podcast because I'm, I mean, I think I'm like the perfect person you're talking to right now. You know, I'm the audience.

I am very much so. And I think everybody here listening to this podcast is like, we are working moms that really care. We're conscientious, we're intentional. It's why people are listening to this podcast, right? They want to learn, they want to get better, they want the strategies.

And I think advocacy is one of those things that feels like not only am I not equipped, but one letter isn't really going to make a difference. Come on. Like, really?

And that, I mean, that's what I have tended to think. And I think, you know, learning more about you and some of our conversations, and this conversation, it's like pushing me to go, "No, no. Not only do little things matter, but those two to five-minute things that I might do actually make quite a big difference."

And so what I love about us having this conversation is that we're kind of poking holes in what I think a lot of women and moms think, which is that I don't have the time. It's not going to make a difference anyway. And so I'm just... this is the thing that's going to fall off, you know, fall out of my priority list ultimately.

And you are telling us that you raised two kids while doing advocacy work from toddler years to teen years, right? And you did it in little ways. And I'm so excited to learn how you did that.

Cynthia: The little ways turning into big ways, and eventually the little people turning into big people that are advocates themselves.

Rebecca: Why do you think moms make the best advocates?

Why Moms Already Have the Skills to Be Great Advocates

Cynthia: So there are characteristics that moms have in general. You know, we talk about generalizations, but not only do we have these characteristics that are not commonly thought of as linked with Capitol Hill, but our kids actually train us in them.

I'll give you some examples. I have five in the book. But some that are really easy to think about are persistence.

This is literally... it takes me more reminders to get my senator to sign on to a bill than it does to get my kids to pick up laundry off the floor.

We are persistent.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: And, you know, eternally optimistic, right?

Rebecca: I have to believe that. I just do.

Cynthia: You know, again, with the perspective of somebody who has college kids, they sort themselves out eventually. I do.

Rebecca: My son still doesn't... Side note, my son is still not brushing his own teeth. He's nine years old, okay? So I have to help him brush his teeth because otherwise I have no doubt we would have rotten teeth throughout his mouth, right?

Cynthia: Right.

Rebecca: But what gets me through this moment, and I'm okay with it now, I had to have a moment where I'm like, "You know what? I'm just going to brush his teeth for as long as it takes."

But I was like, "You know, he's going to go to college. He's going to brush his own teeth. I just know it." I know that I'm not going to be brushing his teeth in high school. And it's that thought that gets me through the brushing-his-teeth moment in the morning. I'm not going to lie.

Cynthia: But your persistence through that, yeah. Because you know that there's not really an alternative. I mean, there are alternatives of how we get there.

Rebecca: Not what I want. Not with the consequences.

Cynthia: Yeah. So, you know, we have this, like, urgent, patient mom face that's like... I'm going to lean to the camera... "Like, you really need to take out the trash."

Rebecca: Yes, we do.

Why Your Voice Matters More Than You Think

Cynthia: Right. And you know, with our children, we don't have to be mean about it. We don't have to be nasty. I mean, we can be, but we don't have to be. And ideally, you're not, if you are going to raise the human that you want.

And you can take that same sort of energy to the U.S. Congress or to your state representatives or something like that.

And honestly, sometimes when I talk to aides or members of Congress, they might be thinking I'm going to yell at them because many people who disagree with them are quite yelly and negative.

And it has gotten me much farther to use that same sort of mom energy to be like, "This needs to happen. This is who's in crisis. These are the consequences. And this is what needs to happen."

And if it doesn't happen in the next couple days, I call back again. And if it doesn't happen in the next week, I'm going to call back again.

And when they know that I'm not going to disappear, that makes a difference in how they brush things off.

Let's go back a little bit. I'm getting a little bit off topic, but I wanted to address right away that notion of, like, does your letter matter? Does your phone call?

Rebecca: Yeah, I was just... You know, I get email petitions all the time. And, like, does me taking the one minute to sign that matter? Does me, when I'm being asked to call my senator, even with, like, a printed script... right? Does that do anything? Does it?

Cynthia: Yeah. I will say that, there, there's kind of a spectrum of like what has more impact.

Rebecca: Okay.

Cynthia: But it all does have impact. And one end of the spectrum I would say is like the One Click petition. Okay. Right.

Rebecca: And what does that kind of thing do? What's the impact of that?

Why Some Advocacy Actions Have a Bigger Impact Than Others

Cynthia: The impact may not be exactly what you want there, but when you click that, that organization is probably going to stay in touch with you. And your bigger impact can come from staying in touch with them, or maybe making a donation, or maybe signing up to go to their lobby day or something like that.

So for that, I think it used to have more impact before offices were savvy about how computers work and that you could have alias accounts and stuff like that.

Rebecca: I see. I see.

How Small Advocacy Actions Can Lead to Bigger Change

Cynthia: But then you can run up the chain of, like, however much effort you put into it is directly, this is my engineering talk, directly proportional to how much impact you have.

So then, like, a phone call takes a little bit more effort. Writing a handwritten letter might, you know, take a little bit more than that. Turning that letter into a letter to the editor in the newspaper, that takes even more effort.

And it can go all the way up to sitting down face to face with your U.S. representative. And that is, like, the gold standard of it.

But let's go back to the beginning, like the phone call and things like that. You're not the only one making phone calls, especially if it's a hot-button issue in the news, like what's been in the news lately, ICE, war, and SNAP benefits, like nutrition benefits for low-income moms.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: You know.

Rebecca: Yeah. The economy right now, jobs through AI. All the things that are going on around that. Yeah, absolutely.

Doing Something is Always Better Than Doing Nothing.

Cynthia: So if you... I like to use this. Well, there's three things about it. Number one, you're going to feel better about it because you did your part. You did something. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. And doing something can actually inspire you to do the next thing. Like, I find my own actions to be inspirational.

Number two, you're not the only one doing it. And if you think about the metaphor of snow falling on a branch, you live up where there are mountains and stuff, and you've probably seen a branch where there's a lot of snow and the weight has caused it to break.

Rebecca: Yep.

What Actually Happens When You Call Your Representative?

Cynthia: Every phone call is like a snowflake. It doesn't weigh very much at all. But the weight of all those things, when we're all calling, can have the effect of, you know... I mean, we don't want to break them.

Rebecca: The impact. I get it. We get it. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Cynthia: ...that you want.

Rebecca: I mean, are we going to actually talk to somebody on the other side? Are we going to leave a message?

Cynthia: It could be somebody, but it's probably going to be an aide.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: And they are going to be putting, you know, tally marks, not physical tally marks, but they have... I've been to the offices, and I've seen their screens. They log the calls like that.

And the same if you're leaving a message. That's going to get tallied in the morning.

I have people who love to call during the day because they want to talk to a real person. And the time that you take to do that, that's time that they can't be doing something else that you don't like. So think about it that way.

I sometimes find it a better use of my time to do it in the evening or in the off hours, especially for working moms. You can call in the middle of the night or just before you go to bed. If you're like, "Oh, my gosh, I forgot to call on that thing," it still gets tallied.

Rebecca: Oh, interesting. Yeah. And what does that do for them? What does it do for our leaders, our congresspeople, our elected officials?

Cynthia: So if they are undecided, then sometimes it's a race, right? Like, really, who's got more supporters or opponents calling in? So it literally can be that way if they don't know which way they're going to go.

If they are decided that they're opposed, and especially if they've got an election coming up, and this is an election year, by the way, let them know exactly how unpopular their opinion is.

Rebecca: Okay.

Cynthia: Yeah.

Rebecca: Okay. Yeah.

Cynthia: The last thing I would say is, if you're just thinking about, you know, not calling, the SAVE Act was a great example of that.

And if some of your listeners don't know what the SAVE Act is, or was, I mean, I'm hoping everybody knows by now, but it seems to be failing.

Rebecca: Remind us.

How the SAVE Act Motivated Women to Speak Up

Cynthia: Yeah. The House of Representatives passed an act that would, among other things, make it so that they were trying to protect the vote. And I'm making air quotes for those who can't see the video.

But it would make it so that if your birth name does not match the name that you have now, that you would be ineligible to vote.

And so, you know, maybe they were trying to get at trans people in this way, but really it was going to hit married women a lot.

Rebecca: Yeah, a lot. Right.

Cynthia: So you would have to get a passport, which costs about sixty-something dollars. And if you needed it right away, expediting it, you're into the hundreds, and a lot of paperwork and stuff like that.

So having an avalanche of married women calling in and saying, "Hey, I see what is happening," I really do believe that that is a reason why the Senate backed off of it.

Calling Your Representative Is Easier Than You Think

Rebecca: Awesome. So this is so simple. I mean, really, I don't get messages like this all the time, but, you know, for the causes that I care about and I do follow, sure. Every once in a while they're like, "Call your senator on this. Here's your exact script."

And you're saying, 8 p.m., I don't even have to talk to anybody. I can just leave a message with that same exact script. And it does, in fact, have a little bit of influence in a variety of different ways, depending on where my senator lands on that, or my congressperson, or whatever, you know, whomever I'm calling.

Cynthia: And most are great. You can read right off the paper. You can change it up to fit your situation or something like that.

But I'm a little bit of an introvert. I have people who are a lot of introverts and cannot stand the idea of cold calling. So calling at night, like after... or you can wait until, like, 5:01 Eastern Time. They don't pick up the phone after five.

Rebecca: Okay, good to know, good to know.

Cynthia: Only one time did I have an actual state rep pick up her own phone. And that was a hilarious conversation.

You Don't Have to Be an Expert to Make a Difference

Rebecca: Oh wow, that's so great. I mean, that's what I would be terrified of because I feel like they're going to ask me more questions that I don't necessarily feel totally equipped to answer.

And I think that's part of it for me. I might have strong opinions about what I want or what I don't want, but I definitely maybe haven't necessarily done a ton of research to back up what I feel, right?

I think that's probably true. But then I feel like, well, maybe my opinion isn't worth sharing because it's not informed enough.

And so then, what if they ask me further questions, and then I don't have the... you know... and so then this goes down a whole route. This is 100% how my brain works.

Cynthia: Yeah. I love that you're sharing that because that is such a common thing. And even I feel it sometimes when it's something like a tax issue that I know is going to hit people in poverty, but I'm not great at tax code.

But here's the thing that I want to say to calm those negative voices, for you and for everybody out there.

You are the best expert in your own story and how you feel.

There's nobody that can gaslight you and take that away from you. You have experienced what you've experienced. There's nobody else in the world who is more of an expert in what has happened to you.

So when we ground our advocacy in our own feelings and our own experiences, that's when we become really strong.

So a lot of my advocacy is about maternal and child health and those family-type issues. And that's where I'm strongest.

Rebecca: And what you're passionate about.

Your Personal Story Is More Powerful Than Knowing Every Detail

Cynthia: Yeah, yeah. And when it comes to tax code, when I'm not strong, I don't get into the nitty-gritty of it.

When I'm on a phone call and leaving that message, I'll be talking about, like, I remember how desperate I was when I was a mom of young children to provide for them. And, you know, it's just keeping your eye on the ball of how this is going to affect moms who are in poverty, that they won't have what they need.

Rebecca: Yeah. I mean, so ultimately what you're saying is it doesn't really matter. You don't have to have the full picture.

Whatever is on your heart, and why that matters to you, is enough. And you don't have to go much deeper than that when you're being an advocate, right?

It could be as simple as, "I don't want to see more people in poverty," and then we don't have to go much further than that, right? It's just, this seems like that's going to affect that, and that's not what I want. You know, I want... and that's it. And we can leave it at that.

How One Letter Can Turn Into Hundreds of Voices

Cynthia: So once a year with my church, with Bread for the World, and I advocate with many other organizations, but Bread for the World does this neat thing that once a year they have this thing called an Offering of Letters.

So it's the idea that instead of giving money, you're offering up your letter, your voice. And so we write about hunger issues.

This is also a really good example that I wanted to get into of how your one letter can be amplified. If you are a working mom and you invite ten people over for a cocktail or a playdate or something like that, then you're ten. You're not just one.

So my church does this thing where you'd get, like, hundreds of letters at once. And some people are just like, "Jesus said, feed the hungry. Do that."

Rebecca: Sounds like what my 9 year old would say.

How to Get Your Kids Involved in Advocacy

Cynthia: Oh, that's another great point. My kids advocated with me largely because I didn't have child care, and we did everything together.

So if I was writing letters, they were drawing pictures. I remember a picture that my child drew of President Obama, of course, with the big ears.

Rebecca: So kids always think... they always exaggerate.

Cynthia: Yeah, and holding, like, an apple. And then it was a kid. And then I translated it. I put an arrow to Obama and stuff like that.

So they did that along with me. And then, as they learned to write and write their letters, they did that. 

I actually had a kid that stuttered. And for speech therapy exercises, they would call Congress after hours and leave a message using the speech therapy techniques.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: I am always about multitasking and bringing together things that need to be done for the family.

What to Do When You're Feeling Completely Overwhelmed

Rebecca: I love that. I love that. And I mean, this kind of gets into another question I was having for you because you really built your approach to advocacy around your strengths as a mom, right? And around... which is what I would assume made you a powerful advocate, right?

And how would you say moms can approach that, you know, even when they're feeling overwhelmed?

Cynthia: One thing I would say is, in that moment... I'm thinking about a time when we all had... my two kids and I walked out of a children's museum, all three of us crying because we were so overwhelmed. What happened? And then we just sat in the car, them in their car seats and me in the front seat, all of us just crying.

Rebecca: Oh, my God.

Cynthia: That's not the moment to call Congress.

Rebecca: Right.

Work With Your Season of Life, Not Against It

Cynthia: We all have our dark periods and stuff like that. So what I tell people is, especially if they haven't done it before, don't pick that moment.

Take a moment when things are quiet. For me, I did a lot of nighttime advocacy because that's when all the questions stopped. My little people were always asking me questions, and my husband would ask me a lot of questions.

So I needed all of that to stop so that my brain was, you know, at rest and moving slower. And that is a good time for me to make that call.

And another strength was that when I would actually go in for the appointments, I would bring my kids with me.

Now, this doesn't work for all kids. I was very fortunate to have kids that enjoyed small motor skill activities. But the kids actually kept everybody on their best behavior, both the advocates and the people on the other side.

Rebecca: Yeah, right.

Cynthia: And stuff like that.

Why Bringing Your Kids Can Be Your Biggest Advocacy Strength

Rebecca: I mean, particularly if you're advocating for things that affect moms, bringing your kids in is absolutely right.

Cynthia: Yeah. It was kind of like my superpower, sort of.

Rebecca: I kind of think about some of the senators or members of Congress who have brought their infants into session more recently as a political move, obviously, to showcase their life as a working mom or something related to that.

It's a powerful image to see that, right? The image of that stays in people's minds.

Why Moms Are Great at Communicating Clearly

Cynthia: I would say something else popped up for me, just as a skill that maybe I didn't have when I wasn't a mom, but my kids trained it into me, is the ability to explain something concisely and clearly.

Yes, I can see already you're thinking about sometimes when it's just like, "I have explained this, and I have explained this, and I'm going to explain it again." But I think we get better at it because we see what works and what doesn't, and what's sinking in and stuff like that.

So I have this phrase that I like to say, "If you can explain something to a second grader, then you can explain something to a member of Congress."

Rebecca: I love it.

Cynthia: Yeah, it's a little snarky, but it's also true because if you have the ability to have a sit-down conversation with them, it's going to be short.

Especially if you're on Capitol Hill, but also back in the district, it's going to be short. They don't have a lot of time, and they're constantly in meetings where there are acronyms and jargon being thrown at them and stuff.

And you don't have to use a condescending sing-song tone of voice, you know, like that mommy voice. But everybody appreciates a concise and clear explanation.

I used to do these videos on YouTube where I would have one of my kids in preschool. Again, I'm super big on multitasking. So I would just say, "Today we're going to call Congress while we bake a cake."

Rebecca: Oh my gosh, I love it.

How Explaining Big Issues to Kids Makes You a Better Advocate

Cynthia: And then comedy would ensue. And, you know, we're talking about, like, a Duncan Hines cake, so there's not a lot... it's still kind of pre-measured.

And as we would do it, I would explain to my preschooler what the issue was. It was probably about nutrition or something simple. And it's like, "This is happening, and this is why we're going to call."

"Okay, so why don't you stir this while I call Congress."

Rebecca: Oh my gosh, I love it. I love it.

Cynthia: Doing those videos meant that I was going to boil everything down into its simplest terms that even a child could understand.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. That's so great. I mean, we started at some point talking about five reasons why moms make great advocates. You talked about persistence. Now you've talked about being concise. Give us one more.

Why Empathy Is a Mom's Greatest Advocacy Superpower

Cynthia: Yeah, here's the biggest one. We are powerful, and sometimes we don't feel like we are. For instance, every time the Olympics comes up, there's going to be some commercial that is, like, heart-tuggy about children and failing. And it always, always makes me cry. It never did before I was a mom.

Rebecca: No, me neither.

Cynthia: I was pretty steely back then.

And that's one of the things that I think... I'm going to say this about moms, but it can be about dads, if you're an auntie raising your kid, if you're a grandparent, you know, any caretaker. But I'm speaking from my place as a mom.

“Motherhood Broke My Heart Open Wide.”

And I found myself with access to empathy that I did not know was within me. And so when I am in a meeting and I'm talking to that person, that aide, or that member of Congress, I want to talk to them human to human.

And most of my advocacy is going to be story-based. Either something that happened to me, something that happened to a friend, or even something that... if I was at a conference and somebody came from Kenya and told their story and gave us permission to share that, to be able to connect and empathetically share that story. That is a mommy superpower if I've ever seen one.

We spend our days trying to help our kids be kind and compassionate and empathetic. So to use that to make the world better in the halls of Congress, this is where we're needed.

Rebecca: And yeah, Congress needs more empathy. No question about it.

Cynthia: That whole thing was like, under attack with, you know, Elon Musk. It's like we have a crisis of empathy. It's like, what?

Rebecca: Oh my gosh.

Simple Ways Busy Moms Can Start Making a Difference

Cynthia: Yeah, we do not... we have a lack of it right now. And so vulnerability turned out to be a powerful thing and an asset, which just turned a lot of things on its head when I figured that out.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah, I love that.

So I hope listeners, you're hearing lots of empowerment as you think about becoming advocates. I know for me, this is poking a lot of holes in some of the excuses I have had. You know, not enough time, not enough connection, not enough... it's not going to do enough.

This conversation is poking holes in some of those excuses I have given myself.

And we've talked about everything from signing that petition, if only to make that step to get connected to that organization, to making a phone call at night. It'll take you less than a minute. And it actually does make a difference in whoever is taking that call on the other side as they tally your opinion.

You know, all the way to sitting down and maybe having an actual face-to-face conversation.

But I'm curious about other really simple ways that moms can get involved in advocacy that make a difference.

Cynthia: Yeah, well, I wanted to read this one little part because you're talking about doing it at night or something like that. There are so many different ways that we can do it.

And I want to tell you about my friend, Kerry Galson, who raised kids at the same time when ours were really little.

I'm picking up my book right now because I'm going to read this section. Not only do I talk about the philosophy of doing this, but I put a lot of tips and ideas and stories from moms in here.

Rebecca: Wait, what's the book title again? Sorry.

How to Fit Advocacy Into Your Busy Day

Cynthia: It's From Changing Diapers to Changing the World: Why Moms Make Great Advocates and How to Get Started. And this is a tip for calling Congress on the go.

Carrie Galson is a high school teacher in the Chicago area. She has her members of Congress on speed dial so she can call them when she gets delayed on the road.

This is her quote.

Rebecca: Carpool pickup. Got it.

Cynthia: Yeah. I don't have time to sit down and write anything anymore, unfortunately. My challenge is that I have an all-consuming job, and I'm raising three boys. Everything else that isn't my children or my job falls in the margins," she said.

"So I tend to call Congress on my drive after work. I just put whatever office I'm calling on speaker and explain I'm commuting home." Which, honestly, she doesn't even need to explain that, right?

Rebecca: It doesn't really matter.

Turn Waiting Time Into Advocacy Time

Cynthia: But yeah, I would do it in the pickup line all the time because I felt that I like to be an efficient person. Or I did anyway, pre-menopause. I was a really efficient person.

Rebecca: We all have... if we really added up all of the five minutes we were waiting around for our kids, five to ten minutes, whether that's soccer practice, or picking them up at school, or waiting in the carpool line, or getting delayed at the drive-through, who knows? We have two to five-minute chunks of time all throughout the day. I bet it adds up to easily an hour.

Cynthia: Absolutely. There was a time when I had one kid in choir on one side of town, and on the other side of town the other kid needed to do taekwondo. So the amount of time driving back and forth, it's just... it's maddening, really.

Rebecca: Yeah. Perfect time to make a call.

Cynthia: You asked for another one. I think we are all better when we can socialize as well, which is hard to do when you have a job and have the kids as well.

So my neighborhood group used to get together, and we would do playdates with a purpose.

And I have instructions for that too, if anybody needs instructions. But the model was that we would hire one babysitter to sit down in the basement with the kids while they watched a movie. And we just said, "Okay, they're going to have the screen time. It's fine."

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: And then we would sit upstairs, and every month somebody would bring in a different issue that was on her heart, what was going on. And then we would write a little letter to Congress together.

Rebecca: I love it.

Cynthia: And so it was like we got to exercise our brain. We got to stop talking about potty training and naps and, you know, whatever else.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: So that was my nugget to the universe.

Rebecca: It's like having a book club, but, like, an advocacy club.

Cynthia: Yeah. And if people are doing book clubs, oh, my gosh. You could read Nicholas Kristof's book Half the Sky about how important it is for, you know, young girls to go to school and, you know, gender equity.

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah.

Cynthia: If you have... we did a movie night with the kids, and we watched Queen of Katwe, which is about... I think Disney produced it. It was about a young African chess player and her struggles.

And it turns out to be about education. But it's a really good movie.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Cynthia: We all wrote letters after that one, too.

Rebecca: I love it. Is the handwritten letter better than an email?

Cynthia: Absolutely. Yeah.

Rebecca: Like, it has more weight to whomever is reading it.

Why Handwritten Letters Carry More Weight Than Emails

Cynthia: There's a couple things about that. Especially, you know, that email that you write just by clicking a button is probably going to be filtered by AI, and they'll know that it has the exact same wording as everything else.

So then you get a reply back, and it's kind of like computers talking to each other.

But if you just take the time to... even if you write the exact same thing, and you write it by hand, a human has to take that. You know, a paid human. And time is money, right?

So if they have a flood of these letters, and most offices have a policy that they will get back to you, somebody has to write you a letter back.

Wow. I mean, they usually streamline it and stuff like that, but it means somebody is putting in the time.

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah. But that tally is getting done by your letter there in. In the way that you were talking before.

Why Handwritten Letters Still Matter in the Age of AI

Cynthia: I actually heard an aide... no, it's still this year. It was this spring. I was at a conference where they had a panel of staffers talking about different things and answering questions.

And I actually heard them say that the tweets don't matter as much anymore because they can't verify whether it's a bot or not.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah.

Cynthia: And so this tool that used to be powerful with social media is becoming less so. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but they're putting less weight on it. But nothing takes away the handwritten letter.

Rebecca: Oh, it's so good.

Cynthia: And sometimes they, like, wave it around on the floor. Like Cory Booker made... no matter what side of the aisle you are on, he did make history doing a filibuster not that long ago. And how did he make up some of that filibuster time? By reading handwritten constituent letters.

Rebecca: Oh, so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. I wish we had all the time in the world to talk about this, but this is giving so much good food... not just food for thought, but I feel a different sense of energy as I think about what I can do and wanting to be a part of issues that really matter to me in simple ways. So I just appreciate you so much. Is there anything else that we haven't really covered that you think is really important for us to touch on?

Cynthia: Before I plug the book, I want to say a very mommy thing.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Don't Let Them Get Away With It

Cynthia: We've talked about the small things, like making the phone call and the handwritten letter. And yes, when combined with all the others, it makes a big difference.

And you can scale it up, and you can bring your friends or your group to write it.

But the third thing that I'd like to leave is, even if you're feeling like you're not sure that it makes a difference, don't let them get away with it.

If it were your kids that were doing something wrong, you wouldn't let them get away with it. Like, don't you dare let them do things like taking away your vote without weighing in.

You know, even if they go ahead and do something you don't like, let them know that you didn't like that. It's patriotic to do it. And it's also kind of a mom thing to be like, "This isn't right. I'm watching you, and I don't approve."

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. So good. I love that. Thank you so much for being here, Cynthia.

From Changing Diapers to Changing the World

So how do we... yeah, tell us about your books and where we can find them. Obviously, we're going to have links to these things in the show notes as well, but I want to hear a little bit about it.

Cynthia: Yeah. So I have two books, and we've talked about the title of From Changing Diapers to Changing the World: Why Moms Make Great Advocates and How to Get Started.

This is the book that has my story in it. The stories of a lot of other moms from diverse backgrounds that are advocating on different issues. So I'm not telling you what to think.

I'm giving you a lot of examples, and I'm giving you step-by-step instructions in the last part to show you how to write your handwritten letter.

Rebecca: Simple ways to do it.

Cynthia: Yeah, how to write the letter to the editor. And the playdate with a purpose. This was written in 2022. And last October, I put out Advocacy Made Easy because this is for the mothers and others. I figured we needed a book that was for everyone, not just mom-focused.

It is a slim, 70-page book. This is just the instruction part, with very few of the stories because I figure a lot of people don't have a lot of time. So yeah, if you want the stories, the inspiration, the mom's book is great. If you are like, "Oh my God, just tell me what to do," Advocacy Made Easy is for you.

Rebecca: Oh my gosh, I love it.

Cynthia: My website is, not surprisingly, advocacymadeeasy.com

Rebecca: Yep, yep.

Cynthia: And I'd be happy to autograph your purchase and send it out. But you can get them wherever books are sold. I would highly recommend independent bookstores and Bookshop.org, or, yeah, Bookshop.org for accessibility. You can get them from Amazon, but I always love plugging independent bookstores.

Rebecca: I love it. So good. Cynthia, thank you for your time. This really has made an impact on me. And so I know if it makes an impact on me, it makes an impact on the listeners.

So thank you again. And working moms, until next week, let's get to it.

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Rebecca Olson