This month I spoke to Georgia Silvera Seamans, host of the Your Bird Story podcast, about the pre-and-post parenthood birding experience, especially as a woman and mother. Birding is something I do as a person in the world, with or without my children.

I observe that the birding community still lumps mothers and children together when the conversation comes up about how to engage more parents in birding (as a means to engage children in birding). I want to separate that association and ask for the birding community to create space for caregivers in general to accommodate things like diverse schedules, transportation challenges, virtual versus in-person participation (which is now more normalized thanks to the pandemic), clarifying age restrictions (if there are any), as examples.

My impetus as a writer about birding has been to appeal to my peers—urban and suburban women (with or without kids)—not their children. Yet as a mother I cannot deny the challenges unique to us as we try to maintain a birding practice in a birding culture designed for and by men with time, mobility and money as no object.

Jen Kepler of Brooklyn, NY is also a guest in this episode, speaking to her experience as an urban birder with a toddler. My portion begins at minute 27:00 and lasts about 20 minutes. Thanks for listening!