It’s just me today, and I’m trying something a little different. After a couple of episodes where I mostly ranted, I wanted more structure. So this week comes in two parts: the Weeds, what’s been weighing on us, and the Wonder, what’s been getting me through.

The weeds are easy to name. The conversation about women online is focused on everything that isn’t working, and it should be. But it can leave you feeling hopeless. Two steps forward, five steps back.

The wonder surprised me. It’s the writers of Ted Lasso Season 4. Yes, it’s sentimental. Yes, it wraps everything up in a bow. And they still walked straight into the hard stuff: motherhood, ambition, pregnancy, what happens when a woman is the boss. I sit with struggle in my office every day. I don’t need my TV to do it too.

No spoilers, I promise.

What we talk about:

* Why Ted Lasso Season 4 felt like it was written by women

* The women’s issues the writers weren’t afraid to take on

* Rebecca and the question of whether she’s really a feminist

* Why “sentimental” isn’t a flaw right now

* The beach read of television, and an episode that deserves the Emmy

* More wonder: the Minnesota women (and fans) who made me feel welcome in sport

* The bar in town that only shows women’s sports

* A new segment, Tourist in My Own Town: a weekend up north at Breezy Point

* What I’m reading: Dolly All the Time by Annabel Monaghan

➡️ Website: https://thewonder.life/

➡️Join Our community: https://wonder.myflodesk.com/womenofwonder

Also on Substack: critzking.substack.com

Listen to Wonder in the Weeds wherever you get your podcasts. 🌿

Until next time, keep looking for the wonder in the weeds. And maybe you are the wonder.

It’s just me today, and I need to talk about something that’s been on my mind all week.

At a congressional hearing, Senator Eric Schmitt tried to catch Jack Smith in a lie about being at an Atlanta Hawks game. He was actually at a Maryland vs. Iowa women’s game to see Caitlin Clark. The Hawkeyes, not the Hawks. It would be funny if it weren’t so telling. In this episode I dig into the layers of that moment: the disregard for the truth, the doubling down, and the fact that it never even crossed his mind that women play basketball.

Then I zoom out to a week of news that hit women from every angle: Title IX clawbacks, a Senate bill on college athletics, the Cornell case, and an LSU football player back on campus. And I bring it home to the question I always come back to as a parent. We’ve taught our daughters how to protect themselves. Have we taught our sons to step in?

What we talk about:

* Why every topic my Gen Z daughter and I pick ends up being about women

* The Hawks vs. Hawkeyes hearing moment, piece by piece

* How women’s sports get erased by the people claiming to protect them

* Title IX and the college sports bill

* The Cornell 57 and the LSU case

* Raising upstanders, not just “good guys”

* The uncomfortable conversations I had with my own kids, starting when they were little

* Punishment vs. consequences (more on this next time)

* What I’m watching: the new season of Ted Lasso

Content note: this episode discusses sexual assault.

Until next time, keep looking for the wonder in the weeds. And maybe you are the wonder.

Listen to Wonder in the Weeds wherever you get your podcasts. 🌿

Also on Substack: critzking.substack.com

Faith was four years old when she started singing “Our Song” everywhere we went.

The grocery store. The car. The little ice cream shop where the lady behind the counter thought she was the cutest thing she had ever seen.

She has been a Taylor Swift fan for as long as Taylor Swift has existed, and I have had a front-row seat watching my daughter grow up right alongside Taylor’s career.

So when we sat down in a coffee shop to plan our next XwhyZ episode, it was only a matter of time before we landed here.

Faith came in with a thesis, a notebook full of research, and a warning:

We have never been able to be normal about this woman.

Her argument is that Taylor was never really the underdog.

She has been a businesswoman since she was 16, running her own career in an industry built by and for men, while playing the girl next door who wears T-shirts and sits on the bleachers.

That gap between the relatable persona and the mogul is where a lot of our complicated feelings come from.

We loved her when she was humble, then got tired of her acting surprised.

We love her success, then bristle when she asks for more of it.

And then we got to the part where we actually disagreed.

Taylor Swift Is a Billionaire. Now What?

Taylor Swift is a billionaire.

Dolly Parton never was, because she gave so much of her money away.

Faith wants Taylor to put her name, and not just her money, behind a cause and ask her fans to follow her there.

I found myself defending her, which surprised both of us.

She’s 35. She just finished the biggest tour in music history.

And I keep coming back to the same question:

Why are women held to an impossible standard where success only counts if you give half of it away while championing 77 causes at the same time?

We don’t settle it.

That’s kind of the point.

Having complicated feelings about Taylor Swift feels a lot like having complicated feelings about a friend you grew up with.

You love them. You wish they’d do a few things differently. And you’re not going to feel the same way at 20 that you did at four.

And somewhere out there, a brand-new twelve-year-old is hearing “Fifteen” for the first time and thinking it was written just for her.

In This Episode

Faith and I talk about:

* Why Faith says Taylor Swift was never the underdog

* The Life of a Showgirl backlash, and why not everything has to be her best work

* The double-edged sword of being “relatable” as a young woman in the public eye

* Folklore, the pandemic, and the start of what Faith’s sister calls the Taylor Swift “mass psychosis”

* The $1 countersuit, and what it said about who she was at 21

* Political neutrality, great power, great responsibility, and whether that line belongs to Spider-Man or JFK

* Dolly Parton, billionaires, and whether Taylor owes her fans more than she’s giving

* The Gen X vs. Gen Z split on what we expect from the most famous woman in the world

This Week’s Wonder

Put on the Taylor Swift song that makes you dance around the kitchen.

Then find a charity you believe in and give it a little something.

Because maybe you don’t have to choose between enjoying someone’s success and expecting more from the people who have the power to make a difference.

What Should We Talk About Next?

Got a topic you want Faith and me to take on next?

Leave it in the comments or send us a message.

And if we got a fact wrong, please politely correct us.

Facts only, not our opinions. 😉