When YARA + DAVINA became mothers within a month of each other, they didn't step back from their practice – they stepped forward together. The socially engaged artist duo began collaborating as a job share, determined to remain visible in an industry that too often sidelines mothers. Their work – which spans everything from poetry to bronze public sculptures – is rooted in play, accessibility and political intent, often exploring themes of care, identity, and who art is really for. In this candid Q&A, they reflect on making time (and peace) with imperfection, the pressures of doing it all, and why motherhood has only deepened their creative drive. How has motherhood influenced your creative process or career choices? Brian Sewel, the art critic, said in 2008 that "Female artists fade away in their late 20s or 30s. Maybe it's something to do with bearing children". Yes, motherhood has had a profound influence on our career choices. We became a duo after becoming mothers, and we had a deep wellspring of desire to nurture our babies and also nurture our art practice, not letting it fade away. Being a mum gave us a wider range of being and a deeper depth of what it means to be human. It filled us with more ideas, not less… we had more determination and more creative ideas than ever. In 2016, our hack on motherhood was to start collaborating as a duo as a 'job share'. We had been friends and admirers of each other's work for 11 years prior, and both of us became parents within a month of each other. We realised we both wanted to be present mothers but also visible artists. We literally started working together so we could work part-time but have a full-time practice between us. We are driven to make powerful, playful and fun contemporary art, alongside being mothers, to challenge ideas like Tracy Emin, who said, "There are good artists that have children. They are called men." We are good artists, and we are not only women; we are mothers! Photo credit: Alice Horsley What's been the biggest challenge in balancing creativity and caregiving? Time and some guilt! Quite literally, there is little time to parent and make art. But we were both determined to be part-time mums, part-time artists and full-time friends. This duo works because we both understand the limitations of our free time: we are always there to step up when the other needs a break, has sick children, or craves space for ourselves. It was almost like an intuitive dance, where we had become in tune with each other's outside demands and rhythm. As artists, we often have to travel extensively for work, which can put considerable pressure on our partners and be unsettling for our children. So guilt slips in every now and then. Luckily, we both support each other in those times and remind each other that to parent and care for others effectively, it is essential that we make time for our art practice and thus ourselves. With time, we hope our children will respect and understand the role art played in our lives and why we had to find a balance that worked for us as creative beings. We work together every weekday, and we always find ourselves talking and supporting each other with our parenting alongside making work. We both deeply feel that we were put on this planet to create great art, to push the boundaries of what art is and can be, and with whom it can be made and for whom it can be made. And we can do this while raising children. Photo credit: Alice Horsley Have you felt pressure to 'do it all,' and how do you navigate that? Yes, we feel it all the time, from ourselves as much as from society! One of our mottos that we tell ourselves is 'Good Enough'. We have talked about getting these as matching tattoos ( we love to wear matching outfits). Essentially, it is impossible to do everything really well. We need to prioritise what things need to be brilliant and what things can just be good enough. These priorities shift daily, creating an interplay between our personal and professional lives. Being a duo allows us to pick up each other's slack when needed. Photo credit: Nick Turpin What changes would you like to see in the creative industry to better support mothers? In 2016, we participated in a British Council residency at Portland State University titled 'Motherhood: A Social Practice'. We explored motherhood in the creative world, and our passion was to create more family-focused residencies and secure funding to support childcare. We wanted programmers to consider simple things, such as family-accessible residences, and work around term times. Things have dramatically changed since then, but we need to see more changes. People like Lizzie Humber and her daylight collective are doing amazing things, thinking about programming parent-accessible daytime culture. When we live in a time where Evening Standard art critic Brian Sewell says things like, "Only men are capable of aesthetic greatness.", women, in general, have a tough time, never mind mums! We are passionate not only about supporting artist mothers but also about working with and for mothers. Our public artwork, WOMAN - WHOLE, was created alongside, with, and for mothers on the Regents Park Estate, commissioned by ODAC, Camden. We subverted the idea of manholes, creating a series of bronze-cast covers embedded in the pavements of Camden. These permanent public artworks playfully remind us that, as women, we are whole. Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning

Spoilers for “Wish World.” Even the most daring artists, those that actively seek reinvention on a regular basis, will eventually wind up repeating themselves. If they’re lucky and self-aware, the artist may even get the chance to rehabilitate some of the lesser works in their canon. Sadly, it’s at this last hurdle that Russell T. Davies has fallen, with “Wish World” not quite able to do more than become a bizarro remake of “The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords.” James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf We open in Bavaria, 1865, where a cloak-wearing woman on horseback rides through a forest to a remote cabin. It’s classic series villain the Rani, resurrected at the end of last week’s episode, who is greeted by Otto Zufall (German for “coincidence”), a storybook villager-type who expected to greet a midwife to help his ailing wife, Violett. Otto is the seventh son of a seventh son, who has just welcomed his seventh son into the world. Violet lays in bed cradling the newborn, which the Rani says is — as the third-generation seventh son — gifted with unbelievable power. She plucks the newborn from her arms, killing Violet by blowing on her, turning her into a pile of violet petals. She then blows on the other six children and turns them into ducks, and Otto into a wise owl. Then, we’re on Earth on May 23, 2025, where the happily married couple John Smith — the Doctor — and Belinda wake up side by side in bed. Their daughter, Poppy (from “Space Babies” and “The Story and the Engine”) pads in from her bedroom. The trio live as a picture of domestic bliss, with a distinctly fake-looking ‘60s style kitchen filled with bright colors. It may be the present day, but there’s little-to-no tech on show except that every room has a 14-inch CRT TV that only plays a broadcast of Conrad (from “Lucky Day”) who tells them the whole world is going to have great weather that day. At breakfast, the Doctor’s mind wanders for a moment, and suddenly his mug (which was in the middle of the table) inexplicably smashes to the floor. Never mind, as there’s a whole cupboard of matching mugs to replace the ones that fall during a “slip.” Each house even has a large, bright orange trash can just to get rid of the mugs that fall during a “slip”, including their next door neighbor, Mel. When the Doctor greets Mel, he asks what her plans are for May Day, and she says as an unmarried woman with no children, she’ll just sit inside in quiet contemplation. Looming over the heart of the city, taller than any skyscraper, is a structure made out of bone that stands tall on spindly spider legs. Similarly incongruous is a series of massive, dinosaur skeletons that stomp around the landscape. We’ll see later that the dinosaur skeletons don’t actually interact with the world around them, phasing through the space below. The only person (for now) that doesn’t seem to be affected is Ruby, who turns up at the Doctor’s house. She thinks she knows the Doctor, and Belinda, but can’t quite work anything out, and then blurts out that they don’t have a child when she sees Poppy. That prompts Belinda to call the police, as having doubt or sowing confusion is a crime here. The Doctor heads to work in UNIT HQ, suitably redecorated as a 1950s office despite the sci-fi trappings in the periphery. Kate Stewart is an officious boss, Colonel Ibrahim is the Doctor’s colleague and Susan Triad has been turned into the ‘60s tea-lady from “The Devil’s Chord.” Colonel Ibrahim still has the hots for Kate, but thinks that she’s so far out of his league that she’d never go out with him. The Doctor disagrees, saying that Ibrahim is a “beautiful” man, which prompts Ibrahim to get very angry. After all, it would be wrong, impossible or deviant for a man to find another man beautiful, even intellectually. But the Doctor manages to avoid having him call the secret police as the staff of the office all stop to spot the Rani flying by on her hover scooter, which they believe is a sign of good luck for May Day the following day (another deliberate incongruity given May Day takes place on May 1). The Rani lands on the spider skeleton / looming tower of doom, handing Mrs. Flood some Italian meat and tells her to make Conrad a sandwich. He’s up in the tower, as it’s his imagination that is shaping the world, with his regular broadcasts informing the people of his choices. But he’s also nervous — saying that the effort of maintaining a world is difficult since he has to run so many complex systems or else let whole nations be destroyed. It may be his imagination, but it’s being powered by the nameless baby from 1865, who never cries, just smiles. Conrad, being the show’s avatar of so many alt-right figures, has built a reality to reflect his worldview. Heterosexuality is compulsory and loudly and rigidly enforced, there is a secret police ready to seize anyone off the street at a moment’s notice and everyone is constantly asked to inform on their family members. The culture of paranoia is rife. It also explains why Mel, as an unmarried and child-free woman, is expected to sit away and quietly contemplate her implicitly-poor choices, because naturally Conrad only values women for their utility, birthing and taking care of men, rather than as people with their own agency. Even Mrs. Flood, a Time Lady in her own right and the architect of this whole scheme, is relegated to the thankless role of “mother.” James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf His regular broadcasts are even used to taunt the Doctor, reading a story about the Doctor from a book that apes the original British Harry Potter covers. It is, without a doubt, intentional that Davies’ would make his alt-right villain a fan of the series in 2025. Meanwhile, Belinda remains at home looking after Poppy, and gets a visit from her mum and grandmother. They are talking about motherhood, and the fact Poppy is expected to grow up and become an obedient wife to her husband. But when Belinda’s grandmother asks how long Belinda’s labor took, she can’t remember — prompting a small crisis of her own. There’s one UNIT regular who isn’t up in the office, Shirley Bingham, who is in a wheelchair begging out on the street. Conrad’s worldview has no room for people with disabilities (or queer and gender non-conforming people) and so she’s homeless. Ruby initially brushes her pleas for money away before stopping and realizing that she’s met them before. Ruby is taken to a hidden homeless encampment where the ignored have gathered to create some sort of community. Ruby explains to them what they already know — something about all of this is wrong, and that she’s lived through 2025 already (during “73 Yards”) and it didn’t play out like this. Shirley has a plan to bring down Conrad, and Ruby wants in, saying that if she can get face to face with him, she’ll be able to remember what’s locked in the back of her mind. That night, the Doctor is at home, furrowing his brow, and in the background Susan appears on his TV in a brief flash. But she quickly disappears, only to be replaced by Rogue (Jonathan Groff, from last season’s “Rogue”) who only has time to tell the Doctor two things. First, “tables don’t do that,” and that he loves him. Belinda wakes up to the sound of mugs smashing, as the Doctor experiments — every time he feels doubt, a mug falls through the solid wood onto the floor. Belinda can see what’s going on, but is horrified enough to call the police and get them to arrest the Doctor for having doubts. But Mrs. Flood doesn't just arrest the Doctor, she hauls Belinda’s mom there to look after Poppy so Belinda can be arrested too. Shirley and Ruby are camped out below the stone tower, and Shirley pulls out a UNIT tablet that’s a relic from the old world. Up in the tower, the Doctor and Belinda are pushed over a threshold and into the safety of the Rani’s lair. But the pair still don’t have their memories, and so are confused when the Rani starts expositing at them, at length. She points out the seal of Rassilon, and asks if that jogs his memory to no avail, similarly her robot assistants that are looking for signs of doubt among the population. The Rani even dances under a disco ball to a dumbfounded Doctor, who just pleads for mercy. The Rani explains, in a way that made no sense to me at least, that all of the villains the Doctor ever faced wanted death, but her, who wants life. She somehow survived all the various destructions of Gallifrey and is now looking for a lost soul in the heretofore unknown “underverse.” She achieved this by, uh, blocking the Doctor’s route back to Earth and instead, forcing him to criss-cross around the universe with the Vindicator. Each reading the machine took was, in fact, creating a universe-wide network of power all feeding back to the Earth. As the Doctor’s memory returns, the Rani explains that being trapped in Conrad’s reality was to create and foster doubt. Much in the same way a human being’s doubt can damage their world, a Time Lord’s doubt should be enough to crack open the universe. As the clock ticks closer to midnight, she sends Belinda back outside the bone tower to her doom. Then, the Rani locks the Doctor on the bone tower’s balcony to witness as London is swallowed by a series of enormous black voids with only remnants emerging from the other side (such as the burned Black Cab at the end of “The Robot Revolution”). Why? Because the lost soul, trapped in the “underverse” she’s desperate to reach, is Omega. The Doctor, trapped on the balcony, tries to break back into the tower and stop the Rani but it’s too late. She has laid explosive charges and when they blow, the balcony tumbles down toward the void beneath. But the Doctor screams, “Poppy is real! Don’t you know what that means?” as he tumbles into the darkness. To. Be. Continued. “Tables don’t do that.” James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf If there’s one thing Russell T. Davies doesn’t do well, it’s narrative coherence in the run-up to his big finales. Problems and solutions are equally contrived, pulled out of left field and generally don’t stand up to much scrutiny. In his mind that’s okay because what interests him is the emotional resonance and character moments created by that drama. Given he’s one of the few name brand writers in the UK, it’s not as if this approach hasn’t been enormously successful. But it does make “Wish World” a frustrating beast since it is, as usual, playing with so many good ideas it squanders most of them. That wouldn’t be so bad, but for the episode’s conclusion being handed over to incoherent technobabble. It doesn’t help this is the second series in a row that hinges on the audience recognizing the significance of a villain not properly* seen on screen for more than four decades. It’s worth looking at the first two thirds separate from the last, since there’s so much good stuff early on. One of Davies’ usual fixations is on the rise of middle-class British fascism, and the moments when we’re just inhabiting Conrad’s world are wonderful. This time, it’s centered on the stultifying environment for the so-called “respectable types,” whose position and status are perpetually tenuous. The paranoia that manifests out of that means everyone is looking for signs of deviance in their own communities. Those deemed unfit, especially people with disabilities and queer folks, are rendered as un-persons, invisible, shunned and isolated. “Wish World” picks up on another recurring theme in the show, which is to ask what happens after the war has ended. Conrad’s utopia may have lovely weather, but everyone is dressed in uncomfortable clothes and at perpetual risk of being kidnapped off the street by police. If I have a nitpick (and I do) it’s that I wish we hadn’t needed to see the Rani’s baby kidnapping in the opener. Starting with the Doctor and Belinda waking up as a married couple would have been a bigger shock. And it’s a shame the episode can’t commit hard enough to the “we’re trapped in a bizarro world” bit as Ruby turns up so quickly to let the audience know Things Are Awry. Imagine if the first twenty minutes had played out just from John Smith, or Belinda, or Ruby’s perspective and the creeping horror as they realized what was wrong. Sadly, it’s the usual problem of having maybe 30 minutes at most to gesture to those ideas rather than explore them. Because we then have to stop the episode to get Ncuti Gatwa to look perplexed while the Rani spouts nonsense at him. Her evil plan doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny even as we're being told it. After all, why does she need the Doctor to leap between planets when she has her own TARDIS? And if all it takes is a Time Lord’s doubt to rip open the universe, she could have easily done that herself. It’s not as if the Doctor is affected by the doubt since he’s able to carry on until the Rani explodes the balcony and casts him into the void. Oh, there’s one thing that’s good in those last moments — the scene of the Doctor realizing something about Poppy is a nice hook into the finale. James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf I don’t get why the Rani would be motivated to go looking for Omega, the scientist who helped co-found Time Lord society. If Rassilon was the political mind, Omega was the engineer who created the power to make it all happen. He created the stellar manipulator that put a stable black hole at the heart of Gallifrey — the Eye of Harmony — to power its TARDISes. Omega’s backstory was flimsy in his two televised appearances, essentially being an overpowered villain for the Doctor(s) to battle in two different anniversary specials, “The Three Doctors” and “Arc of Infinity.” The rest of his backstory was filled out in the spin-off material, but he’s essentially just a big name baddie trotted out when, say, the Master wouldn’t cut it. There are thematic parallels between Omega and Conrad, however, since Omega’s antimatter universe was sustained entirely by his will and imagination. Is that a comment on something, or just a nice way of dovetailing toward Omega. Who knows? I’m not sure I do. It’s hard not to notice the extreme similarities between “Wish World” and “The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords,” including the fact both stories got started in the previous episode. For a start, there’s the whole Britain-under fascism angle, with the Doctor incapacitated by the villain. Not to mention both feature a sequence in which a Gallifreyan foe taunts our hero with a high camp dancing sequence in a room hovering above the sky. If there’s a shame, it’s that while the runtime has been cut in half, the actual quality of the denouement seems to have gotten worse. Oh, it was nice to see the seal of the Prydonian Chapter of the Time Lords of Gallifrey Seal of Rassilon on the wall of the Rani’s HQ. The bronze and red stylings looked gorgeous and while I’m never going to bang on about fan service in production design, it was lovely to see. And wasn’t it nice to get a bone structure hovering over London which is an unintentional callback to “The Ancestor Cell.” Just a shame that you’re then reminded that the book was designed to burn all the great ideas created by Lawrence Miles out of Doctor Who. After all, Miles has been at times the most interesting writer the series’ leadership refused to engage with. * Yes, I know Omega and Rassilon are standing beside Tecteun in “The Timeless Children.” This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/doctor-who-wish-world-review-the-last-of-the-time-lords-redux-183004744.html?src=rss

Don’t call Kylie Kelce a WAG. The acronym for the “wives and girlfriends” of professional athletes rankles the podcaster, who first rose to fame as the wife of retired Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce. As Kelce explains, the phrase suggests that “your spouse’s profession swallows you up as well.”But many in the media are heralding this moment as a “new era” for WAGs, and Kelce is just one of several famous women who are at the fore of this renaissance: Everyone from TikToker Alix Earle, who is dating Miami Dolphins player Braxton Berrios, to Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles — unquestionably the more famous athlete — who is married to the Chicago Bears’ Jonathan Owens. Then there’s Taylor Swift, one of the most successful musicians on the planet, who, thanks to her relationship with Kylie’s brother-in-law Travis Kelce, has become the ultimate symbol of the new WAG.Meanwhile, a host of lesser-known women are experiencing their first taste of fame through their relationships with tennis players, Formula 1 race-car drivers, and even pole-vaulters. A sizable number have leveraged their romantic lives to receive brand deals, podcasting opportunities, and magazine profiles.By and large, our understanding of WAGs is rapidly evolving to acknowledge their own social and economic power. They’ve transformed from tabloid punching bags to an appealing status symbol. Still, the continued use of the term does raise some complicated questions: Why are we so interested in defining these women, some of whom are independently successful, by their relationships to men? And what does it mean that they might be raking in more attention and financial opportunities than some female athletes? The rise of the new WAG The public’s fascination with WAGs isn’t new. The acronym originated across the pond in the early 2000s to describe the wives and girlfriends of English footballers. British tabloids and football fans alike lambasted women — celebrities in their own right — like former Girls Aloud member Cheryl Cole and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham for their partying, extravagant spending, and flashy, maximalist looks. When the England national football team lost the 2006 FIFA World Cup, their partners were blamed in the press for the defeat. In the United States, being a WAG could be an equally dangerous public position. From Jessica Simpson to the Kardashians, they’ve been painted as distractions, attention-seekers, and bearers of bad luck. Over the past two decades, though, a WAG has become less of an involuntary title and more of an identity that some women are willing to cultivate, given that it can come with its own rewards.David and Victoria Beckham at the MOBO Awards on October 6, 1999. Dave Hogan/Getty ImagesThis modern version of WAG-dom can be credited to early 2010s reality shows like WAGS, Basketball Wives, and La La’s Full Court Life. These platforms allowed these women — some anonymous before they entered into relationships with athletes — to craft their own public narratives and become notable personalities on their own. For years now, Ayesha Curry, wife of Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry, has modeled what it means to be a “WAG influencer,” embracing her public relationship with her spouse while building a separate career as a successful cookbook author and host. Since then, WAG-influencers have become a welcome staple of certain sports cultures. Formula 1 has exploded in recent years, with a small part of that popularity owed to the sport’s stylish other halves. Since 2017, female viewership has grown from 8 percent to 40 percent. This has been largely credited to the popular Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which put a spotlight on the personal lives of drivers and, naturally, their partners. Lily Herman, who writes the F1 newsletter Engine Failure, says that the current popularity of WAG-influencers in Formula 1 can be credited to the former partners of a few young popular drivers from 2019 to 2022, like Carlos Sainz’s girlfriend Isa Hernáez and Charles Leclerc’s girlfriend Charlotte Sine, who were both featured on Drive to Survive. In 2022, Sine was the first WAG in the sport to explicitly use her access to the F1 circuit as a part of an ad campaign for the skincare brand Sunday Riley.“They were around during an era where the sport saw a lot of growth in its younger fan base, especially among teen girls and younger women, and there was a new wave of interest in these young drivers’ personal lives,” says Herman. These women have inspired fan pages, Tumblr accounts, and subreddits dedicated to their relationships, fashion, and rumored drama. Lately, the organization has fully embraced WAGs as recognizable supporting characters in the F1 universe, featuring them on social media and including them on chyrons during racing broadcasts. Tennis has tried to replicate the WAG-to-influencer pipeline too, although the sport and its fans are still warming up to the presence of outside partners. Morgan Riddle, who’s dating highest-ranked American male player Taylor Fritz, has been making get-ready-with-me videos for tournaments and vlogging about her life on the tennis tour since 2022. Ayan Broomfield, a former college tennis player who’s dating Frances Tiafoe, and influencer Paige Lorenze, who’s dating Tommy Paul, have mimicked the same career path, broadcasting their lives as WAGs on social media. Herman says that WAGs play a role in “adding dimension” to their male partners, contributing to the marketability of both. “Fritz is pretty bland as a public figure without his girlfriend,” says Herman. “She’s done way more in her work as an influencer and content creator to make him seem multidimensional than he has through solo interviews and profiles.”It certainly benefits younger, newer WAGs who are already powerful women. Biles and Swift have joined their ranks and seem to take pride in the role. Beckham, now a successful fashion designer, has also played a role in igniting a nostalgia for WAGs, thanks to the popular 2023 Netflix docuseries Beckham. The business of being a WAG is still very traditional In our current political climate, the WAG boom raises interesting questions. Research shows that some Gen Z-ers are identifying as more conservative than their parents. “Trad wife” content abounds online. Where do WAGs fit in? WAG influencers share some obvious similarities to tradwife influencers, women who’ve created lucrative identities and even businesses by perpetuating conservative ideas of marriage and motherhood. In a Substack essay, sports writer Frankie De La Cretaz argues that WAGs are essentially the tradwives of men’s sports: “No matter how many businesses a WAG starts or how many charities she runs, she still embodies a heteronormative idea of family and a woman’s place in society.” It’s hard to get around the fact that most WAGs are initially famous for their association with a male partner, although they may ultimately transcend that attachment (see Kylie Kelce’s complaint about being called a WAG and consider that her podcast, Not Gonna Lie, briefly dethroned The Joe Rogan Experience when it debuted in 2024).WAGs are gaining visibility while the most talented female athletes are still fighting for wage parity and struggling to land brand deals.But even attempts to define WAGs outside of their relationships come off a bit shallow. Stories about how these women are impacting sports largely focus on their brand deals and follower counts. When we celebrate the influence of WAGs, we’re mostly talking about their ability to turn other women into consumers and spectators, not athletes. Meanwhile, WAGs are gaining visibility while the most talented female athletes are still fighting for wage parity and struggling to land brand deals. Back in March, Australian tennis pro Daria Saville made a TikTok about the lack of sponsorships she and other female pros receive compared to tennis WAGs. “Female tennis players are not getting those brand deals,” she said. “It’s actually tennis WAGs that fit into the ‘aesthetic’ rather than, us, sweaty tennis players.” De la Cretaz tells Vox that the WAG boom echoes the mainstream platforming of tradwives. “It’s an extension of “girlboss” feminism, the idea that promoting women regardless of what that looks like is somehow good for women,” De la Cretaz says. “It’s also this idea that whatever you’re choosing is valid, even though those choices don’t exist in a vacuum.” The most visible WAGs are still predominantly in straight relationships, and a large part of being one still involves affirming a male athlete’s heterosexuality. As journalist Kira Cochrane wrote in a 2010 piece for the Guardian about football WAGs, “consciously or not, the women know their role is to boost their partner’s masculinity.” She added that their often highly feminized presentation “underlines [their] status as possessions, part of the package for footballers.” WAGs, with their new clout and influence, haven’t exactly gotten a total makeover. Rather, their hustle has grown more appealing. After all, they represent all the things women are encouraged to be in a time when mainstream culture is trending more conservative. They’re tradwives. They’re girlbosses. They’re stylish and beautiful. Most of all, they’re sitting on the sidelines. See More:

tendercare Founder and CEO Shauna Sweeney. Credit: Photo courtesy of Shauna Sweeney Shauna Sweeney was an executive at Meta, leading global industry intelligence and marketing programs, when her dad was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's some 3,000 miles away. Suddenly, she found herself as part of the sandwich generation — a term given to those who are raising their own families while caring for aging parents at the same time.Managing care and helping her dad stay in his home as per his wishes presented some challenges. This led to the creation of tendercare, an “AI-powered app that transforms caregiving from a crisis-driven, never-ending, too-late scramble into a supported, manageable part of anyone’s day,” Sweeney says.Since founding the company in 2022 at her kitchen table, Sweeney has left Meta to run tendercare full-time and has also expanded her family, all the time chasing that ever-elusive balance for working parents everywhere. (Already a mom and stepmom, Sweeney has another child on the way.) You May Also Like Working moms are often celebrated for being able to “do it all.” But there’s so much more to the story of building a business while raising kids at the same time. We caught up with tendercare founder and CEO Shauna Sweeney over email about scaling her company, protecting her time, and the mental load of working moms.Tell us about tendercare, the business you founded.tendercare is the lifeline I wish I had when I first started caring for my dad. The app allows caregivers to securely keep and retrieve all important information required to care for Mom and Dad during those moments [they] need it most — at the doctor’s office, in the ER, in moments of transition or change — and share it with the rest of the family and care team. It’s the everyday tools that family caregivers desperately need to lighten the load, plus a way to quickly discover what trusted services exist in your or your loved ones’ community. The goal is to ease the burden on families while giving them confidence to make the best calls for their unique situation, save precious time, and priceless peace of mind. What is the secret sauce to scaling a business while also juggling motherhood? There’s a mythology to being a founder that’s often built on a more narrow set of responsibilities and an incomplete picture of what home life looks like for many of us, especially women. One of the best realizations I’ve had is that my unique pain points of balancing being a mom and an adult daughter put me in a position to build solutions with empathy and understanding for others. That being said, I still believe in focus, focus, focus. I’m ruthless with my time, so I can be 100 percent focused on work or my family when I plan to be, not pulled in a million directions trying to juggle it simultaneously. Both work and family time are defended across all seven days with equal vigor.  Mashable Trend Report: Coming Soon! Decode what’s viral, what’s next, and what it all means. Sign up for Mashable’s weekly Trend Report newsletter. By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up! Scaling a business means living by the philosophy of, “Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.” We’re moving fast and there will always be another thing after the thing you’re working on. The secret isn't about working more hours; it's staying anchored in your purpose and understanding what takes priority at any given time.  Credit: Photo courtesy of Shauna Sweeney Is there anything about being a mom that has helped you with your career? Or vice versa? Tons. Having kids makes you figure out everything that matters for leading a team, building a company (which is like having another kid), or simply navigating life. Being a good mom is built on mutual trust, and the same is true for having a high-performance team. Listening, showing up no matter how tired, not simply reacting to a crisis or big emotion, being flexible, setting the example, encouraging, and mentoring — all of those things are transferable skills between motherhood and executive leadership. So is learning to run off less sleep. What do you wish more people understood about working moms? We are always operating with an invisible load. The logistics you see are just the surface; typically, there’s so much more going on. There’s a mental and emotional bandwidth we’re constantly managing. Rather than a lack of ambition, it’s more of a surplus of responsibility. Working moms are not just multitasking, we’re multi-living. The mental overhead is immense. As the saying goes, if you want to get something done, ask a busy person. It should actually be “ask a mom.”What advice do you have for other moms looking to launch their own business? Don’t wait for permission because you won’t get it. Your lived experience is your market insight. Build something that solves a pain point you deeply understand, and then validate it. And remember, success doesn’t have to look like scale; it can look like sustainability. Start small, test constantly, and don’t underestimate the value of momentum over perfection. Any final words of wisdom?It’s up to us to build the world we want to live in, and the world we want our kids to live in. If you see something that could be better, it probably could be. It’s a problem that’s been waiting just for you to come by and fix it.This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Topics Family & Parenting Nicole Cammorata Director of Special Projects As Director of Special Projects, Nicole Cammorata helps guide Mashable's editorial innovations, licensing programs, and specialty series. Previously, she was the site's Executive Editor and its very first Shopping Editor before that. Nicole is also the site's resident gifting expert and gets a thrill out of helping readers find the perfect present. She received a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an MFA in fiction writing from The New School. She lives in Maine with her husband, their two young children, and a backyard full of flowers.

Michelle Williams says she wants her kids to grow up seeing their mother work. Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Turner 2025-05-20T04:36:35Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Michelle Williams knows how challenging it is to be a working mother. She says balancing her career and motherhood is like figuring out "which master you're going to serve." "Because the truth is, if work is going well, somebody else is taking care of the kids," she said. Michelle Williams knows balancing her acting career with being a mom is tough.During a Monday appearance on the "Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard" podcast, Williams, 44, shared how she juggles life as a mother of four while keeping her acting career on track."Kids are such great life checkers. They force you to put your best self in front of them," she told podcast host Dax Shepard. "You can't abdicate your life and your work and your own desires, but you do have to put them in check and figure out which master you're going to serve."The "Brokeback Mountain" star welcomed her first child, Matilda, in 2005 with her then-boyfriend, the late actor Heath Ledger. In 2020, she married director Thomas Kail, with whom she shares three children.For her, being a working mom is about striking a careful balance — never letting her kids or her career go "unattended for too long.""Because the truth is, if work is going well, somebody else is taking care of the kids. And if you're in a high point with your kids, the work is shoved to the side," Williams said."You can't be equally good at them at the exact same time, and you have to allow for that give and take, but then also replenish the other things. If you have a big period of being at home, you need to go back to what you've left unattended and put some light over there," she continued.Williams says she also wants her kids to grow up seeing their mom work, which makes it hard to step away from her career for too long. However, the pull of being a mother is hard to resist."My best day with my children is better than my best day at work. I am more thrilled with that high than I am with a work high," she said.This isn't Williams's first time speaking about being a working mom."So you have to figure it out because we have to stay in the workforce, even though it often feels like it's untenable. My heart obviously belongs to my children; they tug at it the most. But I really want to be able to have both," she told Entertainment Weekly in a January 2023 interview.Other female Hollywood stars have also spoken up about balancing their personal and professional lives.Naomi Watts, 56, said she tried freezing her eggs when she was in her early 30s to focus on her career."Because I came into it late — at least with my launching — I was told to work, work, work because it'll all be dried up at 40," Watts told Katie Couric in a January interview.Cameron Diaz, who took a decadelong hiatus from Hollywood, said she spent those 10 years "trying to stay alive just like every other mother."During Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit 2024, she elaborated on her decision to stop acting."It really comes to: What are you passionate about? For me, it was to build my family," Diaz said.A representative for Williams did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours. Recommended video

Science fiction has become one of television’s most reliable genres and audiences have no shortage of options when it comes to progressive sci-fi storytelling. Anthology series have also never been more popular as they’ve proven to be an easy, noncommittal way to draw in audiences with unrelated, standalone storytelling. Love, Death + Robots has quietly done dependable, delightful work for three seasons, but it’s not just a sci-fi anthology. It’s a challenging animation showcase that goes to brave, impossible places for an anthology series. Despite the seemingly selective nature of its title, it feels like nothing is off limits in Love, Death + Robots season 4. This season is more playful than ever as it asks the audience to consider technology and eternity through endlessly diverse lenses. This energy is palpable here, with another collection of impressive, intelligent, and unpredictable animated short films. Love, Death + Robots excels with its original stories, but this season also ambitiously expands upon some of its previously built universes. Jennifer Yuh Nelson’s “Spider Rose” is a masterful follow-up to Volume 3’s “Swarm,” which follows a grieving Mechanist who receives a new companion and another shot at vengeance against the assassins who killed her husband. This is a sequel story that doesn’t just repeat the hits or gratuitously give fans what they want. “Spider Rose” instead finds a fresh, justified angle to return to this world. It’s a surprising yarn about unexpected motherhood as a conflicted character reconsiders everything she thought she knew about herself. Stories like “Spider Rose” challenge the audience and prompt them to change and grow. There’s an emotional throughline to this, but the installment is also rich in chaotic aerial dog fights, ultra gory deaths, and creative, indulgent extremes The Love, Death + Robots episodes that lean into hard science fiction are often the season’s most gripping installments and the entries that will stick with the audience long after they’ve finished. That being said, there are plenty of installments from this fourth batch that are just unabashedly silly. These may be seen as frivolous stories to some audiences, but they’re a testament to Love, Death + Robots’ versatility and that the trio of topics in its title are universal ideas that everyone can enjoy. In addition to “Can’t Stop,” ABGO’s “The Other Large Thing” and “Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners” from The Aaron Sims Company are some of the more overt examples of comedy this season. They’re a welcome balance for the more nihilistic and dour stories from this season that often hit with a ton of bricks. The successful tonal and genre balance that’s achieved across these 10 episodes takes the audience on a fascinating journey. There’s a little bit of everything here in this passionate sci-fi celebration, including a rare live-action segment. One of the season’s most entertaining episodes is the truly unhinged Red Hot Chili Pepper-starring “Can’t Stop.” Not only does this episode mark David Fincher’s directorial return to Love, Death + Robots, but through the conduit of his original love: music videos. “Can’t Stop” looks incredible and turns to an effective marionette aesthetic that’s unlike anything that’s previously been in the anthology series. “Can’t Stop” will ultimately find the audience asking not if Fincher could do this, but why he would want to. It’s such a gonzo experiment that simultaneously is the perfect showpiece for why a series like Love, Death + Robots is necessary. You’re not going to get a piece of storytelling like this on Black Mirror. There’s such a ridiculous, nonsensical energy that governs this short, but it’s also undeniably entertaining and such a fun time. The reason that a series like Love, Death + Robots works is that it makes space for “Can’t Stop” in addition to bleak, dramatic showpieces and action spectacles such as “Spider Rose” and “400 Boys.” Nothing is off limits in this series – this season even incorporates dinosaurs – and this freedom results in remarkable storytelling that’s worth the big swings that get taken, even when they don’t work. “Can’t Stop” is just five silly minutes that aren’t afraid to get weird and indulge in vibes. It also doesn’t hurt that David Fincher is behind this installment, but any chaotic mish-mash music video of this nature is still going to stand out in a series that’s more likely to reference J.G. Ballard and Harlan Ellison than MTV. Love, Death + Robots is a satisfying exploration of science fiction, but it’s also a series that prides itself in its groundbreaking visuals. Every season of Love, Death + Robots has been visually sumptuous, with these new episodes being no exception. Love, Death + Robots seems to be the proudest of its lush, photorealistic segments, like the work that Blur Studio does in “Spider Rose.” These segments don’t disappoint, but Love, Death + Robots has the most fun when it’s willing to indulge in more ambitious and stylized imagery “For He Can Creep” from Japan’s Polygon Pictures or Passion Animation Studios’ “400 Boys” are especially gorgeous.  The latter of these adopts a really impressionistic visual style that’s reminiscent of The Big O’s Art Deco quality. This complements the supernaturally heightened story that’s being told in a hyperbolized universe where gang warfare and a strict bushido-like code are the norm. Factions fight with psychic, electric powers in a world that feels ripped out of a Stephen King story. “400 Boys” is visually rich, but the art style also thematically resonates with the story’s deeper message. It goes to town with its exaggerated aesthetic and creates some truly gorgeous visuals and landscapes in this broken world. The post-apocalyptic wasteland that it crafts is like The Warriors meets Mad Max meets Escape From New York. Destruction plays out on such a massive scale that looks like gorgeous splash panels from a comic. There are setpieces in which warriors rollerblade under the legs of giant babies that they proceed to hack to bits that feel like they’re inspired by Attack on Titan’s epic battles. It’s the complete opposite style of no-holds-barred gladiatorial combat that gets treated like entertainment in “The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur.” Love, Death + Robots triumphs with its fourth season, the likes of which prove that there’s still plenty of gas in this tank. If anything, Love, Death + Robots is willing to get even weirder and break some of its older rules for the sake of fresh storytelling. There are few misfires in this season of 10 episodes, although some certainly hit harder than others. It’s appreciated to get this many episodes and that Volume 4 is longer than the two previous seasons. However, it seems increasingly less likely to return to the cornucopia of content that was the 18-episode Volume 1. It’s also worth pointing out that, while the visuals this season remain immaculate, there are only two animation studios from outside of the United States. Love, Death + Robots’ aim has never specifically been to spotlight international animation. That being said, Love, Death + Robots is at its best when there’s a truly eclectic style to each of its installments.  Love, Death + Robots has another win with Volume 4 and hopefully there are more surreal science fiction stories to come. The season begins with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis singing “Can’t Stop” and by the end of these 10 episodes you’re left hoping that mantra is also true for Love, Death + Robots. All four volumes of Love, Death + Robots are now streaming on Netflix. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!