GenX Women are Sick of This Shit!

HOST NOTE! You might notice we are late and you would be right! The pod is moving to monthly-ish! Life is pretty lifey right now and we need to change our pace in order to keep our heads above the waterline. We haven't gone away! So prepare to be as surprised as we are when we get a new episode up! Thanks for hanging around. We hope you like it here! 
Let's Goooooo!
The week felt like DEFCON 3: coffee makers that require Bluetooth, websites freezing, a vacuum that quits before the box hits recycling. That low-level chaos became our doorway into something bigger—how the “make it shiny, not sturdy” mindset is bleeding into institutions we need to actually work, especially public schools. We laugh because we have to, but then we go deep: from honoring Robert Duvall’s long, generous career to unpacking how shared culture teaches us to see what’s true.

We connect our Gen X childhood to the first big modern education battles. When the Department of Education launched in 1979, it centralized civil rights enforcement in schools—and put a target on its back. The Moral Majority rallied against “secular” classrooms, sparking fights over prayer, evolution, sex education, and, yes, banning books. Court cases tried to give creationism equal footing with science. Textbook wars in Texas and California shaped what the whole country read. Even our own sex ed memories feel like case studies in what happens when policy chooses comfort over facts.

Fast-forward to now: Moms for Liberty organizes national campaigns to purge libraries and restrict how teachers discuss race and gender. PragerU’s catchy videos package ideology as curriculum. Meanwhile, efforts to gut the Department of Education threaten the very oversight that protects students’ rights under federal law. Teachers—mentors who hold schools together—are burning out and leaving, taking h
Want to weigh in? Send us a text!
Plant Sluts
A cheeky deep-dive into the wild, sexy, and often subversive world of botany
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Support the show
Grab our MERCH!!!
2026 - We donate $2 per item sold with a minimum of $200 to each org!
Jan-Feb - Influenced
Mar-Apr - Exodus Refugee Immigration
May-Jun - Rapha International
Jul-Aug -
Sept-Oct -
Nov-Dec -
Love the pod? Let us know!
SUPPORT THE POD HERE!
Sign up for our newsletter! HERE
Tell us your own 5 Minutes of Fame story or call it in at 1-888-GEN-XPOD
Send us your Dear GenX Women letters!
JOIN US in L.Y.L.A.S a GenX Women's Social Club
L.Y.L.A.S (Love You Like a Sis) is a paid membership platform supporting this podcast and the work we do in the Facebook group.
INSTAGRAM
Bluesky
The OG Facebook group! GenX Women are Sick of This Shit...

TW: Discussions related to the release of the Epstein files.
On our listen back we realized this was a pretty tough conversation. We chose to leave it as it happened live. We can speak only to our own experiences and are not experts outside of that. This is a personal reflection from two Gen X cis white midwestern women's experience. 
The year has barely started and its a dumpster fire—snowbanks swallowing bumpers, headlines swallowing hope. We take that energy and point it at the news cycle’s biggest shock: the Epstein files, the broken redactions, and how institutions bend to protect power instead of people. From the perspective of two GenX women, we untangle how we were taught to smooth chaos with a smile, how pop culture made “go along to get along” feel normal, and why that conditioning makes this moment cut so deep.

We also hold space for joy and legacy with a heartfelt goodbye to Catherine O’Hara. Her work in Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and Schitt’s Creek wasn’t just hilarious—it modeled grace, warmth, and ensemble magic. That contrast matters. When the world rewards cruelty, artists who choose kindness show us how culture can heal.

Across the hour, we map the patterns: distraction tactics that flood our feeds, projection that accuses others of the harm being done, and the old story that women’s worth is transactional. We share personal stories from middle school to early adulthood—creepy compliments, age gaps normalized, the way consent was never modeled—and we mark what’s changing now. Today’s teens name grooming, reject “smile more,” and understand power gaps. Parents teach consent by refusing forced hugs with relatives. Boundary language—own your no, you are not responsible for other people’s behavior—has moved into everyday life.

Sanity requires strategy, so we get practical. Tak
Want to weigh in? Send us a text!
Plant Sluts
A cheeky deep-dive into the wild, sexy, and often subversive world of botany
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Support the show
Grab our MERCH!!!
2026 - We donate $2 per item sold with a minimum of $200 to each org!
Jan-Feb - Influenced
Mar-Apr - Exodus Refugee Immigration
May-Jun - Rapha International
Jul-Aug -
Sept-Oct -
Nov-Dec -
Love the pod? Let us know!
SUPPORT THE POD HERE!
Sign up for our newsletter! HERE
Tell us your own 5 Minutes of Fame story or call it in at 1-888-GEN-XPOD
Send us your Dear GenX Women letters!
JOIN US in L.Y.L.A.S a GenX Women's Social Club
L.Y.L.A.S (Love You Like a Sis) is a paid membership platform supporting this podcast and the work we do in the Facebook group.
INSTAGRAM
Bluesky
The OG Facebook group! GenX Women are Sick of This Shit...

Lesley & Megan here! Thanks so much for lending us your ears twice a month! Thank you to everyone in the Facebook group, our sisters in L.Y.L.A.S & everyone who has sent a comment or a text along the way. We really do have fun creating this pod twice a month. It is a labor of love and we hope that it helps you remember all the nostalgic random shit in your mind-tunnels as well. We will be back in the first quarter of 2026 some time. We are gonna take some time off to rest and re-charge & see what else we can remember. Peace & Love!
A candy cane cold open turns into a clear-eyed look at public grief, internet conspiracies, and how Gen X learned to hold two things at once: humor and heartbreak. We honor the lives and legacies of Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer Reiner, soap legend Anthony Geary, and Buck Rogers star Gil Gerard, while pushing back on the frenzy that fills the gap before facts do. The tributes are thoughtful, the memories are specific, and the message is simple—slow down, remember well.

Then we go full Hawkins. With clocks, bridges, and portals as our breadcrumbs, we map a Stranger Things endgame that feels true to the show’s 80s DNA. Our working theory: the Mind Flayer breach lands, the team loses ground, and the only fix is a time reset that prevents Henry’s flaying—restoring lives at the cost of relationships we’ve grown to love. We weigh the emotional math of that choice against a darker 80s twist and unpack why satisfying finales honor the rules they’ve built. Expect deep cuts, from Goonies and Poltergeist to St. Elsewhere, plus a reality check on why some endings are infamous for a reason.

We also trade New Year touchstones—corned beef and cabbage, black-eyed peas, “white rabbit” for luck—and that unmistakable Gen X pragmatism about amateur night. And because community matters, we share a year of member-p
Want to weigh in? Send us a text!
Plant Sluts
A cheeky deep-dive into the wild, sexy, and often subversive world of botany
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Support the show
Grab our MERCH!!!
2026 - We donate $2 per item sold with a minimum of $200 to each org!
Jan-Feb - Influenced
Mar-Apr - Exodus Refugee Immigration
May-Jun - Rapha International
Jul-Aug -
Sept-Oct -
Nov-Dec -
Love the pod? Let us know!
SUPPORT THE POD HERE!
Sign up for our newsletter! HERE
Tell us your own 5 Minutes of Fame story or call it in at 1-888-GEN-XPOD
Send us your Dear GenX Women letters!
JOIN US in L.Y.L.A.S a GenX Women's Social Club
L.Y.L.A.S (Love You Like a Sis) is a paid membership platform supporting this podcast and the work we do in the Facebook group.
INSTAGRAM
Bluesky
The OG Facebook group! GenX Women are Sick of This Shit...

We are back! Schedules - what can we say? Glad you're here to enjoy this little walk down memory lane! We are also happy to report we have made 4 of our six donations for the year! The final two are in process. Thanks to those of you who helped make this possible through your monthly membership and merch sales! 
The holidays bring out our best rituals and our strangest stories, so we leaned all the way in—burned-out schedules, half-dressed trees, and the secret rules of outdoor lights—before heading straight to the toys that defined a generation. We revisit the Cabbage Patch craze with clear eyes: the handmade “Little People” roots, the mall stampedes, the classifieds side hustles, and the often-overlooked contribution of folk artist Martha Nelson Thomas, whose work shaped the look long before it became a juggernaut. It’s a lesson in craft, credit, and how scarcity turns a simple doll into a cultural moment.

Then we geek out on Teddy Ruxpin, the soft-spoken marvel engineered by former Disney Imagineer Ken Forsse. A cassette with two tracks—one for story, one for motor control—let Teddy sync his eyes and mouth like a tiny animatronic at home. We talk marketing smarts (ABC specials, a full animated series, and a safety partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children), plus the infamous sidekick Grubby and why some accessories never quite make it. Along the way, we thread in lightning-struck Cookie Monsters, Tom Selleck mustache nostalgia, and the way small rituals carry us through seasons that are equal parts joy and ache.

If you grew up watching adults chase the “it” toy or felt the thrill of finding one tucked on a back shelf, this conversation will hit home. We celebrate the makers, name the mess, and honor the memories—because the magic wasn’t in the plastic, it was in the people who showed up for us. If th
Want to weigh in? Send us a text!
Plant Sluts
A cheeky deep-dive into the wild, sexy, and often subversive world of botany
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Support the show
Grab our MERCH!!!
2026 - We donate $2 per item sold with a minimum of $200 to each org!
Jan-Feb - Influenced
Mar-Apr - Exodus Refugee Immigration
May-Jun - Rapha International
Jul-Aug -
Sept-Oct -
Nov-Dec -
Love the pod? Let us know!
SUPPORT THE POD HERE!
Sign up for our newsletter! HERE
Tell us your own 5 Minutes of Fame story or call it in at 1-888-GEN-XPOD
Send us your Dear GenX Women letters!
JOIN US in L.Y.L.A.S a GenX Women's Social Club
L.Y.L.A.S (Love You Like a Sis) is a paid membership platform supporting this podcast and the work we do in the Facebook group.
INSTAGRAM
Bluesky
The OG Facebook group! GenX Women are Sick of This Shit...

A dark afternoon, a good cider, and one glittering memory: the roller rink. We follow that spark into a full ride through roller skating’s wild history and why it mattered so much to Gen X. From a violin-playing inventor crashing into a mirror to James Plimpton’s quad revolution, we connect the dots between Victorian spectacle, postwar neon boxes, and the utilitarian warehouses that became our weekend temples.

We talk about what those rinks gave us as kids: a semi-supervised freedom loop, a place to test courage on turns, and our first real music community. The DJ calls. The panic of couple skate. The pride when Another One Bites the Dust hit and you didn’t wipe out. Then we pull back the curtain on the deeper story—rinks as battlegrounds and sanctuaries. Black skaters staged skate-ins, built iconic styles like JB and Philly backwards, and turned rinks into essential venues for funk, disco, and early hip hop. Flippers in West Hollywood mixed drag, punk, and pop royalty; roller derby revived the punk-feminist spirit with women taking up blistering speed and space.

We track the shift to rollerblades, the tug of cable TV and video games, and why so many rinks closed or morphed into birthday factories. And just when it felt like the music faded, the pandemic sent wheels flying again: pastel quads on boardwalks, jam lines in parking lots, adult skate nights with old-school grooves. The recipe still works—smooth floor, lights overhead, music that moves your feet, and a little bravery to let go of the wall.

Got a rink story, your anthem, or a legendary wipeout? We want to hear it. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with the friend who always yelled “reverse skate.” Your turn: what song instantly drops you back onto that maple floor?
Want to weigh in? Send us a text!
Plant Sluts
A cheeky deep-dive into the wild, sexy, and often subversive world of botany
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Support the show
Grab our MERCH!!!
2026 - We donate $2 per item sold with a minimum of $200 to each org!
Jan-Feb - Influenced
Mar-Apr - Exodus Refugee Immigration
May-Jun - Rapha International
Jul-Aug -
Sept-Oct -
Nov-Dec -
Love the pod? Let us know!
SUPPORT THE POD HERE!
Sign up for our newsletter! HERE
Tell us your own 5 Minutes of Fame story or call it in at 1-888-GEN-XPOD
Send us your Dear GenX Women letters!
JOIN US in L.Y.L.A.S a GenX Women's Social Club
L.Y.L.A.S (Love You Like a Sis) is a paid membership platform supporting this podcast and the work we do in the Facebook group.
INSTAGRAM
Bluesky
The OG Facebook group! GenX Women are Sick of This Shit...