

The Longest Shortest Time
Hillary Frank | Realm
Stories about the surprises and absurdities of raising other humans—and being raised by them. But you don’t need to be a parent to listen. Created and hosted by Hillary Frank.The Longest Shortest Time is back after a 5-year hiatus! New episodes drop every other Wednesday. Join LST+ for community, ad-free listening, and access to You Know What, our premium show featuring college students speaking candidly about sex, dating, and relationships.If you’re new to the show or want to get reacquainted, check out some of our classic episodes:• #27 Rewriting Your Birth Story• #88 W. Kamau Bell Asks His Mom About Sex• The Accidental Gay Parents Series (#60, #62, #80, #81, #125, #211)• #79 Terry Gross on Not Having Kids• It's a Real Mother: A Series About Workplace Discrimination (#141, #142, #143, #145)
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 15, 2025 • 36min
Shafia Zaloom's Playful Approach to Sex Ed
Shafia Zaloom is a sex educator and advisor to Big Mouth, Nextflix’s fantastic series about puberty. Join us as she walks us through her innovative approach to teaching young people about healthy relationships, which includes games, music, and complicated scenarios based on real-life situations.
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Recommendations from the archive
• #237 You Know What: An LST Spinoff (Shafia is in this pilot!)
• #221 How to Not (Accidentally) Raise a Rapist
• #134 How to Make a Fella Feel Relaxed (the strange but real history of sex ed!)
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More about Shafia Zaloom
• Shafia’s website
• Shafia’s book: Sex, Teens & Everything in Between (using our links supports the show!)
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• Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
• Follow us on Instagram
• Sign up for our newsletter, where we recommend other parenting + reproductive health media
• Buy books by LST guests (your purchase supports the show!)
• Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 13, 2025 • 33min
BONUS: You Might Also Like: "The Second Opinion with Dr. Sharon Malone"
Today we bring you an episode of "The Second Opinion with Dr. Sharon Malone." On Dr. Sharon’s new podcast, women take back the conversation on health with straight talk, real experience, and the care we all deserve. You’ll hear prominent female advocates, experts and patients just like you sharing how they confronted gaps in our healthcare system and got second opinions that saved their lives. Alongside each guest, Dr. Sharon tackles the questions and topics we’ve been conditioned to ignore — the ones we search for at 3 a.m. but never bring up at the doctor’s office. From dismissed symptoms to systemic failures, she pulls back the curtain on what’s really going on in women’s health and gives women the tools to advocate for themselves and each other.
In this episode, Dr. Sharon talks to Board Certified Ob/GYN and Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgeon, Dr. Karen Tang. The two unpack the evolution of Obstetrics Gynecology, the different OB-GYN subspecialties, and surgical options for reproductive health. Plus, Dr. Tang shares experiences patients may have on the surgical table and why you may want to choose a minimally invasive surgery for gynecologic conditions. Find more episodes of “The Second Opinion with Dr. Sharon Malone” wherever you get your podcasts.
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• Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
• Follow us on Instagram
• Sign up for our newsletter, where we recommend other parenting + reproductive health media
• Buy books by LST guests (your purchase supports the show!)
• Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 8, 2025 • 50min
LST FAVES: How to Make a Fella Feel Relaxed
Strange but real lessons of American sex ed. Historian Lisa Andersen walks us through the decades.
⭐️ This episode originally ran on August 23, 2017 and is a favorite from the archives. We hope you enjoy, and we’ll be back next week with a brand new episode.
📚 The book Lisa talks about developing in this episode is now available. She co-wrote it with Lauren Bialystok and it’s called
Touchy Subject: The History and Philosophy of Sex Education. Using this link supports the show!
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Recommendations from the archive
• #220 The Staircase
• #221 How to Not (Accidentally) Raise a Rapist
• #224 Sex-Positive Books for Tweens and Teens (and Parents!) - with reading list (buying books from this link supports the show!)
• We’ve also got a whole series on Sex & Parenthood!
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• Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
• Follow us on Instagram
• Sign up for our newsletter, where we recommend other parenting + reproductive health media
• Buy books by LST guests (your purchase supports the show!)
• Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 1, 2025 • 37min
You Know What: An LST Spinoff
Does more sex make you “wider”? Is it bad to swallow sperm? How do you clean a sex toy? In the pilot episode of our spinoff show, YOU KNOW WHAT, college students answer anonymous questions from teens and young adults — with help from sex educator Shafia Zaloom.
This episode is a pilot for a concept we very much want to keep making. As you can imagine, it’s not easy to get funding for a sex ed show for young adults, but we know it would be very popular! If you work for an org that might be interested in partnering, or you have the means to help out, email hello@longestshortesttime.com.
You can hear more episodes with the fabulous Zaraia, Niko, and Ollie when you join our special club, LST+ 🙂
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Recommendations from the archive
• #50 Mom, It’s Time We Had the Talk
• #220 The Staircase
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More on Shafia Zaloom
• Shafia’s website
• Shafia’s book: Sex, Teens, and Everything In Between
…
• Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
• Follow us on Instagram
• Sign up for our newsletter, where we recommend other parenting + reproductive health media
• Buy books by LST guests (your purchase supports the show!)
• Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sep 24, 2025 • 34min
Sick of "Morning" Sickness
If pregnant people need to eat for two, why do so many of us puke morning, noon, and night? Our friends from Vox's Unexplainable investigate.
Guests: Julia Longoria, host, Unexplainable; Marlena Fejzo, Ph.D., geneticist, and Research Director at the HER Foundation.
For more, go to vox.com/unexplainable
Contact Unexplainable: unexplainable@vox.com
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Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
Follow us on Instagram
Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sep 17, 2025 • 38min
Elise Hu on Sharks, Cheeseburgers, and Raising Kids Abroad
In this episode, Elise Hu gets personal. Tune in for her dad’s refugee story involving sharks, the unique challenges of parenting a tall girl, what she ate in childbirth, and a 3rd grade disappointment that shaped her career in journalism.
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Recommendations from the archive
#19 The Mortality of Motherhood
#183 Postpartum House Arrest
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Check out Elise’s work!
• Raising Us: a parenting podcast from A Kid’s Co.
• Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital
• Elise’s website
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Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
Follow us on Instagram
Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sep 10, 2025 • 36min
LST FAVES: The Mortality of Motherhood
NPR’s Kelly McEvers compares and contrasts childbirth vs being a war correspondent.
⭐️ This episode originally ran on July 25, 2013, with an update on June 13, 2016, and is a favorite from the archives. We hope you enjoy, and we’ll be back next week with a brand new episode.
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Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
Follow us on Instagram
Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sep 3, 2025 • 38min
It's a Real Mother, Part 6: We've Solved It, Right?
Eight years after It’s a Real Mother, our series on discrimination against working moms, Brigid Schulte returns to share how we’ve conquered the motherhood penalty! Just kidding, it’s still alive and well. But there are some bright spots. We’ll talk about the highs, the lows, and simple things we can do to improve working conditions for moms — and everyone!
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It’s a Real Mother
Check out the full series.
• Our first episode with Brigid is #142: It’s a Real Mother, Part 2: Ideal Worker
• Our second episode with Brigid is #213: It’s a Real Mother, Part 5: Now What?
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More on Brigid Schulte (using our affiliate book links supports the show!)
• Brigid runs a nonpartisan think tank at New America called The Better Life Lab
• Brigid’s first book: Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time
• Brigid’s latest book: Over Work: Transforming the Daily Grind in the Quest for a Better Life
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Sponsors (using our links supports the show!)
• Caraway: 10% off your next purchase at carawayhome.com/LONGSHORT or use code LONGSHORT at checkout
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Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
Follow us on Instagram
Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 27, 2025 • 40min
LST FAVES: It's A Real Mother, Part 2: Ideal Worker
Why do stock images of working moms look frazzled, while stock images of working dads just look like... guys at work? Author Brigid Schulte gets to the heart of why discrimination against working moms is so deeply embedded in our culture—and what we can do to change it.
⭐️ This episode originally ran on November 8, 2017 as a part of our critically acclaimed series about working moms, It’s a Real Mother. We hope you enjoy, and we’ll be back next week with a brand new episode.
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Brigid’s book (using our affiliate link supports the show!)
Overwhelmed: How to work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time
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Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
Follow us on Instagram
Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 20, 2025 • 51min
Katz BACK in the Cradle
Eight years ago, Matt Katz came on the show after nervously revealing to his 5-year-old daughter that the man she thought was his biological father was not, in fact, his biological father. But Matt would later learn that the truth about his biological father was much more complicated than he even realized. As he followed the twists and turns of this story, Matt became a bio dad detective — chasing clues at home and abroad, and concocting intricate, fantastical theories along the way.
*NOTE: Before listening to this episode, we highly recommend listening to the prequel, “Katz in the Cradle,” which you will find in your podcast feed right before this episode.
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Matt’s podcast
Our episode only scratches the surface of this wild story. In Inconceivable Truth, Matt tells it in full.
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Join LST+ for community and access to You Know What, another show in the Longest Shortest universe!
Follow us on Instagram
Website: longestshortesttime.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices