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Kamala Harris attributed everything she knows about “agency” to her mom during her October 6 interview with popular podcast Call Her Daddy, which Spotify has listed as “the most listened-to podcast by women.”
The vice president and Democratic presidential nominee joined podcast host Alex Cooper in Washington DC for an unfiltered interview where they talked about her upbringing as well as sexual assault, abortion rights, and criticisms against her.
Harris discussed her childhood growing up with two divorced parents and being primarily raised by her mom, Shyamala Gopalan Harris. When asked by Cooper what “values” her mom “instilled” in her, she said she learned the importance of expressing her emotions.
“My mother definitely impressed upon us the importance of being able to express how we were feeling,” Harris told Cooper.
“And a lot of it, I think, was her teaching us that we had agency, and so, that things don’t just happen to you,” she said. “So, think about how you’re feeling, not just as a way to dump, but also as a way to kind of figure out where you are in a moment and center yourself.”
The former prosecutor explained how when she was in her late teens and early twenties, her mom wouldn’t accept that her problems weren’t in some way self-inflicted.
She noted: “I’m telling you, every time I came home with a problem, if I came home with a problem, the first thing that my mother would do is she would look at me … My mother, the first thing (she would say), ‘What did you do.’”
Harris believed other parents would coddle their children. This wasn’t the case in her household.
“But here’s the thing that I realized, she was actually teaching me, ‘Think about where you had agency in that moment and think about what you had the choice to do or not do,’” she explained.
She said she learned how to “take charge of a moment.”
Harris said she quickly learned that you can’t control every situation.
“But don’t just let things happen to you without thinking about, ‘What can I do in this moment?’” she said.
The other lesson Harris’ mom taught her is not to do anything “half-a**ed.”
When thinking about how she’s implemented her mother’s lessons in her political career, Harris said she focused on her desire to “protect the most vulnerable” and anyone who has had their “power” taken away from them.
Cooper also brought up comment from Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said during a rally for Donald Trump that “doesn’t have anything keeping her humble” because she doesn’t have her own biological children.
Harris is the stepmother to her husband Doug Emhoff’s two children, Ella and Cole.
“I feel sorry for her,” Harris said of the Republican governor.
“I’m going to tell you why: because I don’t think she understands that there are a whole lot of women out here who, one, are not aspiring to be humble [and] two … who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life, and children in their life, and I think it’s very important for women to lift each other up,” she said.
Call Her Daddy is streaming on Spotify.
