Money, Motherhood, and Power with Jillian Knight

The Feminist Mom Podcast

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Money, Motherhood, and Power with Jillian Knight

Patriarchy doesn’t just show up in who earns more—it shows up in who feels guilty spending.

Erin Spahr

May 20, 2025

Transcript

Let’s talk about money. Or more accurately: let’s talk about how most of us don’t talk about money—especially in our relationships, and especially as mothers.

This week on The Feminist Mom Podcast, I’m joined by Jillian Knight, LMFT, a financial therapist based here in Raleigh, North Carolina, who brings a feminist, trauma-informed lens to the question of how we relate to money—and how money relates to everything else in our lives.

We’re diving into the emotional and relational layers of money—how it intersects with caregiving, power, gender roles, and all the systemic stuff we’d rather ignore (but can’t, because it shows up every time we’re choosing between regular or organic berries for our kids, or trying to decide whose work matters more when someone has to stay home with a sick child).

Jillian and I talk about the stories we inherit around money—scarcity mindsets, shame around spending, pressure to be financially independent and endlessly self-sacrificing. Because patriarchy doesn’t just show up in who earns more—it shows up in who feels guilty spending. It shows up in who tracks the budget, who cuts back to make ends meet, and who silently absorbs the stress of stretching too little across too much.

Sharing money isn’t just logistical—it’s emotional, political, and deeply gendered.

We get into how motherhood intensifies financial anxiety, especially in straight partnerships where caregiving and income often split down a very gendered line. We also talk about:

why financial transparency is often the real intimacy work,
how race and class shape our money narratives,
and what it looks like to unlearn financial obedience and rewrite your relationship with money on your own terms.

If you’re curious about how your relationship to money has been shaped—by patriarchy, by caregiving, by the stories you grew up with—this episode is an invitation to listen in, reflect, and start making sense of it all through a more compassionate, feminist lens.

More about Jillian: She’s a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Financial Therapist who helps women and couples move from financial stress to confidence and clarity. She’s also a member of the Inclusive Provider Directory—a directory I created to help mothers and families find inclusive, identity-affirming providers.