I'm MaKenzie Wangsness — MaK, for short. I'm a singer, voice-over artist, marketer, wife, and mom of two, living just outside of Minneapolis–Saint Paul.

Long before any of that, I watched my mom raise (and homeschool)me and my two siblings in rural Alaska, far from her own family in Minnesota. No village. No one to call at 2am.

Then I became a parent myself, and got a front-row seat to how broken the systems around us really are.

My first birth was 32 hours of labor that ended in an unplanned cesarean. I came home to zero leave — medical or parental. Just: welcome to motherhood, here's your laptop. My partner took exactly 2 PTO days from his full-time job — long enough to bring me and our daughter home from the hospital, then head back to the office.

Our second baby came 3 years later, when my husband became his own boss, and I worked for a company large enough to provide benefits past vacation days and basic health insurance. This baby was a 4-hour VBAC, followed by four months of paid leave for Mom and a flexible schedule for Dad to be able to take most diaper changes and fill my water bottle 13 times per day. Same family, same job types — completely different experience of becoming a parent. That contrast changed me.

Back at work, I asked if there was any kind of "Mom Buddy System" for new parents. That question landed me in what would become our parent and family Employee Resource Group. For six years, I gave every spare hour to that community — supporting new parents, parents of school-age kids, people caring for aging parents or family members with special needs. Whatever the caregiving journey looked like, we held space for it.

A few months after I was voted in to chair my ERG, I was laid off.

That layoff gave me clarity: my skills only mattered to me if they were pointed at something real. I missed the community — the intimacy, the feeling of being with people who just got it. So I've built it again. This time, for everyone.

This is Carrying Care — a podcast and community for parents, caregivers, and the working families holding it all together, often without a village of their own.