Questioning the Narratives We’ve Inherited: Motherhood, Identity, and Why Women’s Stories Deserve to Be Told - with Anna Malaika Tubbs
In this powerful and perspective-shifting episode, Leanna Laskey McGrath sits down with Anna Malaika Tubbs, renowned author, speaker, and advocate for examining the narratives that shape how we see ourselves and each other.
Anna shares her global upbringing and how it shaped her understanding of identity, belonging, and cultural storytelling. Together, they explore the importance of elevating voices and histories that have been overlooked or erased (particularly women’s and mother’s stories), and how storytelling can be a tool for connection, healing, and change.
This conversation goes beyond theory and into real life, touching on motherhood, raising children with awareness, and the responsibility we carry as leaders, parents, and individuals to question inherited narratives.
For high-achieving women, executive leaders, and mothers, this episode is both grounding and expansive, an invitation to think more critically, lead more intentionally, and bring more awareness to what stories are shaping our beliefs.
In This Episode, We Discuss:
- How our upbringing shapes the way we see the world
The impact of inherited narratives and cultural conditioning
Why storytelling matters in leadership, motherhood, and identity
Raising children with awareness, empathy, and intentionality
The importance of questioning systems and assumptions
How curiosity and compassion can create deeper human connection
What it means to lead and parent with greater consciousness
Connect with Anna Malaika Tubbs:
Anna Malaika Tubbs Official Website
@annamalaikatubbs on Instagram
Read New York Times Bestseller The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and James Brown Shaped a Nation
Read instant New York Times Bestseller and USA Today National Bestseller Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us
Connect with Leanna Laskey McGrath:
Author / Sociologist
Anna Malaika Tubbs is one of the youngest academics—and women—in history to hit the New York Times nonfiction list—not just once, but twice. Achieving back-to-back bestsellers by the age of 33 is a nearly unheard-of distinction that cements her as a leading multidisciplinary expert on race, gender, and equity.
With a Ph.D. in Sociology and a Masters in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge, in addition to a Bachelors in Medical Anthropology from Stanford University, Anna translates her academic knowledge into stories that are clear and engaging. Her first book, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of MLK Jr, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, came out in 2021, and her second book, Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us, came out in May of 2025.
Her cultural impact extends across both print and broadcast media; she has been featured on The View, CBS This Morning, and Good Morning America, and her articles have been published by TIME Magazine, New York Magazine, Newsweek, and The Guardian. Anna’s storytelling also takes form in her talks, including her TED Talk that has been viewed 2 million times, as well as the scripted and unscripted screen projects she has in development. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three kids.
