By Alana Hogan, Student, Kenyon College, and Marci Cottingham, Associate Professor of Sociology, Kenyon College
The podcast, Liberty Lost, centers on the story of Abbi and Nathan—two teenagers whose lives are deeply shaped by the religious conservatism of their community. Abbi is home-schooled and close to her sisters and parents in a home run by her father as the traditional patriarch. Nathan is a public-school athlete raised in the same tight-knit community, where faith, reputation, and obedience are treated as non-negotiable. When she discovers that she is pregnant at sixteen, this triggers a chain of decisions that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Abbi and Nathan, surrounded by well-meaning but fearful family members, and experiencing feelings of shame for violating their religious beliefs, do not know how to navigate their new circumstances. Abbi’s parents, motivated by a desire to fulfill their duties to God and community, decide to send her to the Godparent Home.
The Godparent Home is a place that promises redemption for pregnant teenagers. Abbi’s parents struggle with the news of Abbi’s pregnancy. Ultimately, they view the Godparent Home as a safe and stable environment, one that aligns with their religious values and promises guidance during an uncertain moment. To them, it offered a way for Abbi to receive care, continue her education, and navigate her pregnancy within a framework they trusted.
Through isolation and strict rules, though, the podcast details how the program works to influence the pregnant teens in their care. Ultimately, the home hopes that the teens will relinquish their children to “good” Christian families and repent of their sins. Abbi and Nathan fulfill their duty, however, rather than lead to relief, this leads to decades of pain and regret.
The podcast host, T.J. Raphael, spends the final episode interviewing sociologist, Gretchen Sisson, on her research on adoption and reproductive justice. Reproductive justice, according to Sisson, is just as salient to adoption as it is to abortion and contraception access. Women who have relinquished babies for adoption experience a range of negative feelings, including guilt, shame, and regret—the same emotions that are often claimed to plague women who have sought abortions. Sisson provocatively argues that the adoption industry is rife with inequalities and exploitation—often orchestrated by religious non-profits.
The podcast illuminates many sociological insights. Abbi and Nathan’s story takes place in a context where a teenager’s pregnancy is viewed as a problem that needs to be handled rather than as a time for personal growth and support. Taking a sociological perspective allows us to envision how Abbi and Nathan’s lives might have played out in different ways if their family, religion, home, and access to resources were structured differently. In bringing sociology into conversation with the podcast themes, we can see how the deeply personal choice of parenting is shaped by forces beyond our individual control.
How can sociology help us imagine an alternative path for Abbi and Nathan?
In an alternate trajectory, Abbi and Nathan might still meet as young teenagers. Counter to the reality conveyed in the podcast, their relationship could unfold in a religious community that teaches that sex is not sinful, but a sacred act when practiced with consent, honesty, and respect. Rather than internalizing feelings of guilt and shame, Abbi might learn about her body and reproductive health through educators that speak on the topic. When she becomes pregnant later, she is still likely very scared, but she might not feel the same shame that leads to so much isolation and confusion.
In this alternative path, Abbi’s parents, while still devout, could be guided by a theology informed by compassion rather than condemnation. The congregation minister can connect Abbi to a social worker and a local support group for teen parents. In this alternative version, faith functions not as a source of stigma, but instead as a network of social capital–the connections with others that help us meet everyday challenges.
Nathan’s role can also be reimagined. The church might teach him to better process his own emotions, rather than believe that as a man he must always put on a stoic front. As a couple, they might attend counseling offered through their congregation’s community center. Rather than withdrawing from his new duties, Nathan learns how to co-parent, how to navigate the tension between his own personal goals and his new responsibilities, as well as how to see the care work that is required of him as shared labor.
This shift in religion, not to a secular worldview but to a compassionate form of Christianity, would change nearly every part of their story. In Abbi and Nathan’s reality, their faith is not solely a personal belief, but instead it is linked to every aspect of their culture, including shared norms, values, expectations, and connections that organize daily life and regulate behavior within the community.
Sociologist Lisa Wade explains that culture works by providing “scripts” that tell people how to act in moments of uncertainty, particularly around gender, sexuality, and family. In this way, religion structures Abbi and Nathan’s choices long before any individual decision is made, shaping how pregnancy is understood and which responses are considered acceptable.
By imagining Abbi and Nathan within a different religious environment we can see how religion, as a social institution, organizes life chances, moral codes, and opportunities for redemption and forgiveness. Wade defines social institutions as “widespread and enduring patterns of interaction with which we respond to categories of human need.”
In the original story, class and social standing both contribute to Abbi’s lack of options as she confronts her unexpected pregnancy. Her family’s financial situation prevents her from seeking independent legal or financial advice. As a result of this, the Godparent Home fills the gap left by the absence of a proper social safety net, turning vulnerability into dependency. Abbi’s limited economic capital, which is “the financial resources that are or can be converted to money” Lisa Wade describes, traps her in a moral system designed by others (p. 173).
In an alternative reality, social class still plays an important role, but its effects are lessened by support from a well-funded social safety net. Abbi might have been able to access resources through non-profits like the Center for Healthy Families, which offers “community and school-based services to support giving birth to a healthy baby, graduating from high school, building healthy relationships” and workforce and housing assistance. In an ideal world, Nathan would also receive institutional support. Instead of being ignored, he participates in a program that provides him with mentoring and job training. These social programs for both Abbi and Nathan act as buffers, which helps to transform the challenges that they experience into opportunity.
Abbi and Nathan’s experiences exemplify what sociology teaches us. Society constrains us, but we can work to reshape those constraints. Reimaging Abbi and Nathan’s trajectory highlights the core sociological principle that individual outcomes are shaped by social forces. If Abbi and Nathan had lived in a different social class, culture, or religious community, their outcomes could have shifted drastically. Their reimagined lives illustrate not fantasy, but the possibility of American institutions providing a true social safety net.