814: 814: Parents Are People

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2023

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when you realize the people in charge don’t have the answers.

Prologue: Guest Host Chana Joffe-Walt asks her kids when they first encountered adult fallibility. (8 minutes)
Act One: A middle schooler really wants to trust the adults have her best interests in mind. But some of the most powerful people at her school begin to make that very difficult. (27 minutes)
Postscript: In Israel and Gaza, children are directly facing the fact that the adults around them cannot protect them. (4 minutes)
Act Two: Comedian Gary Gulman on a choice his dad made for him when he was seven years old. (11 minutes)
Act Three: There are many kids who do not gradually discover that grown ups don’t have a handle on everything. These kids already know. Miriam Toews’s novel, “Fight Night,” is about a nine-year-old named Swiv who takes care of her grandma and manages her mom’s mental health struggles. Even simple tasks can become complicated, like taking them both on the bus. (7 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, podcast listeners.
0:02.0	Ira here once again using this space at the top of the show to recommend a podcast to you.
0:06.0	This is a new one that's out now from our coworkers at Serial, and if you like our show, I think you might like this one too.
0:12.0	It's called The Kids of Rutherford County. And if you like our show, I think you might like this one too.
0:13.0	It's called the Kids of Rutherford County,
0:15.0	hosted by a reporter in Nashville named Maribba Knight.
0:18.0	A few years back, Maribba began investigating a county in Tennessee
0:21.0	where kids were being thrown in jail for
0:23.9	skipping school, schoolyard fights, underage drinking, all kinds of common
0:28.8	misbehavior that we do not punish with jail time. Some of these kids were as
0:32.4	little as seven and eight years
0:33.8	old, throwing in handcuffs and shackles. Throwing them in jail like this by the
0:38.2	way it was totally illegal and when Maraba looked into it what you
0:42.0	discovered was this mini legal drama like you would see on television centered around this young down his luck juvenile court lawyer who tries to raise the alarm and what's happening to these kids.
0:52.0	It's a tight four episodes. They are all
0:55.2	available right now. I've heard three. Loved them. Can't wait to hear the fourth. If you're curious,
1:01.1	search for the kids of Rutherford County, wherever you get your podcast.
1:05.0	A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show.
1:10.0	If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website this American life.org.
1:17.0	From W.B.E.Z Chicago, it's this American Life.
1:20.0	I'm Kana Joffi Walt sitting in for Ira Glass. I was little, maybe six or seven, bedtime.
1:27.8	I was deploying my best delay tactics. I needed water, then a band-aid. I think I had a lot of other demands too that I don't remember.
	...

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