The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting Slate's Perching podcast for Thursday, January 10th, the Accidental Beauties Edition.

I'm Rebecca Lavoie, a journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire, and I am mom to Henry, who is 17, Teddy, who is almost 16, and my stepdaughter, Lily, who is 18.

And I'm Carvel Wallace, a writer and podcaster in Oakland, California, and I'm the father to Georgia who is 13, and Ezra who is 15.

Gabe is not with us today, but stepping in for him is a mom and dad are fighting All-Star.

Want to go ahead and introduce yourself, All-Star?

Yes, hi, I'm Isaac Butler.

I am a writer and podcaster as well as a parent to Iris, age four, in Brooklyn.

Today on the show, we've got questions about a tyrannical grandma and a bribery for music lesson scheme, plus triumphs and fails and recommendations.

And on Slate Plus, we've got Isaac filling us in on some recurring drama around napping and needing to take his own advice, I guess, or something.

Anyway, we'll hear about that in Slate Plus.

But first, triumphs and fails. Carvel, do'll hear about that in Slate Plus. But first,

triumphs and fails. Carvel, do you have a triumph or a fail for us this week?

I have a triumph this week, which is that I got my kids to go and appreciate art and they

really liked it. And it was like the coolest thing. So there's this museum here called the DeYoung Museum, which is a little bit of a, I don't know how to explain it. It's sort of, as museums go, I'm like kind of obsessive, compulsive about museums. And I generally like to go alone because I like to spend as much time or as little time as I want with any piece. And when I go with someone else, there's a different pace, and so I don't like it. But as a parent, I felt that it's important to get my kids to museums because, for all the obvious reasons. And overall, I'd say my experience taking kids to museums, I've taken them to many and many different cities, has been, you know, generally positive, not horrific. I mean, I've never had a full breakdown. I've never had a we freaking hate museums. What is this? I've had some complaining or whatever, but, you know, but there's been times when it's sort of been like, oh, this is interesting. Like when we went to the Smithsonian, the National Museum of African American History and Culture this summer, that was a kind of a different experience because that's so,

that's beyond museum. But art museums, you never know what you're going to get. But the Young Museum here in San Francisco was hosting this exhibition on contemporary Muslim fashion. And this

includes clothing, dresses, some music videos, some explorations of a current Muslim identity around the world and the diaspora.

And a lot of it was focused on design.

And these are contemporary designs by contemporary designers.

And so I told the kids that I was taking them to that.

And they were like, and it was like the last day of, you know, winter break.

So it was like they were already, you know, it's like the mood isn't great.

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