The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcasts for Thursday, January 4th, the Becoming Aunt Gertie Edition.

I'm Gabriel Roth, an editor at Slate and the father of Leo, is three years old and Eliza who is seven.

I'm Rebecca Lavoie, a journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire, and I am mom to Henry who is 16,

Teddy who is 14, and a stepdaughter Lily, who is 17.

And I'm Carvel Wallace, a journalist and podcaster in Oakland, California, and I am the father to Georgia who was 12 and Ezra who was 14.

Today on our show, we have an uncomfortable question from a listener who's worried about

leaving her kids with the stepfather who abused her.

We'll also take a call from a father who is wondering how to introduce his young children

to competitive games.

Plus, as always, we'll have triumphs and fails, recommendations.

And on Slate Plus, our producer Benjamin Frisch will tell us about an almost parenting fail of his own.

First up, time for triumphs and fails.

Rebecca, do you have a triumph or a fail?

I've got a triumph.

We in, I believe I talked about this in the podcast a while back. So just for a little

background, back in 2009, holiday season 2009, our big family gift to ourselves was a Nintendo Wii with

Beatles rock band and all of the Beatles rock band instruments. And we spent then with our kids the next three years basically

doing nothing else when we were at home besides playing Beatles rock band because it was super

fun. It got the kids interested in music. The game, in case you've never played it, it's

beautifully designed in terms of like the actual musical experience. They worked with Paul McCartney

when they developed at the now defunct company that made it like really knocked it out of the park with this particular rock band game in which you play fake instruments along with Beatles songs.

...