Care and Feeding | Slate's parenting show - My Only Child Wants a Sibling. What Now?
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Care & Feeding, a listener writes in with a question that tugs at the heart: Their five-year-old daughter—an only child, growing up in a rural area—is asking for a sibling. But more than that, she’s asking for connection, companionship, someone to play with. The hosts unpack the emotional weight behind the ask, and explore how parents can foster deep social bonds for solo kids—especially when playdates, cousins, and neighbor kids are hard to come by. Plus, Elizabeth opens up about her experience on Dr. Lindsay Cavanagh’s Married After Kids podcast, and Lucy reflects on the joys of volunteering with kids.
Join us on Facebook and email us at careandfeedingpod@slate.com to ask us new questions, tell us what you thought of today’s show, and give us ideas about what we should talk about in future episodes. You can also call our phone line: (646) 357-9318.
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to hang out with us on the Plus Playground every week for a whole additional grab-bag of content — and you’ll get an ad-free experience across the network. And you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Care and Feeding. Sign up now at slate.com/careplus – or try it out on Apple Podcasts.
Podcast produced by Palace Shaw.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, this episode contains explicit language. |
| 0:04.3 | Welcome to Karen Feeding, the show where we raise the next generation together. |
| 0:08.5 | I'm Lucy Lopez. |
| 0:09.9 | I'm mother to Amelia who's 15, Avery, who's 12, and we live in Miami, Florida. |
| 0:15.4 | I'm Elizabeth Newkamp. |
| 0:16.5 | I write the family travel blog Dutch Dutch goose. |
| 0:18.7 | I'm the mom to Henry who's 13, Oliver who's 11, and |
| 0:21.7 | Teddy who's 8. We live in Tokyo, Japan, but I'm currently in rural Korea. And you're far. |
| 0:28.5 | Today on the show, how to make sure an only child isn't a lonely child. How can you meet your |
| 0:34.6 | child's need for connection when there's no sibling on the way and friends and family are so far, far away? |
| 0:40.8 | But first, we'll check in with each other and share what's on our minds this week, so let's get going. |
| 0:45.7 | We're going to take a quick break and meet you right back here to catch up. Welcome back. |
| 1:04.9 | And now it's time to check in with each other. |
| 1:07.4 | Elizabeth, go ahead. |
| 1:08.2 | You first. |
| 1:08.8 | I'm dying to know what's doing. |
| 1:12.5 | You're in Korea. You're going to Hawaii. What's happening? I mean, you can't ask that with me. I don't know what's |
| 1:19.6 | happening. I never know. Jeff had some work here, and we decided to kind of tag along and also |
| 1:25.1 | bring the kids out. We've been to Seoul. |
| 1:28.1 | This is actually the closest place we can travel from Japan. |
| 1:31.3 | So we took a little hop over here and are just enjoying some like outside time. |
| 1:35.7 | We wanted to sort of get out into rural Korea, which is very different than the city, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.