Care and Feeding | Slate's parenting show - The Built-in Babysitter Edition
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s episode: Jamilah is joined by former Mom and Dad are Fighting co-host, Rebecca Lavoie. They weigh in on whether or not an older stepchild should be forced to babysit their stepsiblings. They also counsel a mom who is concerned about her husband’s theatrical and rather upsetting behavior.
As mentioned in the show, our second question does contain discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation. So if you’d prefer to skip the question, jump ahead 17 minutes.
If you, or anyone you know, are in crisis, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Since we talk about thoughts of suicide, if you, or anyone you know, need help, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
In Slate Plus: The unsurprising sharp decline of new babies being named ‘Karen.’ Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on MADAF each week, and no ads. Sign up now at slate.com/momanddadplus to listen and support our work.
Recommendations:
Rebecca recommends giving and buying Chico’s perfect work pants.
Jamilah counters Rebecca’s pick by recommending Jazzybelle Swim.
Join us on Facebook and email us at momanddad@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.
Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains explicit language. |
| 0:05.1 | Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcasts for Thursday, June 24th, |
| 0:10.6 | the Built-in Babysitter, Question Mark, Edition. I'm Jamila Lemieux, a writer, contributor to Slate's |
| 0:17.8 | Karen Feeding Parenting Column, and Mom to Naima, who is eight years old, and we live in Los Angeles, California. |
| 0:24.5 | I'm Rebecca LaVoy, former mom and dad are fighting co-host. |
| 0:28.3 | I live in New Hampshire, and my kids are Henry, who is 19, Teddy, who is 18, and my stepdaughter Lily, who just turned, wait for it, 21 years old. |
| 0:38.1 | Wow. |
| 0:39.0 | Yeah, it's a thing. |
| 0:40.8 | How does it feel to be able to go to a bar with someone you helped to raise? |
| 0:46.5 | Oh, it's fantastic. |
| 0:47.6 | Well, to be fair, when we travel and the drinking ages younger, I've been to bars with my kids plenty of times. |
| 0:52.9 | But what's really fun about it |
| 0:56.3 | isn't so much like the passing on of like our, you know, family drinking culture or whatever, |
| 1:00.6 | but the casualness with which, you know, we got takeout the other night from our little |
| 1:04.7 | local tavern that's still doing takeout, even though the pandemic has sort of gotten |
| 1:08.5 | really chill here where I live. And I sent Kevin with Lily down early. I'm like, why don't you guys go on early? Grab a drink in the bar. It was really, it's just really fun to sort of have somebody who feels like they have agency in the world. 21 really is like the last hurdle for teens that they feel like they're ever going to get to. And even though I think people in their early 20s are still kids, sorry if you're in your early 20s listening to this, you're still a kid until you're like 30. Seriously, you'll realize it later. Trust me. It's a huge barrier for them. It makes them feel like they are whole in the world. And it's just really fun to watch. Oh. Well, congratulations to you both. Thanks. And I also, I'm thinking about |
| 1:47.9 | future travel now with a map of the world that shows me where teenagers can drink. So, like, |
| 1:52.9 | people are fun when we travel as a family. There are also a lot of places where there might be an age, |
| 1:59.2 | but nobody cares. That's what we've learned. |
| 2:02.3 | I mean, I remember, like, I think, I hate to say this, I think Henry was like 15, and we were |
| 2:08.0 | somewhere in the Caribbean, and he figured out that if he just ordered a drink in front of me, |
| 2:14.7 | like at the pool bar or whatever, that I would be too embarrassed to say |
... |
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