The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcast for Thursday, May 7th, the Cut It Yourself edition.

I'm Jimmy Lillamue, a writer, contributor to Slate's Karen Feeding Parenting column, noted millennial, according to the New York Times, and mom to Naima,

who is seven, and we reside in Los Angeles, California. I was going to say New York,

because I forgot. That's how tired I am. I'm Elizabeth Newkamp. I write the homeschool and family

travel blog, Dutch Dutch goose. I'm the mom to three boys, Henry 8, Oliver 5, and Teddy 3, and I'm located in Navar, Florida. Hey, I'm Dan Coice. I'm a writer at Slate. I'm the author of the book How to Be a Family. I'm the dad of Lyra, who's 15, Harper, who's 12, and we live in Arlington, Virginia. This week, we're answering a listener question from a mom whose stepmom wants to be called grandma.

And while the letter writer is happy her stepmother wants to be so involved, how should she explain to her kids that their quote unquote grandmother is not her biological mom who passed away?

For our all ages, everyone is fighting now segment.

How are you taking care of your hair when your family can't go to the salon or the barber?

Well, we're going to talk to someone who's figured out a way to make it work.

Nejay Graham Henry's, who at nine years old just might be the world's youngest female barber.

She and her mom, Jamie, will be giving us tips on how to cut and manage your hair

during quarantine. We'll have a time stamp in the show notes so families can find the segment.

And as always, we'll have triumphs and fails and recommendations. Let's start with you,

Elizabeth. Do you have a triumph or a fail for us this week? So I have a gardening triumph,

but a life fail. I unintentionally led a sex education class in my garden

with my children. So as part of homeschool, we have like a garden. The kids asked if they could let a

pumpkin from Halloween rot in the garden over the winter. I said, sure, like thousands of little

seedlets came up. I pruned a bunch of them. Now we have these three enormous pumpkin plants.

Stuff has been growing here in Florida since like March. So the pumpkin plant has only been

giving male flowers. And so, you know, the kids want a pumpkin. So I'm like Googling what to do and it says you have to go out there and basically make the plant believe that it's being pollinated. So I've been out there with like a paintbrush having the kids help me like swish on the male with a paintbrush on the male flower. Okay, we finally get a female flower, but there's no pollinators. So again, the children and I

watch a video on what to do. And there's like a little, you know, in the bottom of the YouTube, like,

...