There were two things you could be when I was a kid. You could get married young like my cousin who got engaged at 16,

or you could be a bad girl.

This is death, sex and money.

Big birth when people die.

They don't come back.

The show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot.

If you love somebody, you kiss them.

And need to talk about more.

Oh, I forgot my money.

I'm Anna Sale.

I don't know if it was a cultural thing,

but you never would question an adult.

Sonia Manzano grew up in the Bronx in the 1950s.

Her parents moved there from Puerto Rico.

Adults always told you things, whether you understood it or not, was meaningless to them,

you could not say, but what do you mean by that?

They would say you'll know when you grow up or shut up and get out of the way.

What were the things that you never asked your mom about when you were a little girl?

Well when I was little I didn't ask her why, you why she would change her mind so much about my

father.

Sonia's mother left her father repeatedly when Sonia was a kid.

They'd move out, get a new place, and then her parents would reunite.

...