Gap Year Guidance
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2020
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s episode: Jamilah, Elizabeth, and Carvell answer a question from a parent trying to support their college-age daughter who decided to postpone her education for a year. They also answer a follow-up question about how to approach conversations about race with a 5 year old after an initial attempt didn’t go so well.
In Slate Plus: Jamilah and Carvell talk about teachers that impacted their lives, for better or for worse. Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on MADAF each week, and no ads. Sign up now to listen and support our work.
Recommendations:
Elizabeth recommends The Bug Bite Thing.
Carvell recommends Euphoria for those comfortable viewing mature content.
Jamilah recommends Freedom Gluten Free Doughnuts.
Additional Recommendations:
The Kids Are Asleep, the hilarious Slate Live show. Catch it via Slate’s Facebook or YouTube on Thursdays at 10:00 p.m. ET / 7:00 p.m. PT.
Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Children’s Books.
Heritage Packs: Multicultural Lesson Guides
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.
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains explicit language. |
| 0:05.8 | Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcasts for Thursday, August 27th, the Gap Year Guidance Edition. |
| 0:13.5 | I'm Jamila Lemieux, a writer, cultural critic, contributor to Slate's Care Feeding Parenting column, host of The Kids Are Sleeve asleep, and mom to Naima, who is seven, and we live in Los Angeles, California. I'm Elizabeth Newkamp. I write the homeschool and family travel blogs at Shetch Goose. I'm mom to three littles, Henry 8, Oliver 6, and Teddy 3. And I'm currently located in Navar, Florida. And I'm Carvel Wallace, a writer and podcaster in Oakland, California. |
| 0:40.7 | I am the father to Georgia, who is about to turn 15, and Ezra, who was 17. |
| 0:45.9 | Thank you for joining us, Carvel, a beloved member of the extended slave parenting family. |
| 0:52.5 | Folks are always happy when you come back to play. |
| 0:55.8 | Today on the show, we'll be discussing whether this year, a year in which everything is |
| 1:00.6 | already abnormal, is actually the perfect time to take a gap year. |
| 1:04.7 | We'll also be answering a follow-up question from a listener whose wife tried to talk to |
| 1:08.6 | their kid about race, and it didn't go so well. Now they're |
| 1:12.5 | worried that they're actively turning their kid into a racist. Oh my. And as always, we have |
| 1:18.3 | triumphs and fails and recommendations. Carvel, what do you got for us this week? This is a little |
| 1:23.7 | awkward because I want to talk about something that my son doesn't actually know about yet. |
| 1:29.6 | So the triumph is that he is turning 17 and long-time listeners to the show from back in the day will know that like his progress toward being an adult functioning person has been, it's been an adventure. We've enjoyed seeing how it, |
| 1:46.5 | how it comes and goes. He has definitely shown a lot of growth over the last few months, I would say. |
| 1:53.4 | I think COVID and all of his stuff in protests has really helped just, you know, combined with just like him reaching |
| 2:01.8 | that age where certain parts of his brain are starting to come together and do their jobs, |
| 2:05.8 | maybe at a higher level, executive functioning-wise. We've seen like a slightly better and |
| 2:11.8 | proved version of a kid who looks like he may at some point be able to go out and do the |
| 2:15.7 | world and do something, which is a great relief for his mom and I. |
| 2:18.6 | However, his mom lost her job. |
| 2:21.1 | She got laid off through COVID-related things. |
... |
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.