The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcasts for Thursday, January 17th.

The Grandma Inception Edition.

I'm Gabriel Roth.

I'm the editorial director of Slate Podcasts, and I'm the father of Leo, who is four and a half, and Eliza, who is eight. I'm Rebecca Lavoie. I'm a journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire, and I am mom to Henry, who is 17, Teddy, who is almost 16, and my stepdaughter, Lily, who is 18. And I'm Carva Wallace, a writer and podcaster in Oakland, California here today from Brooklyn, in New York in the Slate Offices. And I'm the father to Georgia who was 13 and Ezra, who is 15.

Today on our show, we will be talking to Dan Pashman, the host of the Sporkful podcast,

about the science and the shame of picky eaters.

Then we'll take a question from a listener about a straight-a student who's stressed

out whenever

her homework requires her to think creatively.

Plus, as always, we will have triumphs and fails.

We'll make recommendations.

And on Slate Plus, we'll be joined by Slate news blogger Ben Mathis Lilley to share a parenting

fail around getting his kid dressed.

Let's start with Triumphs and and fails. Carvel, welcome to

Brooklyn, New York. Thank you. Happy to be here. As always, when I'm here, it's part, it's part, triumph, part fail, because it's like I'm here because I have a job and that's good and I'm providing for my children. And that's great. But then it's to fail because I'm not with my children and that drives me crazy. But my, I would say that I had something of a triumph, for we collectively had

a triumph, which is that this is the first trip in which I've been, at least one of my kids has been texting me nonstop. Ezra has been texting me consistently. We have these running conversations going about. He's got movie opinions that he wants my thoughts on and he wants to argue with me about and he's been seeing movies and we've been texting and then last night he said he sent me a bunch of YouTube

videos that he really likes what he calls video essays which are basically people on YouTube with

takes that I think are mostly trash but don't tell him I said that but that he thinks are really

smart and then he wants me to like you know sort of listen to them and then tell him what I think uh and so the one he sent me was like reasons why the Jedi are actually the wrong ones and that's a big thing for him right now is like this idea that maybe the Jedi are wrong that the Jedi are and I'm like okay so he wants me to like watch that. So fine, I watch it. He's been

sending me stuff and he wants to argue with me if I don't agree and he wants to get, you know, happy if I do agree. But then he sent me this note that just said, oh, by the way, I want you to read my essay. And I was like, okay, what essay? And I didn't, there was nothing. And then he said, oh never mind i i sent it to my teacher it's fine and i was like oh because i was looking checking my

email for it i didn't, there was nothing. And then he said, oh, never mind. I sent it to my teacher. It's fine. And I was like, oh, because I was checking my email for it. I didn't get it. And he said, okay, well, I'll send it to you anyway. And he sent me this essay that he wrote for his English class. They read Homegoing by Yagasy. And he wrote this essay, this like expansive, probably 500 word essay on it. was beautiful like it was really good and I was

...