Help! I'm Touched Out By My Kids.

Care and Feeding | Slate's parenting show

Slate Podcasts

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, Parenting

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode: Lucy Lopez, Elizabeth Newcamp, and Zak Rosen have a question from a mom who is TOUCHED OUT. The ‘Rents give parents everywhere permission to establish boundaries and walk away from kids when they’re being too aggressive or just won’t leave them alone. But first, they share their latest insight into the Labubu community and dealing with the big trends your kids HAVE to be a part of. This week in Slate Plus: Recommendations for lunches and snacks kids can take to school. Join us on Facebook and email us at [email protected] 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. You can also call our phone line: (646) 357-9318. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to hang out with us on the Plus Playground every week for a whole additional grab-bag of content — and you’ll get an ad-free experience across the network. And you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Care and Feeding. Sign up now at slate.com/careplus – or try it out on Apple Podcasts. Listen to Opportunity Gap wherever you get your podcasts: ⁠⁠https://lnk.to/opportunitygapPS!careandfeeding⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode may contain explicit language.
0:06.4	Welcome to Karen Feeding, the show that's as honest and messy as parenting itself.
0:11.5	I'm Elizabeth Newkamp.
0:12.8	I write the homeschool and family travel blog, Dutch Dutch goose.
0:15.6	I'm the mom to Henry who's 13, Oliver, who's 11, and Teddy who's 9 today. Wow, happy birthday, Teddy. Gosh, a nine-year-old. We are currently living in Atlanta, Georgia. I love it. Happy birthday, Teddy. I'm Lucy Lopez. I host another podcast, The Mamasita Rica. I'm Mother to Amelia, who's 15. Avery, who's 12, and we live in Miami, Florida.
0:39.3	I'm Zach Rosen. I make another show. It's called The Best Advice Show. I am dad to eight-year-old
0:43.7	Noah and five-year-old Ami. We live in Detroit. Well, this week, we have a listener letter I can
0:50.0	very much relate with, a mom who is totally touched out by her kids.
0:55.9	And we'll get into that in just a little bit, but first we're going to dig deep into the world
1:00.8	of childhood fads, starting with Zach's favorite, Laboobo.
1:06.7	I love them so much. They're worth all the money.
1:10.3	Stick around.
1:15.9	Welcome back.
1:17.4	So last week, we discussed that Noah had asked for a Laboo-Boo-Bur-for her birthday.
1:23.7	Lucy and I had some hot takes on that whole situation, and so did some listeners.
1:30.0	And I happen to know that there's an update on the whole birthday situation too,
1:34.9	so we're going to get into it.
1:37.3	Zach, can you first just recap the Laboooooooo situation in your house?
1:42.0	Yes, Noah learned about Laboooooooooo was recently from a friend of hers in her school, in her second grade class. And these just passed me by like a lot of fads do. I didn't know what they were. She just said, Dad, can I have this Laboooo keychain thing for my birthday? And I figured like, oh, cool, keychain. Must be like five, ten bucks. Sure. and then I looked up what the hell they are and realized there are $75.
2:04.0	And... and I figured like, oh, cool, keychain. Must be like five, ten bucks. Sure. And then I looked up what the hell they are and realized there are $75.
2:08.7	And that they're this worldwide phenomenon.
2:11.6	And I've been going back and forth with her.
	...

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