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The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's parenting podcast for February 13, 2014, the Everything is Awesome edition.

I'm Dan Cois. I'm an editor at Slate, and I'm the dad of Lyra, who is eight, and Harper, who is six.

I'm Alison Benedict, also an editor at Slate, and I'm the mother of Harry, who is five, Sam, who is three, and Wally, who is 11 months.

Hey, Allison.

Hey, Dan.

So today we're going to talk to Joe Brewster and Michelle Stevenson about American Promise, their PBS POV documentary following two black boys from Brooklyn, their son Idris and his friend, Shan, from kindergarten through high school graduation. What did they learn about the particular challenges the black boys face in the American education system and what lessons can

all parents take from Idris and Shan's stories. In our second segment, we'll discuss the gigantic

blockbuster hit, The Lego Movie, and try to interrogate the specific kinds of Lego play that the

movie espouses. But first, our parenting fails and triumphs of the week. Allison, what have you got?

Well, after a triumph last week, which hasn't necessarily remained a triumph because it was about

having my babysitter do homework with my son, which seemed great for a couple of days and then they

stopped doing it. However, I have a failure. I have a double failure.

I can, I'll do the very abbreviated version, which is that I, my kids ran out of, they're all that they were complaining that the markers were all dried up, which of course was because they left the caps off the markers.

So I just. No.

They what?

I know.

Oh. I gave them permanent markers, which I just... No. They what? I know. Oh.

I gave them permanent markers, which I thought they could handle because that was all we had in the grown-up drawer at the time and they really wanted to draw.

And then I went and gave the baby a bath.

And when I came out, there was a line of green permanent marker from the entrance of our apartment on the ground through the hallway, through the kitchen,

...