The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting for Thursday, October 19th, the Poison Resentment Edition.

I'm Gabriel Roth. I'm an editor at Slate, and I'm the father of Leo, who is three years old,

and Eliza, who is six. I'm Rebecca LaVoy. I'm a journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire, and I'm the father of Leo who is three years old and Eliza who is six.

I'm Rebecca Lavoie. I'm a journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire and I am the mother of Henry who is 16, Teddy who is 14 and a stepdaughter Lily who is 17.

And I am Carvel Wallace, a writer and editor out in Oakland, California. And I am father to Ezra

who is 14 and, who is 12.

Today on our show, we'll be talking to John Colhane, who writes Slate's Hey Daddy column,

the parenting advice column from a gay dad about being one of his kids' two fathers.

And we've got a question from a listener who's having trouble with her

stepchildren's mother. Plus, as always, we'll have triumphs. We'll have fails. We'll have

recommendations. And on Slate Plus, Slate editor Catherine Goldstein will share a spectacular recent

parenting triumph. But first, our own triumphs and fails. Carvel, it's your turn.

Go.

Yes, I have a triumph that is actually Joe's triumph, but I'm just so elated about it that because we've been working for years on this, I'm taking partial credit as a co-parent.

Our son, Ezra, God bless him, has been, you know, he's a teenager.

And we have difficulties in the morning. And general disorganization continues to be a needling factor in our lives because he's, I forgot the lunch money. Now I have to come back home because now he's within sort of semi-walking distance to home. I have to come back. I forgot my clothes for theater and blah-b-b-de-blah.

And he's all this stuff. And he's always trying to like get one of us to rescue him and bring him stuff and bring him money for the bus because he forgot it and so forth. And we're just like, you know, if you just get the stuff ready in the evening before you go, then in the morning, you know so i tend to be pretty hardcore about that like nope i'm at work good luck sorry you're not

going to eat next time you'll remember to pack your lunch the night before. His mother tends to have a much harder time with that. And so I've sort of been like the coach, like, hey, you know, we had to draw these boundaries and he can figure it out, but he's not going to figure it out if we don't let him figure it out he's capable of figuring it out so this is an ongoing thing years

we're into this and and joe is working working very hard to like find the right balance because she

feels so hurt when the kids don't have something that they need that it's really hard for her to just let

them not have it

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