The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcast for Thursday, August 2nd, the Sand Couch Edition.

I'm Gabriel Roth. I'm an editor at Slate, and I'm the father of Leo, who is four, and Eliza, who is seven.

I'm Rebecca Lavoie. I'm a

journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire and I am mom to Henry who is turning 17 the day this

podcast comes out. Teddy who is 15 and my stepdaughter Lily who is also 17. And my name is Carvel Wallace.

I'm a writer and podcaster in Oakland, California and I'm the the father to Georgia who is 12, and Ezra, who is 15.

Today on our show, we have a question about dressing a two-year-old boy in a t-shirt with a feminist slogan on it, and another about the perennially fraught topic of adolescent grooming.

Plus, as always, we will have triumphs and fails. We'll have recommendations.

And on Slate Plus, Alison Benedict has a question for us. I don't even know what it is yet.

Let's start with triumphs and fails. Carvel, triumph for fail.

I had something of a triumph this week, which is that my son, Ezra, who some of you know is like,

I am always vaguely worried about if he's ever going to figure out what to do with his life.

And I mean, I know he's 15 and it seems early, but he gives us a lot of opportunity to, you know,

as parents be like, is this working out?

But he's such a great kid.

And the one thing that he has always been really interested in and willing to work for, unlike school or like the dishes or anything, is filmmaking.

He's really passionate about filmmaking.

And so this summer, his mother and I decided to put our money where his mouth was and pay for him to go to a two-week filmmaking camp in San Francisco. Of course, he was resistant. I don't want to go. And everyone's going to be better than me. And I don't, and never mind. It's stupid. You know, all that stuff. But I was like, you're going. That's it. There's no questions about it. you're going to the stupid camp. That's what's happening. So he goes to the camp and he goes for two weeks.

And the first week he is like, okay, this might be okay. You know, and then in the second week, they have to, I think there were like 10 kids in the camp and they have to separate into two groups and make two films basically over the course of each group makes one film over the course of this two weeks. And the first week, they learned all the stuff about sound editing and editors come in and producers come in, and directors come in and writers come in and talk to the class. And then in the second week, they're giving a camera. They have to write a script. They have to go out and film it as a group. And on the final Friday, they have this mini film festival in which all the parents come into the camp and watch the films that were made.

And I was genuinely, like, as a professional cultural critic and long-time film buff, I was genuinely impressed with the film they made.

It was really, really good.

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