The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hello and welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's parenting podcast for Thursday, September 15th.

The How Soon is Too Soon to Email the Teacher Edition.

I'm Alison Benedict, an editor at Slate and the mom of Harry 7, Sam, 5, and Wally 3.

And I'm Dan Khois, also an editor at Slate and the dad of Harper, who's 9, and Lyra, who's 11. Have you emailed their teachers yet? Yeah, yep, sure have. Okay. On today's show, we'll talk to Bell Boggs about her new book, The Art of Waiting on Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood. And then we'll be joined by everyone's

favorite teacher, Matt Dix, to answer ours and your back-to-school questions. Everything you want

to ask your own kids' teachers, but are afraid of asking because you don't want to look like

that parent, except Dan, I guess you don't mind looking like that parent. I'm that parent, man.

Plus, triumphs and fails, a listener call about when to end a marriage and recommendations.

And for our Sleep Plus segment, Slate's deputy editor, John Swansberg, who really hasn't joined us for a long time.

It's been very lax.

Yes, he'll return triumphant or in failure.

All right, listeners, a big announcement previously, as you may well know, our show went live on Thursday mornings.

Starting now, our show will go live on Thursday evenings.

Think of us as the NBC must-see TV lineup of 1995, except that Allison is friends, and I am suddenly

Susan starring Brooks Shields.

Also, there's never been a better time to sign up for Slate Plus.

For Slate's 20th anniversary, for a limited time, we are offering 30% off an annual membership.

That's just $35 for a year of Slate Plus with bonus segments of this and other Slate

podcasts every week and a lot more.

So if you haven't joined Plus yet, sign up before this offer goes away at slate.com slash

fighting plus.

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