The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting Slate's Parenting Podcasts for Thursday, February 7th, the Toddler-Rabies Edition.

I'm Carver Wallace, a writer and podcaster in the Bay Area, and the father to Georgia who was 13, and Ezra who was 15. I'm Rebecca Levoy, a journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire, and I am mom to Henry who is 17, Teddy, who is now 16, and my stepdaughter, Lily, who is 18. And Gabe is out today, so it's just going to be Rebecca and me, so strap in for a weird show if we're going to get weird.

Today on the show, we've got a question about toddler tantrums, recorded live in the midst

of a toddler tantrum, what we call live tape in the business, and a question about explaining your

estranged relationship to your kids, plus triumphs and fails and recommendations. But first,

triumphs and fails. Rebecca, did you have a triumph this week or fail? I am going to give credit to my

son Henry for this one. I believe he had a mini triumph. And if I may, because this is like

completely speaking to something that happened on this late Facebook group this

week, this is a super privileged triumph and I know it. But I'm going to talk about it anyway

unapologetically because it wasn't me. It was my kid. And you just have to trust me that he's

aware of like how ridiculous this is. But this definitely falls in the category of like kids

taken care of shit themselves without involving adults when it's not necessary falls in the category of like kids taking care of shit themselves without

involving adults when it's not necessary. And it's the kind of thing that I really like. So the first

semester of Henry's senior year is now over. They've now in the second half of the year, the grades

have closed. All their grades are being sent to their colleges now. And, you know, they can't, like, now just start fucking up willingly, like, you know, because the grades have been sent because clearly colleges still care what happens. But they do have this nice day. It's kind of tradition in his high school of, like, the teachers in classes that are mostly seniors, like just give the kids a chance to just like chill for a day.

Just like, today we're just going to talk and just be cool and talk about what you're up to and what you've been thinking about.

And it's just kind of nice.

It's like a nice, like rhythmic thing that these teachers are really good at doing.

So one of the things that came up apparently like an AP bio whatever, on this chill day of after the first semester being closed, was that all these seniors were sitting around talking and complaining about how a senior privilege that they have been waiting for their entire high school careers is being ruined by thoughtless underclassmen who are parking in the senior

parking spaces and thereby like ruining this thing that they've been looking forward to being

able to do like their whole high school career. So, you know, there's like these bastards.

...