The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcast for Thursday, February 15th,

the vintage suitcase edition. I'm Gabriel Roth. I'm an editor at Slate, and I'm the father of

Eliza H-7 and Leo, who is three and a half. I'm Rebecca Lavoie. I'm a journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire, and I am mom to Henry, who is 16, Teddy who is 15, and Lily, who is 17. She is my stepdaughter. And I'm Carval Wallace, a writer and podcaster in Oakland, California, and I'm the father to Georgia who is 12 and Ezra who is 14.

Today on our show, we have a couple of great questions.

We have one from a listener who is afraid about the effect that her toxic mother-in-law is having on her children.

We have another from a listener whose husband takes care of the kids all weekend while she works and she is not happy about the way

he does it. Plus, of course, we will have triumphs and fails. We will have recommendations for you.

And on Slate Plus, we'll be discussing going away on trips, leaving your kids behind how to stay in

touch with them and how to minimize their loneliness and despair.

Let's start with triumphs and fails. Carvel, do you have a triumph for a fail?

I have a fail that I think became a triumph. So this morning, normally I pick up the kids in the morning at 755. I usually text them from downstairs at Joe's house to the family group chat known as FAMBAM. And then I just text here, which is what I normally do. And then they come downstairs, usually Georgia first. And then Ezra comes trailing behind. This morning, I had something I had to bring up to the house. So I went upstairs. And I went to Ezra's room, and it was about 8 o'clock on the dot, which is technically the time we're supposed to be leaving. We have each intersection timed. We have to be at this street by 801. We have to be at this street by 803, you know. And so I get up there at 8 o'clock, and I'm like, we got to go. And Ezra standing there, he's wearing his pants and his shirt, but no shoes and no belt and doesn't have his bag and all the stuff. So he starts gathering all of his gear to leave, and it was fine. He seemed a little bit, I don't know, harried, maybe. I don't know if that's the word, but, you know, he was gathering his stuff. And so I made the mistake of saying, watching him for a few minutes and then saying,

you know, if you just got out of bed 10 minutes earlier, you wouldn't have to, like, carry all this

stuff. Because he's doing this thing where, I've mentioned this before, where he's moved, like one by one, each element of getting prepped in the morning, he's now, like, sort of shifted it to the time in the car.

So now he's at a point where he literally just puts on pants and a shirt, and that's it.

And maybe socks, but sometimes not even socks.

And then he walks to the car with all these possessions a backpack lunch deodorant razors uh shoes a belt and sometimes socks

and he carries all the stuff to the car he throws in the back seat and then he gets in the car and then he

proceeds to complete his getting ready routine in the car which not only does it make us late a lot because we'll get to his school and he'll still be put in the car and then he proceeds to complete his getting ready routine in the car, which not only does it make us late a lot because we'll get to his school and he'll still be

putting on his shoes, but he also drops stuff. Like he'll forget things. This is how he ended up

three times this year forgetting to like wear shoes to school because he was carrying all this

stuff. And then he got to school and was like, oh, no, Dad, I thought I had, I thought I had my shoes with me, but I guess I left, I left some upstairs. So I said, you know, if you just got out of bed 10 minutes earlier, you'd be blah, blah, blah. And before I could finish that sentence, he said, you know what, Dad, I just, you're so bad at this. Like, it's not motivating when you tell me that. He was like, okay, he's like, you're good at some things. You're good at writing or whatever and whatever, but like, you just suck at this. I can't, I can't deal with it. And I just was like, whoa, like what happened? And so that was like painful and hurtful. and also I was like, all right, it's not a good idea to argue with a teenager.

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