Mom and Dad Are Fighting: The “I Am the Standard” Edition
Listen to Slate’s parenting podcast about Jennifer Senior’s book on modern parenting and whether high-school grads should take gap years.
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In this week’s edition of Slate’s parenting podcast Mom and Dad Are Fighting, Slate editors Allison Benedikt and Dan Kois are joined by New York magazine’s Jennifer Senior to discuss her new book, All Joy and No Fun, about the dilemmas of modern parenting. Then Dan and Allison debate gap years—can Dan somehow make taking a year off between high school and college mandatory for his children?
Other items discussed in the show:
- “All Joy and No Fun,” Senior’s original 2010 feature in New York
- “The Collateral Damage of a Teenager,” an excerpt from Senior’s book in New York
- A New York Times story on gap years that includes crazy stories of parents spending five figures so their kids can learn to be ski instructors
- British education official Mary Curnock Cook believes gap years in England need to be rethought substantially
Mom and Dad recommend:
Allison and her kids love White Fang, Jack London’s classic story of a wolf’s encounter with civilization.
Dan recommends the late Pete Seeger’s album Children’s Concert at Town Hall, especially the song “Be Kind to Your Parents.”
Email us at momanddad@slate.com to tell us what you thought of today’s show and give us ideas for what we should cover in the next edition. And leave us a message at 424-255-RUDE if you’d like your question for Dan and Allison answered on the air.