Mom and Dad Are Fighting: The “Should I Even Be a Parent?” Edition
Listen to Slate’s parenting podcast on youth football, books with great female heroes, and ambivalence about having kids in the first place.
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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 talk to Mike Pesca, host of Slate’s The Gist, about why he’ll let his kids play tackle football. Then, Allison and Dan debate how childless (or child-free!) people should decide whether to have kids at all. Then, Dan and Allison debate the merits of the family dinner. Plus a listener call about books featuring great female heroes, and parenting triumphs and fails.
Other items discussed on the show:
- American Girl’s book The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls
- “What If You Just Don’t Know If You Want Kids?” by Ann Friedman
- “Why Are Women Switching From the Pill to the Pull-Out Method?” by Amanda Marcotte
- “I Am More Than OK With Not ‘Having It All’ ” by Kate Harding
- “Difference Maker” by Meghan Daum
Here’s the list of books with great heroines recommended by Dan and Amy Blaine, intrepid librarian at Jamestown Elementary in Arlington, Virginia:
Picture Books
Here Come the Girl Scouts! by Shana Corey
What to Do About Alice? By Barbara Kerley
Heart on Fire by Ann Malaspina
Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride by Pam Munoz Ryan
Young Readers
Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry
Clementine by Sara Pennypacker
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
Mercy Watson by Kate DiCamillo
Middle Grade
Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley
The Girl With the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia
Mom and Dad recommend:
Allison recommends MIT’s breast pump hackathon and “recommends” “Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent” by Nick Bilton.
Dan recommends two middle-grade books by S.S. Taylor and Katherine Roy: The Expeditioners and the Treasure of Drowned Man’s Canyon and The Expeditioners and the Secret of King Triton’s Lair.
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. Got questions that you’d like us to answer on a future episode? Call and leave us a message at 424-255-7833.
Mom and Dad Are Fighting is produced by Ann Hepperman. The executive producer of Slate podcasts is Andy Bowers.
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