On this week’s episode: Dan and Jamilah are joined by guest host Michelle Herman, novelist, professor, and Care and Feeding columnist. They answer listener questions from a parent looking for ways to make Christmas enjoyable and a mother who is feeling left out of mother-child bonding experiences. For Slate Plus, Dan tells Lyra’s favorite new joke. (It’s awful.) Sign up for Slate Plus here. 

Recommendations:

Michelle recommends asking your kids for advice. And not just tech advice! 

Jamilah recommends How to Be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together by Dan Kois. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? 

Dan recommends “Hush,” a Season 3 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Join us on Facebook and email us at [email protected] to tell us what you thought of today’s show and give us ideas for what we should talk about in future episodes. Got questions that you’d like us to answer? Call and leave us a message at 424-255-7833. 

Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson. 

Hosts 

Jamilah Lemieux is a writer, cultural critic, and communications strategist based in California. 

Dan Kois is an editor and writer at Slate. He’s the author of How to Be a Family and the co-author of The World Only Spins Forward.

Michelle Herman is a novelist and essayist in Columbus, Ohio. Her books include The Middle of Everything: Memoirs of Motherhood and an advice book for children, A Girl's Guide to Life.

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