Something new from the team behind Not Right Now.

It's Called Reality is a podcast about reality TV, and everything it's secretly about. Every episode, hosts Willow Beck and Briana Brown take a show you're already watching and pull the thread on what it's actually telling us about the world.

If you listen to Not Right Now, you already know that the culture your kids are growing up in shapes them in ways that are easy to miss until it's too late. Reality TV is one of the most powerful parts of that culture. America's Next Top Model told a generation of girls what their bodies were supposed to look like. The Bachelor has been teaching young women about what femininity and being "marriage material" are supposed to look like since 2002. The Kardashians essentially invented the influencer economy that your kids are growing up inside.

It's Called Reality takes all of that seriously, with analysis, humor, and zero apology for loving the shows we're critiquing. If you've ever watched something with your kid and thought "wait, what is this actually teaching them", this show is for you too.

New episodes Fridays. Find It's Called Reality wherever you listen to podcasts.

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LINKS

Listen to It's Called Reality: itscalledreality.tv

Follow us: Instagram @itscalledreality and TikTok @its.called.reality

Get in touch: [email protected] -- send us your hot takes, questions, memes, and shows you want us to cover. We read them all.

Take action: whatcanido.earth

Support the show: It's Called Reality is produced by Important, Not Important. If you want to go deeper on the issues we cover (and get future ad-free and bonus episodes!) consider becoming an Important Member: importantnotimportant.com/upgrade

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It's Called Reality is co-hosted by Willow Beck and Briana Brown, produced by Important, Not Important. New episodes on Fridays.

If you love it, leave a rating and review!

It's Maycember, and we're not okay.

This week, Claire and Quinn are back to commiserate about the absolute chaos of late spring parenting, from overloaded school calendars to the age-old debate between fifth and eighth grade graduation parties.

Also discussed: Teacher Appreciation Week, Mother's Day logistics, being the "hang-out" house, garage sale slippers, Geometry Dash, and other trigger words.

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This week, Claire and Quinn are joined by AJ Daulerio, He's a dad of three, founder of the recovery community The Small Bow, host of The Small Bow Podcast, and parenting advice columnist for Slate. AJ has been sober for nearly 10 years, and he brings the same honesty and self-awareness to parenting that he brings to writing about recovery.

They chat about why AJ is more scared of the internet conversation than the alcohol conversation, sports betting, travel baseball all-star tryout for eight-year-olds, and how sober parenting meetings are really just about not letting your worst self show up when your kid strikes out.

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Music by Tim Blane: timblane.com

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It's a crossover episode! Quinn had the editor-in-chief of The Week Jr, Andrea Barbalich, on his other show The Most Important Question. It was such a great conversation, and so relevant for parents, we thought we should run it on the Not Right Now feed too. We hope you enjoy it!

Andrea is the editorial director of The Week Jr., the only weekly news magazine reporting current affairs directly to children, ages 8 to 14. Under Andrea's leadership, it has grown to over 155,000 subscribers.

Andrea's got 25-plus years in editorial leadership at places like Child Magazine. She's also the editor of a book called Feeling Safe: Talking to Children About War and Terrorism.

We talk about how you explain wars and elections and climate change to an 8-year-old without either terrifying them or talking down to them, why a physical magazine is thriving in a world of 8-second attention spans, and what every parent, grandparent, teacher, coach, and more can do this week to help the kids in their lives become informed, curious, and resilient.

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INI Book Club:

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This week, Quinn and Claire are joined by Willa Koerner, a creative strategist, writer, gardener, flower farmer, newsletter author, artist residency co-founder, and mother of a very busy four-year-old.

They get into unschooling, invasive species, gardening, skincare, aging, and late-stage capitalism.

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This week, Quinn and Claire are joined by journalist and author Fortesa Latifi. She's pregnant, has a toddler at home, and is somehow also promoting a book. Respect.

Fortesa has spent years reporting on the world of mom influencers and family vloggers, and the result is her new book, Like, Follow, Subscribe. The gang covers how she got into this beat, why she approaches her subjects with empathy instead of judgment, and what she's learned about influencer kids who are now adults making their own choices about what to put online.

Also discussed: the economic reality behind "sharenting", snark subreddits, and some practical options for sharing your kids privately with family.

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This week, Quinn and Claire get into their March Madness brackets, before discussing how the gambling industrial complex is ruining sports, and what it's like to raise kids in the age of the manosphere.

Also discussed: vasectomies, testing our knowledge of slang, and what really makes men attractive to their partners (like putting the kids to bed).

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This week, Quinn and Claire are joined by L'Oreal Thompson Payton, a bestselling author, award-winning journalist, yoga teacher, mom to a four-year-old junior bookseller, and the founder of Zora's Place, a Black-owned independent bookstore in Evanston, Illinois. She is also, somehow, simultaneously writing a memoir about infertility while going through IVF again. We don't know how she does it either.

We discuss: what it takes to run a brick-and-mortar bookstore (especially when you have a four-year-old who thinks she's the manager), the books we're hiding from our kids, IVF and the stuff nobody tells you about secondary infertility, and how to keep leafy greens fresh longer.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Get Mill

Get Mill

This week, Quinn and Claire are joined by Garrett Bucks, a writer, organizer, recovering white do-gooder, and parent based in Milwaukee. Garrett runs The Barnraisers Project, writes The White Pages newsletter, and is the author of the memoir The Right Kind of White. He also has a son who is very mad that his sister thinks they live in a suburb.

The gang gets into why your son talks differently to his sister than to his friends, kids not knowing what the Epstein files are, growing up in rural Montana, how to get work done in between school drop off and soccer practice, and why protests are important AND performative AND boring and worth doing anyway, and how to actually get your kids to come.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Get Mill

Get Mill

This week, Quinn and Claire talk about first crushes, school dances, bloody noses, and other horrors of middle school before getting into why youth sports are dying across the US, especially because coaches make no money while dealing with our asshole kids, so yes, they do deserve a Target gift card at the very least.

Also discussed: sleeping (badly), mandatory attendance policies, the art of letting your kid navigate social terrors on their own timeline, and more.

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Find every action recommended in Not Right Now here: whatcanido.earth.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Get Mill

Get Reader