Author Mac Barnett and author and illustrator Jon Klassen join Sarah and Miranda to explain what makes a great picture book and why kids might be better readers than adults. Plus, preschoolers with hammers, Where the Wild Things Are is a true story, the sad blunting our “keenness” as we age, and why we still love our bullies.

LINKS:

* Looking at Picture Books

* The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell (Miranda’s Bake Off mystery)

* Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier

* Shape Island on Apple TV

* “How Does Santa Go Down The Chimney” by Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen

* Reagan Iran Contra SNL Sketch

* Jon & Mac on Margaret Wise Brown over on their substack, Looking at Picture Book

* The Elephant and The Bad Baby

* Eloise Rickman on Children’s Rights

* The Marginalian

* “I’ll Fix Anthony” by Judith Viorst

* Mac and Jon on Wild Things

* Children’s book author Remy Charlip

* Children’s book author David Crews

In this bonus episode, Sarah and Miranda talk the best parenting advice for kid explosions and their reactions to the new Nightbitch film. Also, Sarah offers a “Hannukah Surprise,” the Nightbitch theme song she’s been working on for a year.

Links:

* Dan Siegel and the “Flipped Lid”

Poet and author Nancy Reddy joins us to discuss her forthcoming book, The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom (pre-order it now!). In it, Nancy explores the historical, cultural, and scientific roots of many of our modern ideas about ‘goodness’ + motherhood, like attachment parenting. Spoiler alert: they’re pretty sketchy.

Links:

* Take our survey about parents and the pandemic (thank you!)

* The Good Mother Myth by Nancy Reddy

* Nancy’s piece in Slate on the Golden Hour

* The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood

* Jessica Valenti on Mother Tongue

* The Texas OB-GYN Exodus (The New Yorker)

* Marielle Heller Profile (The New Yorker)

* Women Who Run With Wolves: Myths & Stories Of The Wild Woman Archetype by

* 1996: The Year That Shook Hip-Hop

* Pre-order The Good Mother Myth and join Nancy and Maggie Smith in February for a live conversation!

If any season is movie-watching season, it’s now. When we knew we wanted to make a Christmas movie-focused episode, 2008’s A Christmas Tale and 2005’s The Family Stone sprang to mind right away: These are matriarch-centric Christmas movies that take the whole mom-at-Christmastime thing to the Nth degree. Each in their own way, they put the intense time we spend gathered together with our families of origin at the holidays under a microscope. So, what do The Family Stone and A Christmas Tale have in common? Just about everything, except that one is American and has Dermot Mulroney at his hottest(?) and the other is extremely French and involves a LOT of people smoking cigarettes non-stop. We get dig under the surface of these two films — both of which are centered around big families gathered at the holidays around powerful, complicated matriarchs — with our (new) friends Andie and Sabrina of the Pop Culture Moms podcast.

Links:

* A Christmas Tale

* The Family Stone

* Pop Culture Moms on Apple Podcasts, Instagram, and Spotify

Feminist writers Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei join Sarah and Miranda for Part 2 of our discussion on relationships between men and women (listen to Part 1 here). We talk about the post-election landscape of gender relations — including the rise in both misogynistic rhetoric interest in boycotting men. Is this a gender war or a war on women? Is feminism responsible for the young male Trump voter? What do men and women owe each other, and what do we do with the men in our lives?

Links:

* Sophie Kemp on Gen Z Men (LA Review of Books)

* Jia Tolentino on the Gender Wars (The New Yorker)

* The Warrior Mamas Who Elected Trump: Why Tradwife Ideology Continues To Matter (via In Pursuit of Clean Countertops)

* Blue Marriage and The Terror of Divorce by Anne Helen Petersen

* A feminist utopianism : Sophie Lewis argues against the 'fatalism' of both 4B and heteropessimism, and calls for a collective movement built on solidarity. (via TCF Emails )

* It’s not the economy. It’s the misogyny. (via Mad Woman)

* The “Your Body My Choice” movement

In Part 1 of our jam-packed conversation with feminist writers Tracy Clark-Flory and Amanda Montei, Sarah and Miranda attempt to unpack why this has been such a big year for examining sex in hetero-marriage, the specter of patriarchy haunting all of our marital beds, and whether or not good sex is possible anymore in a hetero-marriage.

Links:

* Amanda Montei’s “Can a Sexless Marriage Be a Happy One? Can a Sexless Marriage Be a Happy One?” in the New York Times Magazine

* Liars by Sarah Manguso

* All Fours by Miranda July

* Tracy on The Endless Repetition of Heterosexuality

* Want by Gillian Anderson

* Anne Hathaway’s The Idea Of You

* Nicole Kidman’s Babygirl

* Ester Perel

* Tracy Clark-Flory’s fabulous newsletter, TCF Emails and her book, Want Me.

* Amanda Montei’s fabulous newsletter, Mad Woman, and her book, Touched Out.

Culture Recs:

* Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women and the related television series

* Brian Jordan Alvarez

Writer Janet Manley joins us to break down her recent piece, “Pity the Dadfluencers: Their content is for men, but their audience is all women.” We dig into all of our favorite -isms: sexism, feminism, social media-ism (just roll with it), parasocial relationships, plus Wild Robot, Nightbitch, and what the heck you’re supposed to do with all those baby teeth.

Links:

* Chelsea Conaboy on The Wild Robot

* Arnold of the Ducks

* KAFKA'S BABY Janet’s newsletter

* The Real Sarah Miller by Sarah Miller

* Laurie Stone’s Everything is Personal

* Attachments by Lucas Mann, and our interview with Lucas

* Drawing Links by Edith Zimmerman

* Looking at Picture Books by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen

* Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt

Sarah and Miranda are checking in the morning after the election on what’s going through our minds, how we’re thinking about motherhood and our kids, and whether it’s too soon to do silver linings. With a special appearance from Nellie, three-year-old witch.

Links:

* Amanda Montei

says “It’s not the economy, it’s misogyny.”

* Witch podcast on BBC

* Seven Year B***h is the today’s soundtrack

Miranda and Sarah are joined by actor and comedian Lauren Lapkus and actor and filmmaker Nora Fiffer to talk about their tender, hilarious new film, Another Happy Day. We discuss the isolation and absurdity of early motherhood, taking care of care-takers at work, and why Hollywood should be just as saturated with postpartum movies as it is with World War II movies.

Links:

* Another Happy Day on Amazon and Apple

* Is the Future of Movie Sets An Eight-Hour Work Day with Childcare?? in Variety

* All Fours by Miranda July

* The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

*This is a paid-subscriber only episode. To become a subscriber, click HERE and sign up for any level of paid membership. P.S. If you subscribe as a “founding member” we’ll send you a snazzy Mother Of It All tote bag.

Join us as we hash Halloween out. Do we believe in the Switch Witch? DIY costumes: Y/N? Should Halloween happen at school? Do we have to …