A Teacher Weighs In On Grades
Speaker A: This episode may contain explicit language.
Speaker A: Welcome to Karen feeding the show, where we raise the next generation together.
Speaker A: I’m Zach Rosen.
Speaker A: I make another podcast.
Speaker A: It’s called the best advice show.
Speaker A: And I am dad to six year old Noah and three year old Ami.
Speaker A: We live in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker B: Hey, I’m Lucy Lopez.
Speaker B: I host the Mamasita Riga podcast madre to teen dragon Amelia, who’s 14, and tween Dragon Avery, who’s eleven.
Speaker B: We live in Miami.
Speaker C: I’m Jamila Lemieux, a writer contributor to Slate’s care and feeding parenting column, and a mom snaima who is just about eleven.
Speaker C: And we live in Los Angeles.
Speaker A: Today on the show, it’s time to ask a teacher.
Speaker A: We heard you loud and clear after our conversations about grades a few weeks back, and we’re bringing in a brilliant expert.
Speaker A: He is a 9th grade english teacher who actually gave us a lackluster report card on those episodes.
Speaker A: We’ve got a ton of questions for him and you won’t want to miss it.
Speaker A: At the end of the show, we’ll of course, debrief on our week with a round of triumphs and fails.
Speaker A: So let’s get going.
Speaker A: We’re going to take a quick break and then we’ll see you back here for our ask a teacher.
Speaker A: Okay, we’re back.
Speaker A: In case you missed it, we ran two episodes about grades a few weeks ago.
Speaker A: The short version is that we, your hosts, said that grades are bullshit or some variation on that.
Speaker A: And a lot of you came back at us with some really good arguments about how we’re wrong.
Speaker A: One of those great arguments came from Jeff Olsen Bieberghauser, a member of the slate parenting Facebook group.
Speaker A: He called us out and started a great conversation, and we just want to share the way he ended his Facebook post because it was so on the nose.
Speaker A: Here’s his report card for us.
Speaker A: Podcast as a whole meets or exceeds standards episodes about education not yet proficient.
Speaker A: So we are here for our remedial coursework.
Speaker A: Hey Jeff.
Speaker D: Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker A: Jeff is a 9th grade teacher in Minneapolis and a dad of two and a Karen feeding listener.
Speaker A: We’re so happy to have you here, Jeff.
Speaker A: Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you spend your days as a teacher.
Speaker D: Yeah, thanks.
Speaker D: First, I want to say that I really appreciate the invitation to come and kick some ideas around with you, kind of a parent teacher conference.
Speaker D: I’ve been listening to the podcast for close to a decade, since my kid was very little, and you’ve given me a lot of guidance, informed a lot of my commitments as both a teacher and as a parent, you all are some of my closest parasocial friends.
Speaker D: Today is my fourth day of spring break, and I have spent it just like I spent yesterday catching up on laundry and catching up on grading.
Speaker D: I’ve got a stack of paragraphs that students handed in a few weeks ago, and I gave them feedback, and a handful of them have selected to respond to my feedback and give me a second draft, sometimes a third to draft.
Speaker D: So I’m kind of in the headspace of looking at the arguments that 9th graders are making and providing critique.
Speaker D: And I kind of view this conversation as parallel to that sort of experience of creating paragraphs that people are making.
Speaker D: Your jokes about the podcast needing remedial work, or my joke about it being not yet proficient.
Speaker D: Those are jokes that, in putting those jokes aside, like, I’m not coming in here with a red pen looking to point out every error or quibble that I or others saw.
Speaker D: With what you’ve said so far about grading and the nature of education, actually, I think myself as looking to affirm a lot of the insights and the experiences and the commitments the four hosts of this program have spoken to and other people have written into.
Speaker D: I wanted to affirm the strength of a lot of those arguments and maybe just push back on a few of the weaknesses, not so that we can all be ashamed of our missing commas, but to help us all kind of come up with a better draft of the ideas that we’ve got.
Speaker A: Right on.
Speaker C: Well, Jeff, we actually brought you here to pull out your red pin.
Speaker C: So let’s hear it.
Speaker A: Oh, he’s got it, listeners.
Speaker A: He took it out.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker A: It’s real.
Speaker C: He’s got the red pen.
Speaker C: So, we invited you here today mainly because you disagreed with some of our feelings about grades.
Speaker C: How do you think we got it wrong?
Speaker D: Yeah, again, I think a lot of what I heard from the podcast that we’ve had so far about grades was expressing a desire for grades to be seen differently, wanting everybody, parents and students and teachers all, to view grades not so much as like a static photograph of a hard and fast fixed judgment of performance or of ability, but instead as part of kind of a growth mindset, to be looking at the reason that we can give grades.
Speaker D: If there’s any merit to giving grades, it’s to notice where our students are growing and where they might need some support.
Speaker D: I could talk to my fifth grader, Francis, about this.
Speaker D: And I said, yeah, we were listening to this podcast, and they were talking about how grades aren’t very helpful.
Speaker D: And she said, but, dad, if we didn’t have grades, then how would my teachers know where I needed help?
Speaker D: And I think that’s pretty close to the way that a lot of us actually practice giving grades.
Speaker D: And I think a lot of parents bought into that, too.
Speaker D: It seems to be kind of.
Speaker D: We still have some offshoots of parents or students who are looking at grades as just a kind of static reflection of I’m good at math or I’m not good at math.
Speaker D: And I don’t think the majority of parents or teachers or even students are still there.
Speaker D: I think the kind of idea of education as a perpetually open to the growth mindset has more or less kind of taken over, I think, in some really helpful ways.
Speaker D: So I think a lot of people’s concerns, especially people I’m 40 years old.
Speaker D: I gather that’s based on the ages of your kids, that you’re in that same ballpark.
Speaker D: And the parents of my students in the 9th grade are probably closer to 50 in most cases.
Speaker D: And so I think a lot of us are basing our concerns and our questions and our anxieties about grades based on the way that it was in the back when we were receiving these grades, where the teacher has this kind of, like, grade book on her desk, and it’s pretty much a black box that you don’t really get a chance to look into.
Speaker D: And I think everything that you all are saying about, like that is a terrible model, that’s a toxic model.
Speaker D: I think that’s true.
Speaker D: I think we come from that kind of anxiety or that kind of a toxic environment and assume, and sometimes our experience will confirm that our kids are having the same experiences and similar anxieties to the ones that we used to have.
Speaker D: But I think what that doesn’t take account of are a bunch of changes in the way that I think most classrooms are run these days.
Speaker D: Like, teachers don’t really have a black box gradebook that you only get access to with a simple letter grade at the end.
Speaker D: We all have online gradebooks that are open to students and open to parents.
Speaker D: And I don’t want to say we all have that.
Speaker D: I’m sure there’s some diversity about this, but I think it’s overwhelmingly the practice that at least starting in middle school and in high school, teachers are expected to show all the quizzes over the course of the semester.
Speaker D: And it’s easy enough for a parent to kind of dip in and see.
Speaker D: Check it out.
Speaker D: We got a trend coming where my student was getting an A at the beginning of the year and an A in October and an A on the third.
Speaker D: And then suddenly the last quiz that they take is a C plus.
Speaker D: That’s something worth kind of paying attention to see you like, do we have to talk to the kid?
Speaker D: Do we have to talk to the teacher?
Speaker D: What do we think is going on?
Speaker D: Or maybe we have a student just getting a C on every quiz over the whole course of the semester, and then suddenly on the unit test, they really work very hard, and they pull off C plus instead.
Speaker D: It’s a lot easier due to technology and just kind of a culture of teachers being more open in their grading practices that make it easier for students and parents to notice differences in trends.
Speaker D: In my classroom, I was talking at the top about how my students turn in a paragraph and I grade it, and then they’ve got the opportunity to do a second draft, responding to my feedback and a third draft.
Speaker D: And sometimes they’ll come in and meet with me and we’ll brainstorm.
Speaker D: Here are some ways that you can make your topic sentence fit your evidence a little bit more clearly, and then they’ve got the opportunity to turn that in and get their new grade.
Speaker D: So in principle, there’s no reason that even someone who came in writing at a C plus level couldn’t kind of work through it and grow and experience what it’s like to have to sharpen up our skills or tighten up the content that we’ve been looking at.
Speaker A: That’s great.
Speaker A: Is that your system, Jeff, or is that, like, the kind of norm at your school?
Speaker A: I like that.
Speaker D: It is not the norm at my school.
Speaker D: I’m working towards that.
Speaker D: I’ve been able to convince my bosses to let me do it that way because I’m the 9th grade teacher in particular, I’ve been able to kind of spin that as, since the students are getting used to 9th grade, there’s a lot of students who come and join our community just for high school.
Speaker D: And so since they’re just kind of getting accustomed to some of the rigors of high school education, I build that in.
Speaker D: But I’ve tried to work on making that a more common thing within the culture of my school.
Speaker A: Right on.
Speaker C: So you’re saying that alternatives to grades can work?
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker D: I think thinking creatively about the ways that we communicate grades, I think that’s a really helpful project.
Speaker D: I think part of the lack of nuance that I was perceiving in previous episodes is the idea that because we don’t like the process of giving an A or a B at the end of a unit, that means that the time that teachers are putting into grading that that’s purely a matter of racking and stacking or preparing these students to go out and work in a capitalist system where they’re judged only on these measurable outcomes and that kind of thing.
Speaker D: And I think, yeah, Jamila, that’s the right question to say.
Speaker D: Are there ways that we can, within the kind of parameters of what works for our students and what works for parents and what’s good, clear communication and what might have gotten kind of tied up with anxieties about 80% versus 90% or a minus versus B plus?
Speaker D: Are there different ways that we can provide the feedback to start conversations?
Speaker D: And if changing from an A plus to a black belt is a way of breaking some of those old habits of thought without severing the kind of really important connection that a teacher can have with students and with parents, so that we’re able to give feedback and say, listen, this paragraph really isn’t your best work, or, wow, it seems like you really have started to do the reading a lot more faithfully than you did at the beginning of the year.
Speaker D: I think if we kind of throw out the whole system of grades, we’re missing out on a lot of opportunities.
Speaker D: But sure, like the more kind of superficial ways of how it is that we communicate that information.
Speaker D: I think teachers ought to be.
Speaker D: I think everybody ought to be open to creative ways of expressing some of the best of what grading has to offer.
Speaker B: I like how you admit that you, in fact, went to your school and told them, hey, I think we need to change things up, especially for your class.
Speaker B: And hopefully that inspires other teachers who may feel the way some of us feel or don’t.
Speaker B: But just understand that obviously through communication, there can be change.
Speaker B: So that’s heartwarming to hear from you.
Speaker B: You’re fighting to change a little bit of the system just a tad.
Speaker D: Yeah, thanks for saying so.
Speaker D: When we spend your day, as I do, helping 14 and 15 year olds to articulate their perspective of the world in the ways that are the clearest and the most forceful and the most compelling, and getting them to engage in critical thinking about the way that they see things while affirming what it is that they’re doing, that’s the kind of analysis that really the way that we think about how to engage critically thinking about all sorts of parenting issues on this podcast, or the way that we structure our places of employment and the schools that our kids go to, the idea of being able to share perspectives and notice criticisms or notice things that need to be changed or addressed while providing the nuance of saying that doesn’t mean that we have to throw the whole system out or that there’s not any kind of merit to doing the kind of work that teachers have traditionally done.
Speaker D: Just being willing to kind of rethink that and think, could I do a second draft of my rubric that I grade my students writing on?
Speaker D: Can I make this part of my practice clearer to people who have this kind of a cultural background?
Speaker D: Those sorts of questions, I think, only come about in a world where we’ve all gotten used to.
Speaker D: Sometimes I do my best work and it goes pretty well, but not as well as I would have hoped.
Speaker D: And sometimes we all give it our best shot that we’re leaving important perspectives out of the conversation.
Speaker D: And so we come to conclusions that are going to be leaving.
Speaker B: Some people know in the time that we have left.
Speaker B: We asked some listeners and your fellow slate parenting Facebook members if they had any questions for teachers, and they really did.
Speaker B: So we were hoping that you would want to take a stab at some of those questions.
Speaker B: One in particular stood out for me.
Speaker B: It’s from Melissa on Facebook.
Speaker B: She asked, what are the best questions for parents to ask at parent teacher conferences?
Speaker B: This, to me, is probably the most important question out of all submitted for this episode.
Speaker B: Can you help us out with that?
Speaker D: Yeah, that’s one of my favorite questions, too.
Speaker D: I hope at some point that you’ll be able to share kind of why that strikes you as a really important question.
Speaker B: Oh, because I always mess up.
Speaker B: I always feel like I don’t have the right questions, and I feel like I’m not asking the right questions because I think I make them too personal and too emotional where I’m like, yeah, but is she getting along?
Speaker B: Is she understanding the material?
Speaker B: And, oh, yeah, she is.
Speaker B: But I don’t feel like I’m asking the real nitty gritty questions.
Speaker B: Does that make sense?
Speaker D: Yeah, I think that’s true.
Speaker D: And that’s a concern that I hear from a whole lot of conferences.
Speaker D: The way we do conferences at our school is they’re ten minutes, and if phrase racking and stacking.
Speaker D: Yeah, it’s an awkward amount of time to fill ten minutes.
Speaker D: And so, yeah, a lot of parents will sit down and say, like, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to say, and I don’t want to waste my time if I’ve only got ten minutes to share.
Speaker D: And that’s maybe one starting point is to acknowledge that though schools tend to build in ten or 15 minutes times for all the parents who want to to show up and have a conversation, that’s never the end of the conversation.
Speaker D: I think almost all of my conferences ends with an honest invitation that if other things pop up later in the semester or if there’s things that we didn’t get to today that you want to check in, always call the teacher or email the teacher and set up a conversation that way.
Speaker D: The questions that you’re raising, how is my kid doing socially?
Speaker D: Does it seem like she’s making friends?
Speaker D: Those kind of questions about social learning and emotional learning and sort of the student’s character.
Speaker D: And those are great questions to ask.
Speaker D: Maybe particularly in transitional times where if you’re joining a new school or just starting 6th grade or just starting 9th grade, or anytime that you’re aware that your student’s going through some changes, touching base and asking questions about things that don’t show up on report cards and things that don’t show up on grades I think are really smart.
Speaker D: The one question that I had a parent ask, even just this last spring that I thought was really impressive and I wanted to hang onto it for the next time I have parateacher conferences on my own.
Speaker D: It was a question of, like, where’s one area where my student has grown over the course of the last month?
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker D: And left it open ended to kind of say, did I see that in a social way, or did I see in terms of reading or of writing or of confidence or of piping up in discussion, a lot of things that may or may not show up on the grades.
Speaker A: And I imagine the opposite question might be helpful too.
Speaker A: Like where are they stagnating could be helpful too.
Speaker D: Yeah, that’s right.
Speaker D: That especially would help with those students who are really consistently strong in a certain area.
Speaker D: And maybe that’s a good thing to point out.
Speaker D: If you have a student who’s excellent at math, there might be a temptation to skip the math teacher at conferences because you know your kid’s doing well at math.
Speaker D: I think if you show up and ask the math teacher, what are some ways that we could increase our imagination for where the ceiling is for the student’s performance?
Speaker D: Like, yes, they’re meeting everything that an 8th grade science student is supposed to face.
Speaker D: Are there ways that we can inspire them to do something outside of the classroom or ways that they can get a head start on some high school science questions or that kind of thing?
Speaker D: Yeah.
Speaker D: Areas where they’re doing well but might be stagnating.
Speaker D: That’s a really smart question.
Speaker C: So Shatar on Facebook asked would love to hear a teacher’s perspective on homework.
Speaker C: And I have to say, if our take on grades rocks you all, I’d be willing to bet that all the hosts of this show also think that homework is bullshit.
Speaker C: And a lot of studies show that homework is bullshit.
Speaker C: A lot of teachers are moving away from homework.
Speaker C: I’m curious to know, do you see.
Speaker B: The value in homework?
Speaker C: Do you still think it’s important?
Speaker D: I think that the critiques of homework and some of the studies of homework, there’s a lot of merit to it.
Speaker D: And I think if I changed jobs next year and found myself at a school where homework wasn’t happening, even at the high school level, I think I could adjust to that pretty quickly.
Speaker D: The sorts of merit that I find in homework as a teacher, especially at the high school level.
Speaker D: Well, especially in an english class like mine.
Speaker D: The way I structured is they do their reading at home and would come in and discuss it.
Speaker D: And if I had to have them do all their reading during class time, the amount of kind of lectures and exercises and conversations that we have would be cut in half.
Speaker D: It’d be a pretty big change to me.
Speaker D: Just in terms of what sorts of things are you able to do in the classroom, I think that might be kind of more reading specific.
Speaker D: Even a lot of the parents and the teachers who want to do away with homework would agree that, well, while at least having my kid do reading at home seems like a fine practice to have in place.
Speaker D: So I think if I were to try to think about this from other disciplines that I don’t teach as well, the things that you could get from watching a student do homework that you can’t get as easily from classwork, or seeing what they do when you’re together is you got a chance to have the students develop independence and the kind of resilience.
Speaker D: If I’m sitting here looking at a math sheet and it’s not going very well, can I try to power through and see if I can learn anything from the experience or not?
Speaker D: And it’s a way to develop some independence.
Speaker D: Also a way for parents and students and teachers all to discern what is it that this student is capable of doing on their own without a parent helping, without a teacher helping.
Speaker D: It can sometimes be effective in identifying where the real strengths and the real weaknesses that sometimes just in the classroom environment can be papered over by a student being really charming and looking really confident and kind of glancing at the paper of the kid sitting next to them.
Speaker A: Yeah, Jeff, we have one more question for now.
Speaker A: This comes from Sarah on Facebook.
Speaker A: They ask, it’s very general, but I would love to hear a teacher answer.
Speaker A: What are the biggest mistakes that good parents are making when it comes to learning?
Speaker D: Yeah, that is a general question.
Speaker D: It’s a good question, I guess.
Speaker D: But I think doesn’t it sound like it’s coming out of the same sorts of anxiety that a lot of our conversations and questions are having?
Speaker D: I think in some ways she might just want to be reassured that you’re caring enough to write in to a bunch of other parents and teachers with your questions.
Speaker D: That’s probably proof that you’re a good parent.
Speaker D: And is it likely that you’re making mistakes?
Speaker D: I suppose so.
Speaker D: Generally speaking, the kinds of people who are listening to this podcast and interacting on the slate parenting group, I think it’s fair to assume that showing that level of care to some of these abstract questions about parenting values and educational values, that’s probably a sign that when you’re tucking your kid into bed or when you’re making your kid the grilled cheese sandwich, you’re showing that kind of care to your kids.
Speaker D: And it’s probably more important for the kids to see that we’re all doing our best and that we’re looking for ways to grow.
Speaker D: So I think the quick advice I’d say is anyone asking a question about what mistakes might I’d be making probably can afford to relax.
Speaker D: And if you’re really sure that there might be some ways where you’re erring too far to the side of being a helicopter parent or earring too far to letting them to kind of make their own mistakes or whatever.
Speaker D: I think at almost every age we could ask our kids, if you could make an adjustment to the way that I’m doing my parenting, what direction would you have me make that adjustment in?
Speaker D: I think probably that the kids are going to be a better source of guidance for critiquing our parenting styles than teachers or other parents will be.
Speaker A: Well, amen to that, listeners.
Speaker A: If you have questions for teachers, we would love to hear them.
Speaker A: We want to have more teachers on this show.
Speaker A: We want it to be a regular thing.
Speaker A: So please share those questions and thoughts with us.
Speaker A: You can email us at karenfeedingpod@slate.com or to our favorite option, leave us a voicemail so we can hear your gorgeous voices.
Speaker A: 646-357-9318 we’re always excited to hear from you, Jeff.
Speaker A: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker A: Your time is so valuable to us and especially on spring break.
Speaker A: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker D: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker D: This was a lot of fun.
Speaker A: All right, listeners, we’re going to take another quick break, but we’ll be back here in a second for triumphs and fails.
Speaker A: We’re back, and we’re moving on to a segment we call triumphs and fails.
Speaker A: Jamila, do you have a triumph or fail for us this week?
Speaker C: So I actually have a dilemma, and I’m afraid of having a fail.
Speaker C: So I’d like to hear you guys opinion on it.
Speaker C: Okay, so Naima’s birthday is coming up.
Speaker C: It’s next Friday, and she’s got an itinerary of things that she wants to do for her birthday.
Speaker C: The night before her birthday, because it’s spring break, she wants to have a sleepover at my house with one of her girlfriends, and she wants to go to Red Lobster on the night of her birthday.
Speaker C: And then we’re having a birthday party on Saturday.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker C: And so originally, she and I were going to go to dinner on Thursday.
Speaker C: We’re going to go to this all you can eat sushi and barbecue place that we really like.
Speaker C: And she was going to go to Red lobster with her dad and his family.
Speaker C: And so he put the red lobster date on our shared calendar that we use.
Speaker C: We have a notes file where we keep up with what days she’ll be at, what household, and if a parent is going to be out of town, we just keep all our important dates there.
Speaker C: And so I was like, oh, so maybe the red lobster thing is like an everybody thing.
Speaker C: Should I go?
Speaker C: And I was talking to my mom about it, and she was like, oh, yeah, it’s on her actual birthday.
Speaker C: You got to be there.
Speaker C: And I’m like, I really don’t want to go just because I get along great with her dad and his family.
Speaker C: But I just feel so outnumbered on occasions like this because it’ll be like his wife and their other son and her stepmother’s mother will be there, and her stepmother’s sister and brother in law always come in for Naima’s birthdays, which kind of puts, like, a damper on birthdays for me.
Speaker C: Like, when we lived in New York, the birthday parties were my village, primarily, like my friends, my know, plus her school friends.
Speaker C: And now it’s like her school friends and her dad’s village.
Speaker C: And so I’m kind of feeling like the outsider at this stuff.
Speaker C: And I asked Naima, I was like, do you want me to come to Red lobster?
Speaker C: And she was like, oh, you want to?
Speaker C: And I was like, well, do you want me to come?
Speaker C: She’s like, I mean, you can.
Speaker C: So she’s like, you can come.
Speaker A: Not the response you wanted.
Speaker C: Yeah, I wanted a clear I want you there or don’t come.
Speaker C: You know what I mean?
Speaker C: Like, I wanted her to decide for me.
Speaker C: I don’t want to go.
Speaker C: I want to take a poll class that night.
Speaker C: But part of me feels like I should just go because it’s her birthday.
Speaker C: Like, I don’t know what to do.
Speaker A: I mean, to me, it sounds like you shouldn’t go.
Speaker B: I personally think you should.
Speaker D: Huh.
Speaker A: Great.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: Jamila, you’re going to have to take the poll class another day and go to this red lobster dinner and sit by your daughter and hold her hand and wear your crown and.
Speaker A: Is that a thing?
Speaker B: My language.
Speaker B: Be that b****.
Speaker C: Sorry.
Speaker A: But she doesn’t seem so excited about you going.
Speaker A: You don’t want to go?
Speaker A: You can do your own special thing with her.
Speaker B: She has a child.
Speaker B: She has no idea what she wants for that birthday.
Speaker B: By the way, that birthday plan might change by tomorrow.
Speaker B: I’m just putting it out there.
Speaker B: It might change overnight.
Speaker B: Jamila, you have to go.
Speaker B: Like I’m telling you right now, you have to go.
Speaker B: You have to go.
Speaker C: And this is not me being.
Speaker B: Wait, Zach, what is it that you don’t agree with what I’m saying?
Speaker B: I don’t get it.
Speaker B: Explain yourself to us, please.
Speaker A: I think that acting out of obligation doesn’t necessarily serve you or the people you’re with.
Speaker A: And I totally acknowledge that.
Speaker A: Yes, it’s Naima’s birthday.
Speaker A: However, she didn’t seem to be that invested in Jamila coming.
Speaker A: And that’s just an indication of this event.
Speaker A: It’s not an indication of anything larger.
Speaker A: And so, Jamila, you don’t want to be there.
Speaker A: Naima doesn’t seem to really care.
Speaker A: And I just think you can do a really special mother daughter thing any other time that day.
Speaker A: So Red Lobster isn’t the beginning and end of the birthday celebration.
Speaker A: It’s just a small part.
Speaker A: What about taking a comrade?
Speaker A: Like, isn’t there like an uncle figure that you’re friends with?
Speaker A: Like, a guy who’s.
Speaker C: He lives in New York.
Speaker C: I don’t have any.
Speaker A: Fly him in.
Speaker C: I wish I could, but I don’t like my comrades.
Speaker C: Who.
Speaker C: I would have a cousin who lives out here.
Speaker C: She’s not available.
Speaker A: I have a friend who lives out here.
Speaker C: She’s not available, so I don’t have any comrades to bring.
Speaker B: I feel you and I understand why you don’t want to go, but I really feel that you need to go.
Speaker B: And I love that you give your daughter an option and that she’s able to tell you, well, if you want to go, you can go.
Speaker B: If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to go.
Speaker B: No, it’s her birthday.
Speaker B: No, you need to be there.
Speaker B: I really feel you need to be there.
Speaker B: As your sister in parenting, you must go.
Speaker B: If you don’t go, I’m not going to be upset with you, but I just feel like you should go.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker A: I mean, as your brother on your other shoulder, I’m saying follow your heart.
Speaker A: Do what you want to, to be.
Speaker A: This is not how Naima is evaluating your love for her.
Speaker A: It’s not.
Speaker B: He’s right about that.
Speaker B: He’s totally right.
Speaker B: But her birthday dinner, Pero.
Speaker B: Thank you, Zach.
Speaker B: Pero, this is her birthday dinner.
Speaker B: And Jamila, she came out of you.
Speaker B: You need to go.
Speaker A: So you are more confused now than you were before.
Speaker C: The more confused than when I started.
Speaker A: But I.
Speaker A: Lucy and I are flying in.
Speaker A: We’re going to go with you.
Speaker B: We’re going to go with you.
Speaker A: Well, keep us posted.
Speaker A: Jamila.
Speaker A: Lucy.
Speaker B: Here come the emails.
Speaker A: Lucy.
Speaker A: What have you got a try them for a fail?
Speaker B: No, I have a total fail.
Speaker B: A total fail.
Speaker B: Maybe that’s why I’m wound up, ladies and gentlemen, but we are currently experiencing hair tantrums.
Speaker B: Yes, hair tantrums.
Speaker B: You see there, Avery, who’s eleven as of late, has been like, having meltdowns every morning about her hair.
Speaker B: She’s bored without the styles.
Speaker B: She won’t let me trim her bangs even though they are clearly aggravating or irritating the eczema on her eyelids.
Speaker B: And when I suggest, like, a different hairstyle, she argues with me.
Speaker B: Currently, the score is baby dragon ten, mama zero.
Speaker B: Literally this morning.
Speaker B: I’m not making this up.
Speaker B: She showed up with, like, we call it the hair bucket because we all have curly hair in my house.
Speaker B: And it’s the hair bucket.
Speaker B: And you know how it is.
Speaker B: It’s the leavein conditioner, the oil, the brush, the scrunchies, all of it.
Speaker B: And she just looked at me and she goes, you need to make me look cute.
Speaker B: Because yesterday’s hairstyle, it was just not happening.
Speaker B: And I just wanted to hug her tight.
Speaker B: I just wanted to hug her tight.
Speaker B: And I don’t know how to handle the frustration because I’m just like, well, just pick it up in a bun.
Speaker B: Just pick it up in a bun.
Speaker B: Make it a bun day.
Speaker B: And it’s not happening.
Speaker B: I don’t know what to do.
Speaker B: Every.
Speaker B: It’s been every morning for two weeks.
Speaker B: Send prayers and thoughts to at the Lucy Lopez.
Speaker C: We’re in the same boat.
Speaker C: We’re in the same boat.
Speaker C: Lucy.
Speaker C: Naima had a hair tantrum this morning.
Speaker C: She actually brought me in to do, like, I’m usually not even allowed to touch her hair.
Speaker C: So that your daughter still lets you do her hair is a good know because she insists on doing it herself.
Speaker C: And, like, I came in the back to check on her today, and she said, go back up front.
Speaker C: Just go back up front.
Speaker C: And then like a few minutes later, she’s crying and frustrated, and I’m like, I’ll just do it.
Speaker C: And she finally let me do it.
Speaker B: She said that the hairstyle I did on her yesterday made her look like, I quote, a ghost from pilgrim days.
Speaker A: That sounds haunting.
Speaker B: A ghost.
Speaker B: I made her look like a ghost.
Speaker B: Like, what?
Speaker B: But who even says that?
Speaker B: My child did.
Speaker B: And then guess what?
Speaker B: That’s a lot of stress, man.
Speaker B: I was like, I haven’t even had my coffee yet.
Speaker B: And I’m like, what is happening?
Speaker A: What was pilgrim about it?
Speaker B: Because it was parted down the middle.
Speaker B: And by the way, I called it a spanish bun, which is just part of the middle.
Speaker B: Low bun, tight in the back, rolled up with a little scrunchie.
Speaker B: She was like, I look like a ghost from pilgrim days.
Speaker B: This is what I’m debating in the morning.
Speaker B: Please help me.
Speaker B: Please.
Speaker C: Your daughter talk about the other girl’s hair.
Speaker C: Because my daughter claims that every other girl’s hair is just so much better and so much more stylish.
Speaker B: We’re not there yet.
Speaker B: She is pretty much into her own vibe.
Speaker B: This is a kid who we went to brunch the other day and asked me to paint a lightning bolt on her face.
Speaker A: Love.
Speaker B: So she’s that kid.
Speaker B: So she’s just like, please don’t make me look like a ghost from the pilgrim days.
Speaker B: I’m like, what are you saying?
Speaker B: Who says that?
Speaker B: My eleven year old.
Speaker B: And it’s been like that for a couple of weeks, and I just don’t know what to do.
Speaker B: And we’ve had so many conversations about hair.
Speaker B: We found out what our curl hair type was.
Speaker B: They sleep with bonnets.
Speaker B: We do the oil treatment once a week.
Speaker B: It’s a whole to do because their hair is important to them.
Speaker B: And having curly hair in Miami is no joke.
Speaker B: You have it perfect.
Speaker B: You walk outside, the humidity destroys your soul.
Speaker B: And she’s dealing with that.
Speaker B: And I’m just like, well, who told you to get bangs?
Speaker B: But I can’t say that.
Speaker C: I can’t say that.
Speaker B: I can’t.
Speaker A: Told you to get bangs.
Speaker A: Ghost pilgrim.
Speaker B: Exactly.
Speaker B: Ghost pilgrim.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker A: Which, by the way, I think is a good concept for a Sci-Fi book.
Speaker B: That’s my fail.
Speaker B: What about you, Zach?
Speaker B: Fail.
Speaker B: Triumphs.
Speaker B: What’s up?
Speaker A: This is a triumph, but it’s not my own.
Speaker A: I want to shout out the parents of my dear friends, Ruby Enifat, who hosted a birthday party this past weekend.
Speaker A: And I was so admiring of the thriftiness and the creativity that these parents exhibited, and I think that they should take a triumph, and I think listeners might be inspired by it.
Speaker A: So it was at their house and home parties, I acknowledge, are much easier when the kids are younger.
Speaker A: So it was a fourth birthday party for their son, for their oldest son.
Speaker A: And we get there and we go down into their basement, which is just like a basic basement, not finished basement, just, like, cleared out with a couple big tables.
Speaker A: And they have their babysitter down there facilitating an arts and crafts project.
Speaker A: And it was truck themed.
Speaker A: Their son is big into trucks, and everyone got orange safety vests to wear and these little wooden trucks to draw or pictures of trucks to color in.
Speaker A: And it was all on theme.
Speaker A: And I found out that all of the stuff came from a previous birthday party.
Speaker A: They got leftovers from someone else’s truck birthday party.
Speaker A: I think trucks are probably pretty big theme for kids that age.
Speaker A: And so, through some creativity and thrift on local parenting Facebook groups, ifat the birthday boy’s mom got all of this stuff donated to their party, the kids loved it.
Speaker A: We went upstairs after that, had some bagels and locks and cake, which ruby, the dad, made.
Speaker A: He made a truck cake, which was so impressive with, like, fondant, and it was really impressive.
Speaker A: And it was, like, so simple.
Speaker A: There were, like, I don’t know, 1520 kids there.
Speaker A: It was such good vibes, so creative, so simple.
Speaker A: And I just want to say, like, triumph for creating a creative and low cost birthday party, which I didn’t think was easy to do, but they made it look easy.
Speaker C: It is.
Speaker B: It’s so easy.
Speaker B: I love a low cost birthday party.
Speaker B: Remember back in the day when you just get, like, a sheet cake and some capri suns and call it a day?
Speaker A: Call it a day.
Speaker A: Call it a birthday.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I love those birthdays.
Speaker A: We also want to know, parents, if you had a particularly great triumph or a funny fail, send them to us and we might share them on the show.
Speaker A: You can write to us at our email address, karenfeedingpod@slate.com.
Speaker A: Or better yet, leave us a voicemail of your triumph or fail.
Speaker A: 646-357-9318 we want to know what all of you think, so be sure to reach out to us and keep the conversation going.
Speaker A: That’s our show.
Speaker A: Please subscribe if you haven’t already, and leave us a rating and review.
Speaker A: If you want more parenting advice, you can find Karenfeeding, the column on slate.com.
Speaker A: This episode of Karen Feeding is produced by the incredible Maura Curry.
Speaker A: Shasha Leonard is the voice of our listeners.
Speaker A: Alicia Montgomery is the VP of slate audio for Jamila Lemieux and Lucy Lopez.
Speaker A: I’m Zach Rose, and thanks for listening.
