This American Life - 883: Call Your Parents

Episode Date: March 22, 2026

In the early days of the radio show, Ira did a series of interviews with his parents that completely changed his relationship with them. This week, he returns to those interviews. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks about why four conversations reveal how his relationship with his parents changed. (4 minutes)Interview One: Ira’s mom, Shirley, is invited to lead a discussion about how to get along with your adult children. Her adult children question her expertise. (9 minutes)Interview Two: Ira asks his parents for advice on how he should build the radio show. His parents don’t hold back. (9 minutes)Interview Three: Ira talks with his dad, Barry, about Barry’s own brief and doomed career in radio. (21 minutes)Interview Four: An interview with Ira’s mom that, to this day, makes Ira’s skin crawl. (13 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

WBC Chicago, This American Life, I'm out of glass. So when I was 36 years old, the year started this American life. My relationship with my parents was not the greatest. I've been working in NPR since I was 19, and they were not into it at all. Like, they were not into public radio. They were not into me working in public radio. They saw public radio is this, like, sad little backwater when they would listen to all things considered in Morning Edition, which were shows I was working at.

I remember they would complain, like, why are the stories so long? They especially did not like that I wasn't making much money. I did not make much money. They were both people raised in families where there was never any money, and they really organized their lives to get themselves firmly into the middle class, and they really did not understand why I didn't want to make money. And then also, there have been a period in my early 20s when I was kind of judgy about certain choices that they were making, and I heard,

their feelings. And by my 30s, I tried to make amends and fix that, but it still wasn't quite right between us. And really, I felt pretty distant from them. They did not hide the fact that they disapproved to pretty much all my life choices, and I didn't feel a lot of patience for that disapproval. And I didn't have, like, a combative relationship with them, but it was just distant. I would go a month or two all the time without talking to them. And, you know, they were busy people, but I am sure this hurt their feelings. We talked about it later in our lives. And then I started the radio show. I have to say the single most surprising thing that happened in my life because of the radio show is that it fundamentally changed things between me and my parents.

It healed things in a way I had not suspected could ever happen. And what I'm going to do today is I'm going to play you four of those conversations that I had on the air with my parents. I'm going to talk about that change. A lot of the change happened, I think, because I was just including them in this big project I was doing. I would have them on the show, and they were part of this project that meant so much to me. They were on the show five times in the first year that we were on the air.

Really, it wasn't even the first year. It was just like the first eight months. And we just got into a rhythm of that, and they really liked it. They liked the attention from me. They liked being on the air. they each, but especially my mom, had a kind of performing, hammy side. I'll play you some of these. I think you'll be able to hear that.

And I never asked them about this, but I think they also like, what a kind of like public sort of affirmation it was of them as parents. Like, oh, see, we're a nice family. Like, see, they were good parents. And it really did change things between us. Like, my parents are both dead now, and it still kind of floors me as this lucky thing in my life that I just stumbled into.

And so what I'm going to do today is play some of their appearances on the radio show and maybe jump in just a little here and there to point out things that I am noticing. And there's one that I'm going to play at the end. This is a conversation with my mom that still, honestly, it makes my skin crawl today the way it did the day we recorded it. This whole episode today, the way this came about is that about a year ago we started doing these bonus episodes that we put out in our podcast feed. and so I'm constantly trying to think of behind-the-scenes stuff to share with listeners in these bonus episodes. And that led me back to relisten to these old interviews with my parents. And then a couple of weeks ago, I put these four interviews into a bonus episode. And honestly, it came out so nicely that we thought, like, we should put this out as an actual regular episode of our show, one that anybody could hear.

And so that's what you're hearing right now. And where I want to start things? This first excerpt is from an episode that we did called Adult Children. This is the fourth time I had one of my parents on the radio show. This is May 1996, which means that my mom in this recording is younger than I am right now. She is 60 years old in this recording. And I pick this one to begin because it's one that directly addresses the actual tensions between my parents and their three children. though as you'll hear it addresses them in kind of a light way

that does not get too deep or heavy. But you can also feel that there's something real under the surface, I think. Okay, so I'm going to start this with the open of that episode where I tell a little story, very brief story, that kind of sets up the interview that then will happen with my mom. Here we go. Well, when I picked up the phone, it was my mom. And it had been about a month since we had spoken.

And as usual, that was my fault. Anyway, she said that she had been invited to speak with a group of women at the local Hadassah, you know, the Jewish women's organization. My mom's a therapist in the Jewish suburbs outside Baltimore. And these Hadassah women have this group that meets regularly. All of them are women in there. I'm just going to jump in again here in 2026. I am reading this in such a heavy way.

hearing it now, I'm just like, I am really trying to milk the drama out of this. Anyway, back to 1996 me. All of them are women in the late 40s to early 60s. And when the group first started meeting, apparently they discussed all sorts of stuff. It was wide-ranging. But as time progressed, they realized there was only one topic they all really wanted to talk about. Only one topic they all needed to talk about. and that was their relationships with their adult children.

And at some point that became the only thing the group discussed. It became its official reason for existence. They had such trauma, and they didn't know what to make of what was going on between them and their adult children. And they invited my mom to lead a discussion on how to get along with your adult children. So as for preparation, my mom's a big preparer,

and she does research and looks up art. and calls experts. Anyway, as part of this preparation, she decided to call her own three adult children. By the time she called me, my mom had already called my older sister, Randy. And she asked my sister, what advice she would give the group? Randy's advice was brief and to the point. Tell them to get a different leader. Adult children. Okay, so then what happens is that I explained, here's what we're doing on the show today. it's going to be an episode about adult children and their relationships with their adult parents.

And then I set up with the interview with my mom, I say that I told my mom that I thought that my sister Randy had been maybe a little harsh in the way that she put things. Can I say something? I was just going to say, feel free to amend or correct. Yes, when I told your sister what you said,

she said, oh, well, I was just kidding. I didn't mean to be mean. Oh. So I don't want to, you know, her to be blasphemed. All right, but you're a professional psychologist. Now, don't you think often? Don't you think there was a note of hostility in what she said?

Oh, absolutely. Okay, you and I can agree. And frankly, she's not on the phone. If my sister Randy is listening to this bonus episode, please, just forgive me. I didn't mean to... I guess I did mean you to throw you under the bus. Okay, let's keep going. So, Mom, so the thing I wanted to ask you about is, okay, so you had this seminar with all these...

It wasn't a seminar. It was a discussion group. The discussion group. And I was the facilitator. And how many women was it? Around 30 some. Oh, so a lot. Mm-hmm.

Now, if you had to characterize in a phrase, people's relationships with their children, would you describe them as being very good, somewhat okay, generally, kind of yucky? I mean, how would you describe it? I would say that there were a lot of people whose dreams haven't been realized, whose expectations haven't been met,

and so there's a sense of disappointment. although there were some people there who were pleased with all aspects. And then, of course, the question was, well, why are you here? To gloat, was that the answer? To gloat and show you pictures of grandchildren? A little bit. A little bit, yeah, okay. We're to connect with the other women, I suppose.

But these are the criteria for satisfaction. Do you want to hear them? Quickly. Whether their children were married? Quickly. I'm so rude to my own mother. moving along mom quickly um whether their children were married yes so that having single children was a disappointment i'm just going to make a little checklist here whether their children live

close by or far away god i'm shooting zero for two so far i keep going all right whether their children appreciated them okay whether they had one for three whether they had grandchildren somebody announced that one of their children was pregnant with the first grandchild. Everybody, oh, and they clapped, you know. So that's the epitome. Whether their children were successful in their lives, how much they liked their child's spouse and got along with them? You tell me on the phone earlier something interesting about this.

I'm just going to drop. Like, at this point in my life, I was 36, 37, and I had no spouse and was deeply uninterested in having a... children, and this was not something that my parents were too pleased about, either of those things, and a point of discussion now and then. You tell me on the phone earlier, something interesting about this. Yes, I told you that there were several people there who did not like their child's choice of a partner at the time that they got married, but had grown to love them very much and in some cases even like them better than their own child.

See, now I wonder if that is because there is an inherent tension between children and their adult parents, that the child sometimes wants to be treated as the child and sometimes wants to be treated as an independent adult. And for the parent, it's pretty much a hellish guessing game. And then, yeah. Yeah, a lot of people talked about walking on egg shells and how can I, several people say, Well, what's the right way to give advice? And, of course, the answer is you don't give advice unless somebody asks you for it.

Do you think that this relationship... Yeah, mom. Can I just say from 2026? That was definitely not the standard practice in our own family. Do you wait until somebody asks for advice for advice to be given? And no disrespect in saying that, just a factual statement there. Do you think that this relationship is harder, the relationship between adult children and their parents is harder on the parents than on the children.

Yes, because the parents have a dream of how they thought it was going to be, and it seldom matches the dream. That was definitely true of my mom and my dad and me. They definitely, I was not living the dream at all. Anyway, back to the tape. You know, one person said that her children are all single, all live far away, and she said she and her husband are very lonely and what's happened

you know the good part is that they've gotten much closer to each other because they realize that they're all that they have right all right well um well dr glass i'm afraid that that this would be about all the time we have for this particular segment of our radio show look i'm glad for any time i can get with my children all right tiche

My mom, Shirley Glass, a therapist in Baltimore. Coming up, a such engineering... I had to say I'm so... I'm like that she gets the last word. Okay, so that is the fourth time I had one of my parents on the show. The reason I have to say that we had my parents on the air so much in the first year of the show was because it was such reliable material. I had heard Howard Stern talking to his parents on the air,

which, if you have ever heard that, it was some of the most enjoyable stuff he ever did. It was just very, like, funny and very complicated. emotionally. Sometimes it would get genuinely tense between him and his parents. Like the real relationship really happened on the air. He was so good at that. And there's just something inherently entertaining about hearing some

radio host who supposedly is like the king of the show, right? He's running the show, this adult running the show and their parents just come on and they don't give a crap. You know what I mean? Like they really try to get the last word. And so the staff, we just knew like, oh, what

we feel this with? Like, could you talk to your parents and it was just always good material. And so the very first time my mom or dad were on the show was the very first episode. We hadn't named the show This American Life yet at the time the show was called Your Radio Playhouse. And you'll hear in the first minute or two here, I'm cutting in and narrating from the studio, but that's me back in 1995 doing that. That's not me today. If I want to jump in at some point today, I will say explicitly it's today. It's 2026, me talking. Okay, here we go. Okay, here we go.

Okay, is Barry there? Pardon me? Is Barry there? Yes, he's on another call. Do you wish to hold, or I could take a message, or you can leave one on his voicemail? This is his son. Uh-huh. Anyway, so I thought I would call my parents in Baltimore and ask for advice on this our first evening of our brand-new radio show, your radio playhouse.

Can I leave a message with you, or is it better to use his voicemail? It doesn't matter. I'll put it right on his voicemail. Okay, let's do. Okay, hold on, please. Baby, watch your hurry. Relax. This is the story of my childhood right there. Dad is a little too busy to talk,

but there's the recording of, you know, Frank Sinatra when needed. Hello. Hey, Mom. Oh, hi, Ira. How you doing? Fine. Can you hold on a second? Sure. This is what it's like with my parents.

They're so busy. call them put on hold baby what's your hurry when i call my little sister she works at disney and so there's always there's like disney music but they're playing on the hold system but there's a lot of disney music and there's a lot of it that people hi hi mom yeah it's me yeah um listen can i can i record a quick conversation with you about something? Well, you know, the new show goes on the air this week. Yeah. And as part of the show, we were thinking about having me call around to different people

and get advice from them. And I wanted to know if you would have any advice. Well, can I ask another question? Sure. Who is your target audience? You are such a pro. I'm saying that you're in danger of a person. appealing to a narrow range of listeners if it becomes a little too, I don't know what word to use.

Artsy. Artsy, yeah. I'm just going to jump in here in 2026 just to say like, there's no kind of like, oh, the new show's happening. Congratulations, nothing. Like her first comment is to like question, are you sure you aren't going to screw this up? You know, are you and Dad still worried, you know, about me making a living in public radio? I mean, I know just for years you were urging me to just get out and get basically any job in TV that I possibly could. You know, but now, you know, I've got my own show, and are you guys still worried or do you feel like things are going okay?

Do you want me to get into television still? Now that Hugh Grant is such a big star and everybody who sees you or sees your picture thinks how much you look like Hugh Grant. That sort of fires up that TV thing again and me. All right, I'm stopping the tape. This is me live. That was the tape. Only my mother could possibly believe this. Only, only a mother could pretty much believe this.

Other adults see me. And the thought that goes through her head is not Hugh Graham. The thought that goes through her head is tall Jew. I think, well, gosh, wouldn't they win this wonderful, you know, humanistic and intelligent reporter who looks like Hugh Grant. What's the theme for this week? The theme for this week is... I'm just going to come in here now in 2026.

This interruption is happening right now. I have to say something else that hearing this recording reminds me of. And that is that like when I look at pictures of my mom, it's just, I just feel a sense of fondness for my mom. But when you hear somebody's voice, it's so much more powerful. Like, it's just like, I feel like it's like she's alive talking to me again. And I'm having all the feelings that I had when she was alive. Like, like, really, like, as this tape is playing, like, beat by beat, moment by moment,

I feel like I'm experiencing this conversation the same way I did 30 years ago. Like, like, just, yeah, and pictures cannot do that. All right, yeah, let's move on. The theme for this week. The theme for this week is New Beginnings. And we have several stories of people telling about various ways in which their life began anew at some point. You know, that's very interesting because I just did an interview this morning with a newspaper reporter about Romaine. I'm just going to stop the tape again.

This is my online. I call my mom for an interview, and it's not even her first interview of the day. Like, I was lucky to get, you know, to get a booking. She's a therapist, and sometimes she gets called, you know, by the papers and stuff. Romantic love. Sure. And people's expectations about relationships. And one of the things I believe is that there are a lot of people who are good at beginnings, but they're not good at metals.

Which means what? It means that they like the beginning where there's all this idealization and romantic projections, and the other person can be who they think. they should be rather than who they are. And when they get to the middle fade... All right, I'm just going to stop the tape. All right, listen, all of you in the audience, right now, let's just agree right now. It's the very beginning of our relation.

It's a very beginning of our radio relationship right now. This is our little first little radio date. And I just don't want any idealizing. No, idealizing. It's where there's more of reality-based relationship. They kind of run away from it because it's not as exciting. It's interesting that you say that because actually as we've approached the first show, I've realized that I am much more comfortable with the notion of kind of everyday work-a-day sort of radio work and being on every week and having pieces on the air. But the notion of saying like in a really big way, okay, this is the beginning.

It's the beginning and we're going to have like a big beginning and we're going to make an epic statement I feel very uncomfortable with. So you are good at Middles. I'm better, I think, at middles than at beginnings. That's good. That's good, because practically all of life is the middle. We've gotten so deep here. I never expected that it was going to get so deep. This is just, I'm just very pleased at how deep this has gotten.

Now, you're sitting there you're thinking, is he making fun of me? What's happening now? Right, right, right. No, I'm not, I'm not, actually. I'm not. I'm not, I'm not. I'm not. Nothing to worry about.

Are we going to get a tape of this? Depending on how you sound. Because we're outside the Chicago listening area. Depending on how you sound, yeah. Okay. Okay. All right, well, that's my mom, Shirley Glass. Speaking to us from Baltimore, I don't think she's going to get a tape.

I do not think she's going to get a tape. All right, well, next on our little playhouse stage. I'm pretty sure I actually did send her a team. Anyway, okay. So that is the first episode of our show from No. November 1995. So my dad did come on the show also. It wasn't just my mom.

And I'm going to play you some of that, including an old story about his very brief and very doomed career in radio. After a quick break, stay with us. It's American life. Today we're doing something different than usual. I'm playing old interviews that I did on the program with my parents,

which really did change my relationship with them in a fundamental way. As I said earlier, today's program was originally made as a bonus episode of our show. Every two weeks or so, we try to put out these bonus episodes for our This American Life Partners, and they're generally behind-the-scenes stuff like what you're hearing today. Anyway, so we turned out to my dad. The biggest story that I did with my dad is in an episode, again, this is very early in the show. It's episode 14.

It's February 1996. It's like, what is that? Four months after we started on the air. As you said, this story, I'm just going to play straight through. So when you hear me interrupting tape and stuff like that, that's actually happening in the original story. That's not today. We have arrived at Act 2 of our program. Baltimore.

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Number one, formally of Europe. Number two, of course no appointment is necessary. Charity knows you're coming. And number three, this is my father. In 1956, three years before I was born, he's 23 years old. And coming up right now, news about a wonderful appliance from Norman R. Mitchell, just for the homemakers, as we said before. We're talking about an electric dryer, and my friend, if the lady in your house has her heart set on an electric dryer, here's some big news for you from Norman R. Mitchell.

Right now, they are featuring the new 1957, Frididier, Philtraumatic electric driver, at an unbelievable low price. My father started in radio when he was 19, the same age I was when I started. He began at the college station at the University of Maryland, and after graduation, got a job spinning records at a commercial station in Baltimore. Then he was drafted, and at the time of this particular recording, my father was actually in the Army, stationed in Virginia. But he wanted a career in radio so badly that every Sunday,

Monday morning, at the break of dawn, he would leave his wife and his five-month-old baby, my older sister, and drive up to Baltimore to do a four-hour program. For over 18 years, thousands of folks just like yourselves here in town have relied on Norman R. Mitchell appliances for sincerity, service, and substantial savings. Three important musts for a successful business today. My dad's paycheck for this four-hour Sunday morning program was $5. and 88 cents. The most he ever made a radio job was $90

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Yeah. When you were doing radio, what did you like about it? What was the appeal of it for you? It seemed easy to do. A certain amount of I guess notoriety. You know, it's good for your ego. People know who you are. You know, I was a big man on campus

at the University of Maryland. You're a good announcer. I didn't really know that. I'm listening to the way that you do the announcement. You're relaxed and yet you punch the sort of main points, but you sound completely at ease, and you're convincing. You're doing ads for the hokeyest products in the world,

and you sound completely like you believe it. Really? Yeah. What are some of the products? I forgot. about them. There's a lot of appliances. Uh-huh. And then there's one

reader and advisor named Mrs. Kay. I'm sure. I've forgotten about her. Formerly of Europe. Oh, my God. Just show them to your relatives, friends, neighbors, and the folks you work with, and see how quickly

they order. You know, you're actually doing them a favor by saving their money on Christmas cards and such fine quality cards you've never seen in your life as Liberty Bell. You know, a lot of what like to be on the radio, is just trying to sound relaxed when, you know, you're not. You're doing a show. You're, you know, you're not just talking to people.

And in some of these tapes, I can actually hear my father struggling to sound relaxed. And these recordings give me this picture of him that I have never had in my life, really. He seems so young, you know, and innocent. a guy in his 20s doing this thing that I know so intimately myself you know just sitting in front of a microphone trying to sound at ease

trying to sound like this relaxed old pro not a care in the world yes now you can have color in that kitchen of yours and really make it a true showplace for your family and your friends and make it a lot easier to work in too with color and you can have this color in your kitchen all at the price of white. And, of course, Frididier features the new 1957 frigidators,

ranges, washers, and dryers in four decorator colors at absolutely no extra cost to you. You have your choice of pink, yellow, green, or charcoal. This is just how long ago this happened. They had not yet invented the idea of renaming the colors of appliances, things like, you know, avocado, lemon, egg shell. Now let's get on to that feature top tune of tomorrow. A brand new release, one we think is going to be real big in the coming weeks and months all across the country

and right here in Baltimore, too. This week, it goes to the crew cuts. Listen to their rendition of love in a home. Not long after he got out of the Army, my dad decided that radio was no way to make a living. And after a series of jobs, he decided to become a certain. public accountant. He was a typical workaholic suburban dad, you know, off to the office at 7 in the morning, back at 6.30 for dinner, exhausted after that. He would sit in his yellow recliner in front of the TV

and fall asleep. He started his own business, struggled to establish it, worked lots of nights and weekends. During tax season, from January to April 15th, we would barely see him. What's this? Yes. Is that a radio? In our house when I was growing up was an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, a little consumer unit, that my mother and my sisters and I would goof around on from time to time, record a singing or telling stories.

And while my mom appears on these tapes a lot, my father does not appear on them once. He simply was not there to be recorded. The only time he's mentioned on all of these tapes is this. I'm going to play this moment to you. My mother is cooing to my older sister, Randy, He was probably, I don't know, a year old, a year and a half old. Where's Barry?

Barry's my dad. Where's Barry, Randy? Daddy, where's Daddy? Did Daddy go bye-bye? The papa. Did they go outside? In the car? Car, Papa.

Uh-huh. These days, my dad explains his decision to leave radio and become an accountant this way. By that time, I had realized that radio was not for me. What happened would be a new program director would come in, and if you weren't the apple of that guy's eye, then you were out of a job. You've got to go start looking for a job again, even though that never happened to me. I could see it happening to other people,

and I wanted to be in control of my own destiny, and I decided that it wasn't going to work out. And that was not going to work out? And that was 1959? Yeah. The year I was born. Right. Are those two things related?

Not at all. It sounds like they are. No, they're not. Well, all the stars are on record and all the record star on the Sunday morning carousel. Coming up for you right now our feature top tune of the day. Number one in the record stores we visited

this week in Baltimore and judging by your cards and letters here at Wynn, it ranks very high. The Prince of Wales himself won Johnny Ray with Just Walking in the Rain. Now the way of story like this usually ends is that I reveal that this is why I'm in radio to make good of my father's legacy,

to live the dream that he never got to live. But I have to say the fact is, I never knew him as a radio DJ. I did not know that he had ever done radio the entire time I grew up. It was never discussed. The recordings of him doing this stuff were packed away in the basement.

Nobody talked about it. I never thought of him as somebody who did anything but certified public accounting. If my mom ever mentioned this, I do not remember it. And I certainly didn't grow up with any special feeling about radio. I could care less about radio. Like most Americans, my medium of choice was television. I got my first job with National Public Radio in Washington when I was 19 years old.

And at that point, I simply wanted a job in the media. If an ad agency, I was like a freshman in college, if an ad agency had hired me that summer right now, I would probably be doing bud light commercials. You know, I can just see the whole thing laying out that way. And in 1978, when I started working at NPR, my parents absolutely did not want me to do it. It wasn't even like a judgment call. They were completely against it for the next. I want to say 10 years, maybe it was 15 years, really. I mean, they simply saw it, like the way most parents were.

They saw it as impractical. They worried that I would never make any decent money, never be able to support a family. Essentially, the reasons that my father quit radio. When I first dug out these tapes of my father about a year ago, I asked my dad, you know, if he ever wished he could still do radio. And he was completely unenthusiastic about the idea. In all my life, I had only seen his desire

to be on the radio once. And this was actually a couple years ago. I was filling in as the guest host of Talk of the Nation, this Daily Collins show, NPR does out of Washington. I was doing that for half a year. And my father had never seen me host a radio show.

And he and my mom drove down to Washington from Baltimore to watch me do the show. And before the show, he asked me if he could read the news. And at first I thought he was, joking. And I don't remember exactly what I said back. I joked something back at him. And then later as we got closer to going on the air, he asked again, you know, that he would like to read the newscast, the NPR newscast at the top of the hour at the beginning of the show.

And I realized he was serious and I had to explain to him that I didn't have any, um, authority over that, you know, the NPR and newscasters, you know, they wrote their own news and they delivered it themselves. Then a few months after that, he and I were talking about what he's going to do after he retires. He still works, still works long, long hours. And he told me he's been thinking about doing a little bit of radio work again after he retires. That is, if he can find some radio station or, you know, some radio program that could use him in some way. Okay, it's me again in 2026.

So not that long after that, just for. Four months after that, I asked my dad to co-host the show with me for Father's Day. So he did get his chance to get back on the radio. This is an episode that we do rerun now and then. So I'm just going to play you a little snippet or two from this. Okay, so, Dad, so you have the script. I have the script. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life, the Father's Day edition.

Dad, you are such a pro. I haven't done this in 40 years. It brings back all kinds of memories. Now, you better explain to our radio listeners in what context you actually sat in front of a radio microphone, Dad. Well, um... And then my dad kind of recaps what you already heard about his radio career. I'm just going to pick up now a little later. And today, for Father's Day, my co-host will be my own father, Barry Glass, certified public accountant. And it's a real kick to do this.

I know. This is our little Father's Day adventure together. You could have bought me a tie. Dad, why don't you read the billboard? Our program today will have four acts. Act one, Sondret Singh Lowe finds out that the world sees her father very differently from the way she sees him. Act two, Dad's Music. We have a story from writer Sherman Alexi. Act three, the moment Dad left.

Act Four, reconciling with Dad, a story from playwright Bo O'Reilly. I just want to say, like, we did this at the beginning of all the episodes in that first year or two. We would list each act and say what they were. act would be. And then at some point, like, I don't know how many years in it was, I realized, like, oh, we don't have to do that. Like, if we do the beginning of the show, right, people would just want to hear what's going to happen next, and they kind of don't even care what's coming up. Like, oh, you just want to know is like, yes, it's going to be good today. And then, like, listening to the acts like he just did, like, we, you know, it just feels like,

it doesn't mean that much, you know, and I mean, unless you're a fan of one of those people in particular. But otherwise, like, no, we don't do that very much anymore. I will say my dad really, really liked being on the air. His friends heard him that was like a really nice thing. And it was just like acknowledging this part of his life that honestly I didn't know about when I was growing up. There's a thing that happened with me and my dad, and it happened on tape. And for the life of me, I have no idea where this recording is. And I wish I could find it.

And that is, when we were taping for some episode, we got into a very real conversation. I tape just kept rolling, and I don't remember how we got on it. But it was just, it really was about, like, was he a good dad? And he was really asking in a real way. And then I felt like I will try to meet him in this moment.

And I had been in, like, therapy for a while. And my dad, like, I will say, like, was a very, like, well-intentioned dad who really did try to do his best. But his dad left when he was four or five years old. He didn't grow up with a dad. And he just didn't know what it would be to be a dad. He really was inventing it as he went along. And he could be very, he would just get angry at random stuff in ways that I really felt like I spent my childhood kind of dodging around and trying to anticipate and

trying to, like, read his moods. And basically, I said, like, there were just, I explained to him, like, there were the ways that he treated us that really affected the way that I treat everyone in the world today and went to, like, maybe a little more depth than I'm doing with you here right now because you are not my father. And I said, like, it really, like, it was hard. And I said, like, I've been in therapy. I'm trying to, like, change the way I am with other people.

so I'm not so alert all the time to, like, how they're going to treat me and just trust people a little more. And I just kind of, like, laid out things in a way. And he heard this, and he paused. And he said, like, honestly, he said, he said, like, the perfect thing. He paused and he said, I'm so sorry. Like, that must have been so tough for you. And that must be so tough for you.

and he said like look I was doing my best like I didn't know I didn't have a dad like I didn't know how to do it like I really was trying and then we never talked about it again and and we really like honestly like all the drama between me and my dad for my whole childhood like I know this sounds like a complete exaggeration to say this is true but but I swear emotionally for me anyway it really felt like in one conversation that was maybe Eight minutes long, it was completely resolved because he did the simple thing of saying that he heard me and just said he was sorry and, you know, he was trying, which I believe completely. And very much in contrast, and again, my mom is dead, so it feels a little weird to just, like, say things about her here on this show. But, like, I don't know, like, why talk about this if I'm not going to be real? my mom was much more defensive even though she was a therapist if my sisters and I would try to talk to her about like you know you do this thing

and you kind of like whatever it was she just could not hear it she really couldn't like and I do think part of that is like the mom in most families is just doing so much work to just like run everything whereas my dad was pretty absent and off at work that I think she was much more

protective and it was really hard for her to hear that we might have criticisms. But yeah, and really up until she died, like that stuff never got resolved. Whereas with my dad, it got resolved so quickly. I think about that sometimes. I just like, of the two of them, she was by far the more like psychologically aware. She was a therapist. But like he just handled that moment with such grace. Let's move on.

Coming up, the interview with my mom that I was talking about earlier, which has all that stuff that still makes my skin crawl. When you hear it, you can judge if I am overreacting, which I may be. I don't know. You be the judge. That's in a minute in Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. It's This American Life, I'm I wrote glass. Today's show, call your parents.

I'm playing interviews that I did with my parents back when they were alive, which I find is generally. the best time to do interviews with people. I don't know. Call me crazy. I'm going to close out this episode with one final story. This is from an episode of our show called Double Lives. It is the 10th episode we ever made.

This is January 1996. And before I play this for you, I had an experience with this story recently that I really don't think I'll forget. I just got married this year, and it's a new marriage, and the first time I met my wife's mom. about a year and a half ago, I guess it was.

Her mom has dementia and lives in assisted living. And when I met her, my wife, Susanna, and I took her mom for a ride somewhere in the car. And when we were in the car, Susanna had the idea to play her mom this next story that I'm going to play you. Because her mom was a therapist, just like my mom was a therapist. And we thought it could be a way that her mom could get a sense of my mom, which we thought her mom. would like. And also, I don't know, like, this is like such a corny thing to say, but this is the closest thing we would ever get to the two of them meeting. And so we played this story where you'll hear, you do get such a strong sense of my mom's personality. This is a good

introduction to my mom. And Susanna's mom really liked it. She laughed at the funny parts. She got exactly what the story's about, even if she doesn't remember this at all today. Anyway, it was nice to have a recording that could do that. And then, of course, this is also the story that really makes me squirm. Anyway, a heads-up for parents listening with their kids. This next story acknowledges the existence of sex. Here we go. Our parents can surprise us with what they don't tell us, with what they don't talk about,

especially when it comes to sex. Recently, I had this experience. An ex-girlfriend was in the gym. looking through a copy of Marie Claire magazine, Women's Magazine. And there was an article in it on women's fantasies. Their sexual fantasies. What do your man's dirty daydreams reveal about what he wants from you? In the article, six sexverts, that was the word they used, sexverts, reveal the six most common male sex fantasy scenarios.

So my ex-girlfriend is reading. And there, in the third paragraph, one of the sexverts turns out of, that to be my mother. Hey mom. Yeah. It's Ira. Yeah. So I'd like to do a little interview. Okay. Okay. So mom, can I read to you a quote from an article? Of course. Okay. Here it is. Your man wants a woman who excites him through her own excitement. You could stimulate yourself while he watches or let him participate by moving his hand to where you want it.

Yeah. That's you being quoted in Marie Claire. You're kidding. What is she? All I know is that Anaheed was at the gym. And she opens up Marie Claire to an article called Men's Sexual Fantasies. And it says at the top, here, sex experts reveal the six most common scenarios, unlock the secret longings and psyches of the modern men who fantasize.

And you basically are one of the sex experts. Yeah, yeah I am. I didn't really know you were a sex expert. What did you think I was? Just another Jewish mom and psychologist. Uh-huh. So it wasn't like you were a sex expert and you were keeping it from your family. You're talking about my family, meaning my children, not my husband.

Yeah. Because he knows that I'm a sex expert. And you can call him to verify that. I'm just going to pause. Okay, so I'm not a parent. Okay, like I don't have children of my own. So maybe I'm not the best judge about whether I would say that to my adult child. But I think I might not.

I don't know. And you can call him to verify that. I think I'm just going to let that go. But my children always seem embarrassed if I discuss anything sexual, so therefore I tend not to around them. When would you try to discuss something sexual with us? I might make a joke or say something that I had a sexual kind of. connotation and I'd get this disapproval.

I don't think that that's true. No? Yeah, actually, I mean, it doesn't affect me in any way to think that you and dad would be sexual with each other. In fact, I even remember as a teenager understanding that and being kind of reassured by it.

Does that make any sense? It makes a little bit of sense, but it really doesn't cover all the situations if I'm just telling a joke or talking about something, somebody else. And I think it has to do with boundaries, and I think it has to do with that children, even adult children, do not like to regard their parents' sexuality. Hmm.

You know, something you're actually convincing me. Well, let's do a little scientific test. Can you think of a sexual joke? just tell one right now, and I'll tell you my reaction. I can't think of it. You know what I'm feeling right now? I'm feeling a profound... I heard a wonderful joke, but I don't even know if it's a joke or a story.

This is like something that might be true, that when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and he said one giant step for man and one, what is it, one giant step for mankind or whatever? One small step for a man, one giant step for mankind. Right, right. Small step for man, one giant step for mankind. And then he also said, good luck, Mr. Gorky. And for years, people have been asking him what that meant. And he would never tell them.

And then this year, someone brought it up again. What did you mean when you said, good luck, Mr. Gorky? And he said, well, I can tell now because Mr. Gorky died this year. When I was a little boy, Mr. Gorky was our next door neighbor. And I was playing outside one day, and they were bad. bedroom window was open, and I heard Mrs. Gorky say, oral sex, you want me to give you oral sex? You'll get oral sex from me the day that boy next door walks on the moon. Well, now I'm examining my own feelings, and I have to say I did get very nervous there

in a way that does not correspond perhaps with shrugging. my shoulders at the notion of you having some sexual life and sexual thoughts. Yeah. Okay, I'm just going to jump in here live from the year 2026 to say, like, I'm just been spending like the last minute. I feel like I can feel my blood racing. Like, I just feel like my temperature is risen. And I just feel like, what is, what is happening?

Like, what, what is happening? Is that wrong? Are you on my side? Can I just say also, like, she's getting this reaction out of me today in 2026. She's been dead for 20 years. And still, she can get to me. I mean, I guess that's what it means to have parents.

Yeah. So let me read you some of your other quotes here. All right. In the fantasy of man dominates woman, your quoted is saying, says Dr. Glass, quote, in a caring relationship, it's certainly not abusive or unhealthy

if the fantasy is played out in a light teasing way. You're also quoted extensively in fantasy number five, spontaneous encounter with a beautiful stranger. The key quote is this one, as far as I'm concerned. Go to a restaurant and at first pretend you don't know each other, suggest Dr. Glass. Which when I read that, it actually explains some dinners of head with you and dad. I thought. You know, you didn't talk very much between the two of you. No, no.

That was just the opposite. So if you actually, have you done this? Have you gone to a restaurant with dad and pretended that you didn't know each other? No. No. No. But if you did, you're saying that. We found a restaurant with you and pretended we didn't know you.

What do you mean by that? Well, when you were younger and let's say that, your manner of dressing didn't exactly conform to the style. All right. All right, I think everybody, yeah. The other people in the restaurant. Back when Daddy, Daddy would look at you, and he would start popping jail yourself before we go out to eat.

And I'd say, now, Barry, people are going to look at him and are going to look at us, and they're going to know that we'd not pick out his clothes. So now that I know that you're this big sex expert, do you have any sex advice for me? I'll just say in 2026. Daring question. So now that I'm not that.

I know that you're this big sex expert. Do you have any sex advice for me? Find a nice girl and get married. That's not sex advice. We always end up this way, don't we? With that particular advice. Yeah, that's... I know. I know. I could ask you any question, and that would be the advice. Well, that was the first rule of journalism you taught me. Is what?

No matter what they ask you, be sure to get your point in. When you was first being interviewed by people, this is what I told you to say. Well, I'm glad we got to that then. My mom, Dr. Shirley Glass in Baltimore. I'll just say, like, hear how nicely we're getting along. Like, we actually, like, that's a really sweet conversation to have with your mom. And before these appearances, is on the radio, on the radio show,

I just don't think that would have happened. Like, there's just something so, like, we were so in a, like, a nice, friendly groove, even though, like, we are kind of, like, making little points with each other. It's just, like, a very lovely thing. And it continued that way, more or less, until she died.

And when we would see each other in real life, like, not just on the radio, we were more open with each other. It was just easier. They stopped telling me, I was wasting my life in radio. And I think, like, if I imagine it from their point of view, I think that after we did these things on the radio, they knew when we see each other in real life that I was not going to sit them down and question their choices, question them. Doing these stories on the radio, it's like we practiced getting along together nicely in public.

I think that public act helped them get it into their heads that I really did accept them at that the period of my. life where I questioned them so much in my 20s was really long over. So that's how the radio show changed my life. We're definitely one of the biggest ways. Fly me to the moon. Let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars. In other words,

in other words, baby kiss me. I think my dad would like that we got that song. If you liked this episode of our program, like I said earlier, this was originally made as a bonus episode for our life partners. We've done over 20 of these. And they're all like this. They're kind of like behind the scenes sort of stuff.

Life partners also get ad-free listening. They get the special greatest hits archive of the show that appears in their podcast. feed so when they want a good episode, they can just scroll through their podcast feed and look, oh, there's a greatest hit. If you sign up yourself, you get all that. And most important, it helps us fund everything we're doing. At this point, life partners pay for a fourth of our budget. They are essential to us being able to spend the kind of time we do on all the stories we bring you. If you're a regular listener, you perhaps can tell how long some of the

stories must take to make. To sign up, go to this Americanlife.org slash life partners. or you can sign up right in the Apple Podcast app. Okay. So the people who help put together today's program include Michael Compete, Seth Lynn, Molly Marcello, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Ruthie Petito, Anthony Roman, Ryan Rummary, Lily Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Christopher, or Cressor Talon, Nancy Updeg, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editors, Sarah Abduraman, our senior editor is David Kestimbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Barry.

Special thanks today to my sister, Randy, Murray, and San Francisco, the one other living person who gets today's program the way that I do. thanks also to Mr. Gorky, who does not exist and who Neil Armstrong did not mention on the moon. Apparently my mom got that joke from the tonight show. Another breaking news, a priest, a rabbi, Adolf Hitler, and a kangaroo did not walk into a bar together.

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia. You know, he's starting a new ice cream shop. He is amazing. I'm making ice cream, but just terrible at naming flavors

You have your choice of pink, yellow, green, or charcoal. I'm Eric Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life. Next week on the podcast of This American Life, M. Guessing comes back to our show with a true crime story that happened in their own family. She wrote, I beg you please to help me get my son back or to at least speak to him. Please do not tell them I have written to you. If you are unable to help me, then just ignore my message. That story, by the way, comes from serial, the people who literally invented the true crime podcast. That's next week on the podcast

or on your local public radio station.