Transcript of 883: Call Your Parents

WBEZ Chicago. This is American Life. I'm Ira Glass. So when I was 36 years old, the year I started This American Life, my relationship with my parents was not the greatest. I've been working at 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 as this, like, sad little backwater When they would listen to All Things Considered and 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'd been a period in my early 20s when I was kind of judgy about certain choices that they were making, and I hurt 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 of 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 gonna do today is I'm gonna play you 4 of those conversations that I had on the air with my parents. I'm gonna 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 5 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 8 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 performy, 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 liked what a kind of like public sort of affirmation it was of them as a family. 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 re-listen to these old interviews with my parents. And then a couple weeks ago, I put these 4 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 wanna 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 picked this one to begin because it's one that directly addresses the actual tensions between my parents and their 3 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 gonna 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 their— I guess—

I'm just gonna jump in again here in 2026. I am reading this in such a heavy way. Like, hearing it now, it's like, I am really trying to milk the drama out of this. Anyway, back to 1996 me.

All of them are women in their— somewhere, I guess, in their 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 articles and calls experts. Anyway, as part of this preparation, she decided to call her own 3 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 waiter." Adult children.

Okay, so then what happens is that I explain, "Here's what we're doing on the show today. It's gonna be an episode about adult children and their relationships with their adult parents." And then as— then I set up the interview with my mom. I say that I told my mom that I thought that my sister Randi had been maybe a little harsh in the way that she put things.

Can I say something?

I was just gonna say feel free to amend or correct.

Yes, I— 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 her to be blasphemed.

All right, but you're a professional psychologist. Now don't you think often Don't you think that 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.

And if my sister Randi is listening to this bonus episode, please just forgive me. I didn't mean to— I guess I did mean 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.

A 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, 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.

More 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.

Whether their children were married.

Yes.

So that having single children was a disappointment.

I'm just gonna make a little checklist here.

Whether their children lived close by or far away.

God, I'm shooting 0 for 2 so far, keep going.

All right, whether their children appreciated them.

Okay, I'm 1 for 3.

Whether they had grandchildren, somebody announced that they're, so one of their children was pregnant with the first grandchild, and everybody went, "Ooh," 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 told me on the phone earlier something interesting about those.

I'm just gonna interrupt. At this point in my life, I was 36, 37, and I had no spouse and was, deeply uninterested in having 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 told 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 eggshells and how can I— several people said, well, how— 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, in 2026, that was definitely not the standard practice in our own family to wait until somebody asked 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, Dr. Glass, I'm afraid 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.

Touché.

My mom, Shirley Glass, a therapist in Baltimore. Coming up, a septuagenarian—

I have to say, I'm so—

I 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? Like, 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 could we fill this with?

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.

Morning, Blush. Jacobson Associates.

Hey, is Barry there?

Pardon me?

Is Barry there?

Yes, he is. 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. 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.

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. You can never— 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.

Listen, can I record a quick conversation with you about something? Well, you know, the new show goes on the air this week. 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.

Do I 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 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?" [Speaker:JAD] 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 that, 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 in me.

All right, I'm stopping the tape. This is me live.

That was the tape.

Only my mother could possibly believe this. Only a mother could pretty much believe this. Other adults see me, and the thought that goes through their head is not Hugh Grant. The thought that goes through their head is tall Jew.

00:17:17

I think, well, gosh, wouldn't they want this wonderful, you know, humanistic and intelligent reporter who looks like Hugh Grant?

All right, here'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 when I look at pictures of my mom, I just feel a sense of fondness for my mom. But when you hear somebody's voice, it's so much more powerful. I feel like it's like she's alive talking to me again. And I'm having all the feelings that I had we had when she was alive. 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, just, yeah. And pictures cannot do that.

All right, let's move on.

What's the theme for this week?

The theme for this week is new beginnings. And we have several stories of people telling about 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 roaming.

I'm just gonna stop the tape again. This is my home life. 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 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 middles.

Which means what?

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 phase—

All right, I'm just gonna 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 the 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 a 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, workaday sort of radio work and, you know, being on every week and, you know, 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 thinking, is he making fun of me? What's happening now?

Where are you?

No, I'm not. I'm not actually. 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 tape.

Anyway, okay.

So that is the first episode of our show from November 1995. So my dad did come on the show also. It wasn't just my mom. And I'm gonna 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. This is 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 2 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 turn now 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, 4 months after we started on the air. I should say, this story I'm just gonna 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.

We'd like to ask you this question, my friend. Do personal problems and worries have you down? Are you disturbed by business problems, marriage problems, or emotional problems? See Mrs. K., reader and advisor. Mrs. K., formerly of Europe, gives you a reading and answers all your questions for just $1, and you'll feel much better. You'll have a much better picture of where you're headed after you've talked with Mrs. K. The telephone number is Saratoga 7-2753, but of course, no appointment is necessary.

I'm just gonna stop this tape right there. I have 3 things to say about this tape. Number 1, formerly of Europe. Number 2, of course no appointment is necessary. She already knows you're coming. And number 3, this is my father in 1956, 3 years before I was born. He's 23 years old.

And coming up right now, news about a wonderful appliance from Norman R. Mitchell. Yes, 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 Frigidaire Filtr-O-Matic electric dryer 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 morning at the break of dawn, he would leave his wife and his 5-month-old baby, my older sister, and drive up to Baltimore to do a 4-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 4-hour Sunday morning program was $5.88. The most he ever made at a radio job was $90 a week.

My friend, how would you like to get 21 beautiful greeting cards absolutely free? —plus details on how easy it is to earn $35 to $50 a week selling Liberty Bell greeting cards. Hey, Dad?

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've been listening to the way that you do the announcing. 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. K. That's right.

I'd 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 them 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 it's 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 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, Frigidaire features the new 1957 Frigidaire refrigerator refrigerators, ranges, washers, and dryers in 4 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, eggshell.

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.

You can tell when there's 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 certified 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? This.

Is that a radio? Radio. Mm-hmm.

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 us 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 gonna play this moment to you. My mother is cooing to my older sister Randi, who's probably, I don't know, a year old, year and a half old.

Where's Barry? Barry's my dad.

Where's Barry, Randi? Daddy? Where's Daddy? Did Daddy go bye-bye? Did he go outside? In the car?

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 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 gonna 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. No, they're not.

Well, all the stars are on record and all the records star on the Sunday Morning Carousel. Coming up for you right now, our featured 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 a story like this usually ends is that I reveal that this is why I'm in radio. To make good on 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—I could 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 would. 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 Call-In 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, a joke, 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 authority over that, that, you know, the NPR 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 4 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 gonna 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, 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 4 acts. Act 1, Sandra Tsing Lo finds out that the world sees her father very differently from the way she sees him. Act 2, Dad's Music. We have a story from writer Sherman Alexie. Act 3, The Moment Dad Left. Act 4, Reconciling with Dad, a story from playwright Bo O'Brien.

Riley. I just want to say, we did this at the beginning of all the episodes in that first year or two. We would list each act and say what the act would be. And then at some point, I don't know how many years in it was, I realized, "Oh, we don't have to do that." 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. All you just want to know is, "I guess it's going to be good today?" And then listing the acts like he just did, it just feels like it doesn't mean that much. You know what 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, and 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 4 or 5 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 ways that he treated us that really affected the way that I treat everyone in the world. Today and went into, 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, 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, you know, 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 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 I swear emotionally, for me anyway, it really felt like in one conversation that was maybe 8 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 that 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, like, 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. Of 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 on Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This is American Life. I'm Ira 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 gonna 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, 6 sexperts—that was the word they used, sexperts—reveal the 6 most common male sex fantasy scenarios. So my ex-girlfriend is reading, and there in the 3rd paragraph, one of the sexperts turns out to be my mother. Hello? 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 on?

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, sexperts reveal the 6 most common scenarios, unlock the secret longings and psyches of the modern men who fantasize." And you basically are one of the sexperts. [Speaker:JULIE] Yeah.

Yeah, I am.

00:46:09

I didn't really know you were a sexpert.

00:46:12

What did you think I was?

00:46:15

Just another Jewish mom and psychologist.

00:46:21

Uh-huh.

00:46:23

So it wasn't like you were a sexpert and you were keeping it from your family.

You're talking about my family being my children, not my husband. Yeah. Because he knows that I'm a sexpert. And you can call him to verify that. I'm just gonna 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 gonna 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 had a sexual 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. 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? You just tell one right now and I'll tell you my reaction.

I can't think of one.

You know what I'm feeling right now? I'm feeling a profound—

I heard a wonderful joke, but I don't even I don't know if it's a joke or a story. This is like something that might be true. Mm-hmm. 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, right. One 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 their 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've 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. Like, 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, you're quoted as 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 5, 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, suggests Dr. Glass. Which, when I read that, it actually explains some dinners I've had with you and Dad. I thought. Where, 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. No. But if you did, you're saying that it was—

We've gone to restaurants with you and pretended we didn't know you.

What do you mean by that?

Well, when you were younger and, and, um, and, and let's say that, um, 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 gel yourself. We'd go out to eat, and I'd say, "Now Barry, people are gonna look at him, they're gonna look at us, and they're gonna know that we did not pick out his clothes." So now that I know that you're this big sexpert, do you have any sex advice for me?

I'll just say, in 2026, daring question.

So now that I know that you're this big sexpert, 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 were first being interviewed by people, this is what I told you to say. Right. Right. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad you— I'm glad. 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 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 nice, friendly groove, even though 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'd see each other in real life that I wasn't gonna 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 and 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. Or definitely one of the biggest ways.

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars, and let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

In other words, hold my hand In other words, baby, kiss me. I think my dad would like that we got that song.

If you like 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 the 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 You can tell how long some of the stories must take to make. To sign up, go to thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners, or you can sign up right in the Apple Podcasts app. Okay. So the people who helped put together today's program include Michael Compete, Seth Lin, Molly Marcello, Kathryn Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Ruthie Patito, Anthony Roman, Ryan Brummery, Lily Sullivan, Francis Swanson, Cristo Sertalla, Nancy Updike, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu.

Our managing editor is Arab Durraman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks today to my sister Randi Murray in 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. In other 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. Tony Mallettia. You know, he's starting a new ice cream shop. He is amazing at 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.

In other words, I love you.

Next week on the podcast of This American Life, M. Gessen 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.