: Children
TagActivismArtAutomobilesChildhoodChildrenCrimeEducationEnvironmentFamilyFathersFictionFriendshipFunnyHealth and Health CareHistoryHolidaysJobsLiteratureLive PerformanceMental HealthMothersMurderMusicParentingPolicePoliticsPresidentsRetailSiblingsSportsWriting
ContributorJay AllisonAimee BenderKaren BernsteinAlex BlumbergSusan BurtonKatie DavisIra GlassNick HornbyMatt MalloyBeau O'ReillyVivian Paley
Year202120202019201820172016201520142013201220112010200920082007200620052004200320022001200019991998199719961995
Jay Allison
Aimee Bender
Alex Blumberg
Susan Burton
Katie Davis
Beau O'Reilly
Vivian Paley
There are 17 results
174: Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Milestones
We hear the story of a disastrous birthday party and how it's hard not to see these kinds of moments as symbolic of something bad.
173: Three Kinds of Deception
Host Ira Glass reads an excerpt from Nick Hornby's novel About a Boy. The narrator, Will, recalls a time when he was a child that he convinced a friend that a portal to another world existed at the back of his closet.
169: Pursuit of Happiness
Act Four: How To Be Happy, One Man's Guide
Finding happiness is serious business. At least, for most us, it requires an act of will.
167: Memo to the People of the Future
Act Two: One And One Don't Make Two
What if you're remembered in ways that you don't like? What if you're remembered for something someone else did? In this act, we consider the case of Marguerite Oswald, mother of Lee Harvey Oswald. In 1965 she spent three days with reporter Jean Stafford, who wrote about Mrs.
166: Nobody's Family Is Going to Change
Host Ira Glass describes a children's book from the 1970s called Nobody's Family Is Going to Change by Louise Fitzhugh, the author of Harriet the Spy. On the surface, it sounds like a rather menacing title for a kids' book. But in fact, the story is about how kids can finally find peace if they stop hoping that their parents will ever be any different.
Act Three: The Artist Formerly Known As Dr. Sarkin
What happens when you want your dad to change—and he wants to change, too—but there's literally nothing that can be done to change him. Jon Sarkin was a chiropractor with workaholic tendencies.
164: Crime Scene (2000)
Act Three: A Criminal Returns To The Scene Of The Crime
Sometimes criminals return to the scene of their misdeeds—to try to make things right, to try to undo the past. Katie Davis reports on her neighbor Bobby, who returned to the scene where he robbed people and conned people...to coach Little League.
Act Four: What Police Cannot Do
Actor Matt Malloy reads a short story by Aimee Bender, from her book The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories.
161: Million Bubbles
Act Two: Emerald Green Peugeot
Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and About a Boy, explains the travails of driving his autistic son to the park.
Act Three: Leased Volvo Sedan
Jay Allison and his 12-year-old daughter discuss what radio station to listen to. She wants music.
159: Mother's Day
Act One: She Said, She Said
Producer Alex Blumberg conducts an investigation, perhaps the first ever, into this American subspecies: People who compulsively imitate their mother's voices in everyday conversation, well into adulthood.
Act Three: Mom Music
Beau O'Reilly and his mother Winifred, who had 14 children, discuss her secret feelings about Johnny Cash and other matters on Mother's Day.
158: Mob Mentality
Act Two: One Tin Soldier Rides Away
What happens when seventh graders become an angry mob? Karen Bernstein reports on her own seventh grade class from small-town Connecticut. In 1973, a teacher turned them into an angry mob, an event they all remember decades later.
157: Secret Life of Daytime
Act Three: The Geography Of Childhood
In the early 1970s, a geographer named Roger Hart did a study of exactly where it is that children go during the daytime. For two years, he followed 86 children—all the children in a small town in Vermont, during the hours when parents were away at work.
Act Five: $82.50 A Day.
Writer Mona Simpson reads from her forthcoming novel My Hollywood. This excerpt is about the daytime life of Filipino nannies, during the hours in which they run the lovely homes of certain Los Angeles neighborhoods.
153: Dolls
Mar. 3, 2000
Act Three: The Boy Who Would Be A Helicopter
Kindergarten teacher and "Genius Grant" recipient Vivian Paley is the author of many books about the stories children invent and the way they play, and what it's about. At a time when schools are cutting back on having a doll corner, she tells the story of a child in her class who was sort of saved by a doll, and the story he told about the doll.
Act One: Thank Heaven For Little Girls — Made Of Plastic
The story of a company trying an experiment at marketing dolls to little girls:A new kind of doll store near Chicago's Magnificent Mile called "American Girl Place." The company has figured out all the ways little girls love dolls and they're trying to sell to nearly every one of those desires. Susan Burton reports that it's as if they've settled into a perch inside little girl's dreams and are selling from there.