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Mark Lee, Matt Wrather, and Pete Fenzel, having been friends for a very long time, have no qualms with sharing deep, complex, personal, niche, or even annoying conversations. But in this podcast, we tackle the prospect of how to talk to other people, with whom we share far fewer than 850 podcast episodes on average, notably other parents we associate with in the context of our own children’s care, schooling, and activities.With the monoculture shattered by time and technology, and even commitment to local sports teams uncertain, how do you break the seal of silence on new and potential personal relationships?

We seek inspiration in shared experience, dance on the TMI knife blade of parenting challenges, and take wild ill-advised detours into horrific veterinary diseases in pets and wild animals. How do you talk about travel in a way that enjoins shared interest without frosting it in shame and elitism? How do you do more than listen and laugh, but also, how do you listen and laugh? What is the best way to talk about caring for an aging relative with someone you have only met twice in passing? And how might an overreliance on sympathetic negativity and self-deprecating humor create or reinforce negative feedback loops that damage your mental health as well as sell yourself short to others? We don’t know, we just have a podcast, it’s not like we’re doctors or anything. What do you think?

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Further Reading

• The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown, from TED on YouTube
• HBO Storybook Musicals: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
• Chronic Wasting Disease in Animals, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Mange in Wildlife, from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife
• Negative Core Beliefs in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dr. Aaron Beck, the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy on YouTube
• Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals, starring Andy Samberg, from Saturday Night Live on YouTube