Ira talks to author Etgar Keret about his mom, and the stories she used to tell him when she put him to sleep.  He explains why it's always been so hard to write about her.

Comedian Zarna Garg tells jokes onstage about the extreme ways she tries to control her daughter Zoya’s life.

Brian and Peg disagree over a very important thing. Host Ira Glass tries to figure out who’s right.

Amy D'Addario had ferried her mother to the hospital dozens of times before.

Ira remembers the contentious family gatherings of holidays past - and how things have changed.

Eleven adult siblings need to divide their dead parents' stuff. But they don’t all get along.

Host Ira Glass gets his grandmother Frieda’s college files, which reveal a whole other side of this person he thought he knew so well.

Ira discusses James Comey’s Senate testimony this week, testimony that called the president a liar. And producer Sean Cole talks with Theo Greenly about a lie that bothered him for a while, a lie involving his cousin, an artist named Kenny Scharf.

Ira relays advice from a staffer’s family on what to do if you’re thinking about something you don’t want to think about.

Ira talks to "Cheryl," an anonymous blogger who's been documenting life with an 8-year-old son who seems to take pleasure in causing chaos. He's tried to kill his little brother more than once.

Ira talks to Rick Clark, director of undergraduate admissions at the Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech. Clark says the latest trend in misguided college admissions efforts: parents emailing and calling the admissions office, pretending to be their own children.

Host Ira Glass visits Claremont Middle School in Oakland, CA — a school with two principals. Principals Reggie and Ronnie Richardson are also twins.

A teenage girl gets bitten by a shark, rushed to the doctor's office, stitched up, and told she'll be totally fine. Crisis averted, right? Not so much.

A few years back, when he and his family were driving home from a vacation in Texas, John Nova Lomax realized that the police were aggressively tailing him. And he was definitely not prepared for the reason they pulled him over.

Ira tells what happened this week to Shirley Everett-Dicko in Oakland on Sunday, to Gabe and Kevin in Brooklyn on Saturday, to Eric and Roz in Stevens Point, Wisconsin on Wednesday night at midnight, and (in the podcast version of the show) to Eugene Rand and Bill True, on Monday in South Portland, Maine.

Thanksgiving 2002, the Ohm family's dinner conversation turned to the recent terrorist attacks. Alexis Ohm, the youngest daughter, made a comment that in retrospect she admits was probably the wrong thing to say with her conservative, military-veteran dad at the table...that Osama bin Laden was hot.

Host Ira Glass talks to his dad and stepmom about a story his dad thought might be good for the radio, concerning a mishap with a lost suit on a train. Ira then gathers the producers and announces a contest: Whoever makes the best story out of their parent's pitch wins.

Host Ira Glass introduces four characters: Kay McDonald, who raised a daughter named Sue, and Mary Miller, who raised a daughter named Marti. In 1994, Mary Miller wrote letters to Sue and Marti, confessing the secret she'd kept for 43 years: The daughters had been switched at birth and raised by the wrong families.

Thanksgiving 2002, the Ohm family's dinner conversation turned to the recent terrorist attacks. Alexis Ohm, the youngest daughter, made a comment that in retrospect she admits was probably the wrong thing to say with her conservative, military-veteran dad at the table...that Osama bin Laden was hot.

Eight-year-old Betsy Walter goes on a campaign to understand her parents' divorce.

Host Ira Glass talks to an expert stone cutter who makes headstones. One day he got a call from a guy who wanted him to make his headstone in advance, which is not all that uncommon.

Host Ira Glass talks to ordinary Iraqis about life in their country since the U.S. invasion. Every one of them has friends and relatives—civilians—who've been killed in the violence there.