Stories about kids who actually want their parents looking out for them.
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Prologue
We play excerpts from the documentary film Troop 1500. In the film, girl scouts from an Austin, Texas, troop visit their mothers, all of whom are in prison. The girls interview their moms, sometimes asking alarmingly direct questions, and videotape the sessions. The film was directed by Ellen Spiro and Karen Bernstein of Mobilus Media, and aired on PBS. (7 minutes)
Two Possibilities, Both Bad
When Gene Cheek was ten years old, his mother began dating a black man. It was 1961, in North Carolina. Segregation was in full effect. They all knew it was going to be problematic, even dangerous. But it wasn't until they landed in court that they realized just how unpopular they had become, or how dire the consequences of his mother's love would be. Gene Cheek has written a book about his family called The Color of Love: A Mother's Choice in the Jim Crow South. (29 minutes)
The Grandma Letters
Will Seymour reads letters he and his grandmother exchanged when he was in high school. He was miserable at the time—his parents had just gotten divorced and he had no friends—and so was his grandma. So they consoled each other through the mail. Will reads the letters as part of the Mortified series. (10 minutes)
Song:
My Angel's In The Centerfolds
When Emily Helfgot was ten, her dad was a sex therapist on a call-in radio show, which thoroughly embarrassed her. He also kept a stack of Playboy magazines in their house, in plain sight. So she invented a business with them. A dating service. Her clients? The centerfolds. Thea Chaloner tells the story. (10 minutes)
Song:
Related
Act One: Rachel’s Getting Harried
Act Five: The Fight Before Christmas
Act Three: I Want To Be A Statistic
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The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar
In 1912, a four-year-old boy went missing in Louisiana. Eight months later, he was found. But two grief-stricken mothers both claimed the same boy as their own.
Three Miles
What happens when of a group of public school students in the Bronx goes to visit an elite private school three miles away.