On this week’s episode: Dan and Jamilah are joined by poet, performer, and activist Staceyann Chin to field a question from a mom who’s worried she should give her son a year to grow before he starts kindergarten. Scott Brown, author of the YA novel XL and short guy, calls in to help. The hosts also discuss disproportionate expectations of maturity placed on black girls during childhood. For Slate Plus: a question from a mom wondering if she is can worry about her white son’s experience at a school that has predominantly black and Hispanic students. Sign up for Slate Plus here.

Recommendations:

Jamilah recommends The State of Black Girls: A Go-To Guide for Creating Safe Space for Black Girls by Marline Francois-Madden LCSW.

Dan recommends the Newbery-winning comic New Kid by Jerry Craft.

Staceyann recommends Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty.

Additional Reading:

XL by Scott Brown.

Why Won’t Society Let Black Girls Be Children? By A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez.

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. By Monique W. Morris.

Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood by Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake and Thalia González.

End Adultification Bias by Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Join us on Facebook and email us at momanddad@slate.com to tell us what you thought of today’s show and give us ideas for what we should talk about in future episodes. Got questions that you’d like us to answer? Call and leave us a message at 424-255-7833.

Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson. Audio engineering by Chau Tu.