Dan and Michael Raise Someone Else’s Kid: Communal Parenting, Gender Panic, and Imaginary Friends

When (if ever) should you intervene with someone else’s child?Why American parenting anxiety looks bizarre cross-culturallyAka childhood autonomy, Japanese errand culture, and European stroller normsTikTok detectives and the collapse of “mind your own business”Gender identity, performativity, and why pink tea parties won’t destroy societyJudith Butler, trans theory, and early childhood gender developmentWhy you don’t actually control your kids’ socializationImmigration panic, economic amnesia, and xenophobia with spreadsheetsImaginary friends, ancestors, tricksters, and why your kid might not be “imagining” anything at allAnthropology’s most comforting message: this is all extremely normal That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com CreditsProduced by Gabe BullardMusic by The Endless BummerArt by Siobhan HeneganMarketing by Bryan HautLegal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.You can also sign up for our newsletter, drop us a voice memo, or become a Friend of People Stuff — which is our fancy way of saying you get to support the show and we get to keep talking about dust, dads, and late capitalism.So go to people-stuff.com