823: The Question Trap

Ira Glass

The question started right after Tobin and his husband moved to

the Bay Area and got a house together.

Tobin's family was pretty excited about this. They all live within an hour. And they brought meals over for weeks. His mom bought them shades. But this question popped up.

Ira Glass

Then, when Tobin would tell them that it was his husband who was the handy one, he felt like he was just giving them ammunition to put a picture of their relationship that just bugged him, like they were being sized up into familiar categories. Which of you is the husband? Which of you is the wife?

Ira Glass

"In the closet." For Tobin, that means middle school and high school.

Ira Glass

Well, today on our program, questions that contain other secret questions inside of them, questions that are wolves in sheep's clothing, and all kinds of situations that we've all been in-- in dating, in talking to strangers, in dealing with the saddest things that ever happened to us, and more. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

OK, so instead of four different acts today, what we're going to do is we're going to present the show as four questions. Here's the first one. Question, Tell Me How You Feel About This.

So Tobin, who you just heard, is one of the editors here at our show. And really, the idea for today's program came out of a conversation that happened at a staff meeting. And what happened was, we all got talking about these kind of question traps, where it seems like somebody is asking about one thing, but the question is a proxy for trying to figure out something else. Tobin will explain more.

Tobin Low

The conversation was about the questions people ask on first dates, the kind that force who someone really is out into the open, maybe even without them realizing. One such question, I didn't even know was a thing. But a few of my co-workers said that for Black women of a certain age, it's having a kind of renaissance. Emanuele, our executive editor, asks it this way.

Tobin Low

Bim, another producer, has also asked this question on many a date.

Tobin Low

Emanuele walks the guy through all the reasons Beyoncé is, in fact, pretty great. But the guy didn't budge.

Tobin Low

They did not go out again, because, well, you could say he was unapologetic when he fucked up the night. That's a play on a Beyoncé lyric, by the way. Sorry, couldn't help myself. Anyway, BA Parker, who's also been on the show-- she said, for her, it doesn't even have to be Beyoncé. Any well-known Black woman does the trick.

Tobin Low

But the Beyoncé question, she agrees, is the most potent. Because the answer can really tell you if you should be crazy in love or putting everything he owns in a box to the left. Again, I am so sorry. The thing about a bunch of people using the same trick, though, is that eventually, people-- in this case, men-- might catch on.

Tobin Low

Emmanuel Dzotsi, producer and man at the show--

Tobin Low

He told me about a date he was on where they started talking about musicals, and the movie version of Dreamgirls came up. And thinking he was just answering a question about the movie, Emmanuel was honest. He said, Beyoncé was just OK in that. He didn't realize he was answering the wrong question.

Tobin Low

It was only later that he learned from another guy friend why he, as a Black man, should really only answer one way.

Tobin Low

In some cases, the Beyoncé question is like an agreed-upon farce, where both parties know they're talking in code. Parker was recently on a date. She mentioned Beyoncé's Black is King film.

Tobin Low

Of course, there are other questions like the Beyoncé one-- little traps we set on dates, hoping the other person doesn't fall in, or hoping they do. One that made the news recently, which may or may not be true-- according to an old classmate, Governor Ron DeSantis would ask dates if they liked Thai food. But-- and this is key-- he'd pronounce it "Thigh" food.

And if they said, no, it's Thai food, not "thigh," he'd ditch the date. It was his way of testing if they'd correct him, which he did not want. I don't know. It sounds like a test I'd be grateful to fail, but that's just me.

Anyway, I talked to a bunch of other people about their question traps. Kelsey in Minnesota asked her dates about their favorite Tom Hanks movies. She said he's been in so many movies across multiple genres, the answer is kind of like a personality test. Toy Story, for example, tells her there is a stunted-adolescence thing going on.

Sarah in Tampa said when she started to get a weird vibe, she'd ask, What's your favorite conspiracy theory? Most people would keep their answers lighthearted, but occasionally, someone would go all in. One guy started talking all about Nazi separatists. She's Jewish, so you know, kind of a deal breaker.

But not all question traps are subtle. There's another genre that I was surprised anyone fell for-- the kind of question that seemed covered in yellow caution tape and a sign that said, this is a trap. This one comes from Vivian in Iowa.

After her husband died in 2016, she found herself back out on the dating scene. Her question on a date was, If your ex walked by right now with their new partner, what would you do? Which was her way of asking a much more interesting question-- How fucked up was your last relationship?

Tobin Low

I was shocked. This question is so clearly, How bad was your last breakup? Do I have anything to worry about? But something about turning it into a fun little icebreaker made these guys open up.

Tobin Low

With her now-husband, they met at a widows' support group. He talked about his loneliness and being a single parent. They kind of just got each other.

And she knew the question, What would you do if your ex showed up? would not be right for this nice guy who had just lost his wife. She wasn't going to ask that.

The last person I talked to was Jessica. She teaches ESL classes in Atlanta.

Tobin Low

Ghosts. I bet you didn't see that one coming, did you-- "Do you believe in ghosts?" Here's how Jessica says it works.

Tobin Low

Her answer to the question is, I don't really believe in ghosts, but if there was evidence to the contrary, I could be convinced. I'm open to changing my mind.

Tobin Low

At the time, she didn't think much about the difference in their answers. But then, as she got to know him better, other things would come up.

Tobin Low

His rigidity was one of the big things that broke them up. Now, she tells everyone she knows, if you're seeing someone new, ask them the ghost question. It could save you a lot of time.

The thing about any trap, of course, is there are ways to sidestep it, disarm it. And then, the person who laid the trap has to decide what to do. Emanuele had to make such a decision.

Tobin Low

It is. All I think anyone wants is someone you don't feel like you have to set a trap for, someone who you can look at them and say, you're everything I need and more. It's written all over your face. Baby, I can feel your halo. Pray it won't fade away. Sorry, I'm going to stop now.

Ira Glass

Tobin Low is an editor on our program.

Ira Glass

Question Two, How Old Are Your Kids? So there's a particular piece of small talk that happens all the time that, for some people, is the most normal thing in the world, and for others, is a super delicate minefield.

This story that you're about to hear is about a couple for whom it is a minefield. And how, one day, a question like this comes up, and it goes completely differently from how it's ever gone before for them, in a spectacularly wild way. You'll hear what I'm talking about. Chris Benderev tells the story.

Chris Benderev

Stacey Silberman is a real estate agent in Southern California, and she's well suited to the job because she's excellent at making conversation with strangers about anything. But for the past six and a half years, there's been this classic genre of get-to-know-you banter that's become a lot more complicated for her and her husband, Michael. And that's questions about their children.

Chris Benderev

The answers to these questions are complicated for Stacey, because her older child, Max, died in 2017.

Chris Benderev

This is Stacey's husband, Michael, Max's dad. He's a CPA, straight-laced kind of guy, for the most part.

Chris Benderev

Max was a funny kid, always loved playing pranks, who, by 15, was struggling with drug addiction, going in and out of treatment. He overdosed when he was 25 in his parents' house.

And after he died, for a while, Michael and Stacey were around friends and family who knew what had happened. So nobody asked those "Do you have kids" sort of questions. But then Stacey traveled to a conference in Albuquerque.

She was sitting down for lunch next to a couple-- friendly, blonde woman and her husband. And they began asking Stacey where she was from and what she did-- and then, finally, those questions.

Chris Benderev

This did not go over well.

Chris Benderev

Of course, over time, this happened again and again. Strangers would ask them these sorts of questions. And when they'd answer, it'd suck all the air out of the room, which made Michael especially uncomfortable.

He never liked sharing this stuff with strangers. He's more of a private person. But together, he and Stacey came up with a strategy for how to handle things.

Chris Benderev

And so on they went, answering some questions about their kids and bobbing and weaving around others for six and a half years-- until this one day last November, when they got themselves into a situation that was very different from any that they'd been in before-- and very public.

One thing to know about Stacey and Michael is they both spend a lot of their time working at a recovery center for people struggling with addiction. And sometimes they hang out with the other staff and clients there.

Chris Benderev

They get seats, front row center. But before Sarah Silverman came on stage that night at the Hollywood Improv, there was this opener-- guy named Adam Ray, early 40s, wearing a Mariners cap. And he's got this backing band-- drums, keyboard, backup singers.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And he ends his set with a song about how all his friends with kids are miserable and boring now.

Chris Benderev

But then the song shifts. Adam Ray says-- or sings-- that he and his wife are still deciding about having kids. And suddenly, he turns to the crowd, wants to find someone with kids who can make an argument for having them. Adam starts in the front row, with the guy a few seats away from Stacey and Michael.

Chris Benderev

But the comedian's not done with him.

Chris Benderev

And he's still not done.

Chris Benderev

While Michael's thinking, Adam the comedian keeps holding the microphone, waiting. This dad is taking too long to answer. And then, finally--

Chris Benderev

Then the comic turns to Stacey.

Chris Benderev

On stage, no one quite knows what to do. One of the backup singers puts her hands over her face. The keyboard player just shakes his head like, no.

Chris Benderev

This moment for the comedian seems pretty insurmountable, right? Like, what could he possibly do to save his set after that? I called him up-- Adam Ray-- and he said he considered changing the subject, but chose not to.

Chris Benderev

And finally, it's actually Stacey who saves the day. She motions for Adam the comedian, and he bends down and points his mic at her. And then she says--

Chris Benderev

Then, Adam gets an idea.

Chris Benderev

The video of Adam's set actually made the rounds on TikTok and Instagram afterward. Stacey says she read every last comment-- all these people rejoicing for and remembering her son.

Chris Benderev

Lots of people have asked them questions, putting them in this complicated spot. But this time, in front of all those people, that ended with a room full of strangers cheering for Max-- this time is their favorite.

Ira Glass

Chris Benderev is one of the producers of our show. Coming up-- a question about a 400-year-old play and the personal question underneath that question. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.

Ira Glass

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program-- the question trap. What we're talking about today is those questions that can seem benevolent, innocent, harmless, innocuous, could not hurt a fly. But underneath, they're really asking something else, or quietly making a point about something else. We've arrived at question three of our program-- Question Three, How's Your Mom?

So we spotted this next thing we want to play you in an academic journal. It was originally a paper in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, written by an anthropologist named Janelle Taylor, who adapted it to read here on the radio. This one question that Janelle Taylor is writing about-- it kept showing up all the time in her personal life. And she says, as an anthropologist, she knows, when lots of people are asking the same question over and over, it means something. And she wrote this essay to think through what is underneath that question.

Janelle Taylor

My mother is living with progressive dementia. Because I'm reading these words on the radio, I can't hear your response. But I'm listening for the question that, as I've learned, always comes.

Everyone, almost without exception, responds with some version of the same question. Does she recognize you? There are variants, of course. Does she still know who you are? But does she still know your name?

However it may be phrased, the question is always whether my mother recognizes me, meaning, can she recite the facts of who I am, what my name is, and how I'm related to her? When everyone keeps asking me, Does she recognize you? I find myself thinking, that is the wrong question. I believe the question really is-- or should be-- Do you, do we, recognize her as a person who is still here?

"Does she recognize you?" The weirdness of the question becomes more obvious if you think about what would be required to answer it. Let's say I asked my mother, What's my name? Who am I? How old am I? How do we know each other?

Testing her that way-- what does it prove? What does it actually accomplish? I read a book by a journalist named Lauren Kessler. She wrote about how she would correct her own mother when her mother called her by the wrong name.

Every time she would visit her mother, she'd take framed photos from the dresser and point to them and quiz her mother. You know who this is, don't you, Mom? Of course, she didn't.

Kessler writes, "So I told her, again and again, each visit, who is who, and then quizzed again. Thinking back on this now, I am appalled at my insensitivity. What did I think I was doing?

I managed to accomplish only two things. I made myself miserable, and I made my mother irritable. I don't need my mother to tell me my name or how I'm related to her. I already know these things, and I know that she has dementia.

So why then would I make a point of asking her these questions that I know she can't possibly answer? It seems rude, or just mean. I can't bring myself to do it. I guess you could say that my mother raised me better than that."

"Does she recognize you?" I'm not so convinced that the inability to remember names necessarily means that a person with dementia can't recognize or care about other people. But very often, it does mean that other people stop recognizing and caring about them.

My mother was close to lots of people. But only one friend remains present in her life. Every month or two, Eli Davis drives an hour and a half from her home to Seattle to visit Mom, bringing treats and hugs and her always-cheerful self. I love her dearly for it.

And I wonder, where are the others? Where are the couples with whom my parents socialized, the women with whom Mom spent hours and hours on the phone all through my childhood? This shouldn't surprise me as much as it has. Maybe it's not fair to expect friends to step up. Even close family drop off.

Friendships in America are not usually expected to survive dementia. Friendships are often more like pleasure crafts than life rafts-- not built to brave the really rough waters.

"Does she recognize you?" When people ask me whether my mother still recognizes me, they're often expressing concern for me, asking me how I'm bearing up under the burden of suffering that her dementia must place on me. And they're quite ready to hear about my burdens and my suffering.

What they find harder to hear, I think, is that being around my mother is not a nightmare or a horror. It's not like any of that. Here's what it is.

In a cafe, as we share a scone, Mom and I make what passes for conversation. I've learned to ask only the sort of question that doesn't require any specific information to answer. "So, things going OK with you these days?" "How's my favorite mom doing? You doing all right?"

I tell her funny little stories about my kids. Sometimes we leaf through a magazine, looking at pictures and commenting on them. Sometimes we look out the window, and I make general observations that require no specific response.

"Looks like spring is coming." "Look at those leaves coming out on the trees." "That guy's hair is really curly." With each exchange, Mom smiles at me, beaming affectionately in that familiar, slightly conspiratorial way, as if we're both in on the same joke.

So our conversations go nowhere. But it doesn't matter what we say, really, or whether we said it before, or whether it's accurate or interesting or even comprehensible. The exchange is the point.

Mom and I are playing catch with touches, smiles, and gestures, as well as words, lobbing them back and forth to each other in slow, easy, underhand arcs. The fact that she drops the ball more and more often doesn't stop the game from being enjoyable. It's a way of being together.

"Does she recognize you?" She may not recognize me, in a narrowly cognitive sense. But my mom does recognize me as someone who's there with her, someone familiar, perhaps. And she doesn't need to have all the details sorted out in order to care for me.

The impulse to care, the habit of caring-- these are things that run deep in my mother-- someone who, for most of her life, was very engaged in caring for other people-- her children, her husband, her grandchildren, her friends. Even some of the behavioral quirks that my mom has developed make sense to me in those terms-- as expressions of care.

Here's an example. People with dementia often engage in repetitive behaviors, and Mom is no exception. When I take her out to a cafe, I usually get a cup of black coffee for myself and order a cup of hot chocolate for her. Not too hot, and don't forget the whipped cream on top.

As we drink them, she checks constantly to see whether my cup and hers are even, whether the liquids have been drunk down to the same level. And if not, she'll hurry up and drink more to catch up, or else, stop and wait for me. Or if we share a cookie, she's concerned to make sure that the haves be the same size and that we eat them at the same rate.

I think keeping track of whether our drinks and cookies are even comes naturally to my mother-- a woman who has always had to carefully divide quite limited resources-- first, with her own brothers, and later, among her four children. She's cared about such details all her life, and caring about them was also a way in which she cared for other people.

Mom also does still take care of me, in some small but important ways. One time, a little more than a year ago, I stopped by the assisted living facility where she was living at the end of a very busy day in an especially hectic week. I had stayed up very late the night before, trying to finish grading student papers, then spent the whole day teaching and in meetings.

I went with her up to her room. I turned on the TV, and we sat down together on the couch. I was exhausted. I leaned back and yawned.

Mom patted my hand and said to me, You're tired. Just go ahead and sleep. You can just lay down right here. And so I sat there next to my mom, holding her hand, feeling her warmth against me, all along one side of my body. And I leaned my head on her shoulder and slept.

"Does she recognize you?" For a while after we first moved my mother into an assisted living facility, she often said that she wanted to "go home." I understood this to mean that she wanted to move back to the house where she had lived for 40 years until my father's death, the house in which I grew up.

Usually, I responded with my own mild version of reality orientation, explaining as gently as possible that that house was all empty and cold now, and nobody was there to keep her company or help her do stuff, so it was probably better to stay here. One time, though, I asked her a question instead-- "You mean, home to the house up in Edmonds?"

"No, on the farm," she answered. ''You go down--" With her raised arm, she traced out the curve of a long-ago road. For the first few years of her life, my mother had lived on a small farm in southern Idaho, before her father moved the family to Seattle during World War II to seek work on the docks.

"They're inside there," she added. "Who?" I asked. "My mom and my dad." My mother's in her 70s. Her parents are not waiting for her inside an Idaho farmhouse.

You could use that evidence to draw a clear line between us. Me here, on the side of reality, competence, personhood, recognition; her over there, on the side of delusion, incapacity, not quite fully human.

But what she was longing for was her childhood home. She missed her mom and dad. She was trying, in her own way, to hold on to them, just as I was trying, against the odds, to hold on to her. Our predicament is exactly the same.

Ira Glass

Janelle Taylor-- she is a professor at the University of Toronto, teaching medical anthropology. Her mom, Charlene Taylor, died in 2019. Janelle is collecting this essay and others about dementia into a book. You can find a link to the original academic article that she wrote at our website.

Ira Glass

Act Four, Can I Help You? OK, here's one last example of a question that has another question lurking behind it. Question goes like this.

If Matthew scored an average of 15 points per basketball game and played 24 games in one season, how many points did he score in the season? That's a question from the SHSAT, which is a standardized test given to middle school students in New York City. A high score on the SHSAT will get you into one of the eight top public schools in the city-- wonderful schools. A low score will keep you in the regular public school system, where your school may be assigned by lottery.

So the question lurking behind that math question is, Are you good enough? Are you good enough to go to the best schools? And maybe from there, to the best colleges? And from there, to all the advantages you get from that kind of education, including a higher income, maybe a better job, all other sorts of stuff? Kind of a big scary chasm opening up in the Earth behind that innocent little math problem.

Ira Glass

For five years, Milo Cramer tutored kids who wanted to leap over that chasm and into those eight elite high schools. It first made Milo feel good.

Ira Glass

This recording is from a one-person show that Milo did this fall about the kids they tutored. I worry a little that it's going to be hard to get across over the radio what's so special about this show. Most of it is songs-- songs about the kids that Milo tutored-- these very funny and heartbreaking portraits of these middle school and high school kids and Milo's relationship to them. Like, for example, the boy who takes a lot of pleasure denouncing God and the Democrats.

Ira Glass

Milo is not a great singer. They would tell you that themself. Or a skilled musician. But they've written songs in secret since they were the age that these kids are that they're writing about.

And there's just something in the intentional roughness and sincerity of what they're doing that kind of matches the rawness of these kids and their feelings-- and of Milo's reactions to them. When a girl from Queens named Dana, who's better at math than Milo, and probably should be a scientist or engineer someday, tells Milo that if she does end up in college, she wants to study theater, Milo, who's broke and struggling and wanting to do theater, sings--

Ira Glass

Lots of the songs in the show are about the kids' anxieties about school and this test and all the pressure they feel from their parents. And they're about Milo trying to figure out not just how to teach them, but what they possibly could say to comfort them. Faith, for example, is a terrible reader.

Ira Glass

Our radio show that is about questions. And to close out the show, I'm just going to play you one more thing. This is one full song from Milo's show about a question that a student faced. It's an essay question.

Ira Glass

Milo Cramer, in the one-person show, School Pictures, recorded at Playwrights Horizons in New York. To hear more songs for the show or to book them to come to your town, go to milocramer.com. That's Cramer with a C-- milocramer.com.

Ira Glass

Well, our program was produced today by Zoe Chace. The people who put together today's show include Jendayi Bonds, Sean Cole, Michal Comite, Bethel Habte, Chana Joffe-Walt, Katherine Rae Mondo, Stowe Nelson, Safiya Riddle, Lilly Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Christopher Swetala, Marisa Robertson-Textor Matt Tierney, Nancy Updike, Julie Whitaker, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor is Emanuele Berry.

Original music for the comedian story by Ryan Rumery, who also helped mix the show. Special thanks today to Lauren Kessler. Her book is Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's.

Also thanks to Galya Walt, Michael Rosenthal, Diana Taylor-William, Mike Taylor, Pat Taylor, David Johnson, Rachel Jackson, Tom O'Keefe, and Jolie Myers.

Our website-- thisamericanlife.org, where you can stream our archive of over 800 episodes for absolutely free. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our program's confounder, Mr. Torey Malatia.

You know, he kind of hurt my feelings this morning. We ran into each other. He asked, How am I doing? I started to answer, then he was like--

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.