A man has a very clear vision of how he always stood up to his father,protected his mother and fought hard for the truth. Until one day hediscovers actual raw data — secretly recorded conversations — thatthreaten to change his picture of everything.

When he was a kid, Josh Martin's mother Nancy told him that if anythingever happened to her, he needed to take care of his brother Ben. This confusedJosh, because Ben was his older brother, and he felt that if anything heshould be the one taken care of.

Novelist Miriam Toews, author of The X Letters (which appeared in an earlier episode of the show), tells the story of a road trip she took with her 15-year-old son.

Brett Leveridge reads from his column for Might magazine, which he turned into the book Men My Mother Dated and Other Mostly True Tales.

Sketches from the neo-futurists on the subject of double lives.

Julie throws up.

Ira continues the story about his conversation with his mom. Then he calls her up on the air.

Stand-up comedian Julian McCullough tells this story about heading to someone else's home for the holidays. You can watch Julian's Comedy Central Presents special at his website, julianmccullough.com.

Myron Jones and his sister Carol Bove explain what happened when they were teenagers, and they ended up babysitting children who didn't exist.

Writer/singer/performer Sandra Tsing Loh reads a story about a family vacation arranged by her mother, who believed that vacations couldn't be merely for leisure—they had to be educational. Which is how the family ended up vacationing in...Ethiopia.

Ira calls up his mother Shirley Glass after unexpectedly finding her quoted as a “sexpert” in Marie Claire magazine, back in 1996. One of the first stories we did on our show.

When Anh Tuan Hoang was 12 and living in Vietnam back in 1980, his cousin was scheming up a way to escape the country by boat. Anh Tuan was invited too.

Barbara Clinkscales grew up in Chicago's public housing projects, had her first child when she was 15, and is now—over two decades later—struggling to get her teenage son to finish his senior year of high school. Barbara is a working mom, with a network of close friends who look out for her.

When Elspeth was a girl, she wanted nothing more than her father's attention. He was busy, a doctor, and distant.

A Midwestern family records a "letter on tape" to their son, who is in medical school in California. Three decades later, the recording somehow ends up in a thrift store.

Karen Sosnoski's one-year-old son, Anton, was born with what's known as Mosaic Down Syndrome, a rare condition where some of his cells have the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome and other cells don't. So as he grows, he could end up having all the health risks and challenges of Downs syndrome...or just a few of them. Through a website, Karen found a kid with the same diagnosis, named Tim Colvin, who was doing really well...perhaps because his mother, Kristy, invented a surprising and unusual way to raise her son.

Nick Hornby's new story about a country so tiny, it's just a field, a few houses, a shop, and a café. There, a boy whose mom happens to be president of this minuscule nation is called upon to show his patriotism by playing on the national soccer team.

Beau O'Reilly and his mother Winifred, who had 14 children, discuss her secret feelings about Johnny Cash and other matters on Mother's Day.

Funny Funerals.

Julie Showalter, on a costume she wore as a kid.

Joshuah Bearman tells a story that’s a sequel to his memorable episode about his mother and half-brother David. It’s done onstage as a play that’s structured like a radio documentary, with Josh Hamilton playing Joshuah, and James Ransone playing his brother.

Writer Beth Lisick decides to try a new strategy to get her infant to sleep better, and buys a baby monitor as part of the deal. Soon, she's hearing her neighbors make drug deals over the monitor's frequency.

Gloria Harrison was pregnant and in labor when she decided that the thing she needed to do before heading to the hospital, was go to the Nissan dealership and buy a new car.

Host Ira Glass talks with Cate, a white woman with a black, adopted, seven-year-old son, Glen. Sometimes Glen threatens that he's going to return to his real family—royalty, in Africa.