Jen's mom Sheila does things like this: She buys a brand name at a discount store, and then returns it to a fancy store for a full refund. She thinks you're a sucker if you don't take advantage of opportunities like that.

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.

The story of what happens to an average American family, when a perfectly normal, rational and funny mom starts spending every day in the company of an ancient Buddhist monk named Aaron, who no one else can see. Davy Rothbart is one of her three sons, and also the reporter for this story.

The chronicle of a family that unravelled. Debra Gwartney loved her two oldest daughters like she loved herself.

We hear from a mother and her son. By age seven, he'd had heart failure and been diagnosed as bipolar.

Jonathan Goldstein with a story about friendship, mothers and sons, and what some have called the greatest phone message in the world. Jonathan is the host of the podcast Heavyweight.