Ira Glass

Do you know our show?

Okay, well, either way, I'm going to tell you about it.

We make stories that hopefully pull you in at the beginning with funny moments and feelings and people in surprising situations, and then you just want to find out what is going to happen and cannot stop listening.

That's right.

I'm talking about stories that make you miss appointments.

This American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.

WBEC Chicago, This American Life, I'm Ira Glass.

So when I was 36 years old, the year I started This American Life, my relationship with my parents was not the greatest.

I've been working at NPR since I was 19, and they were not into it.

at all.

They were not into public radio.

They were not into me working in public radio.

They saw public radio as this sad little backwater when they would listen to all things considered morning edition, which were shows I was working at.

I remember they would complain, like, why are the stories so long?

They especially did not like that I wasn't making much money.

I did not make much money.

They were both people raised in families where there was never any money, and they really organized their lives to get themselves firmly into the middle class.

And they really did not understand why I didn't want to make money.

And then also, there'd been a period in my early 20s when I was kind of judgy about certain choices that they were making, and I hurt their feelings.

And by my 30s, I tried to make amends and fix that, but it still wasn't quite right between us.