Episode Details

SPECIAL EPISODE: BUBBA STORYTIME: "JUST RASPBERRIES"

Alone with his kids for a weekend, Bubba is told by a stranger at the park that his five-year-old son just spit on the man. He does everything wrong: lectures a kindergartner about race, hears his own parents' words come out of his mouth, and breaks a promise to his wife by spanking his son for the first time. Bubba then reveals to John how it is all connected to a story he's never told anyone — how as a boy in the Michigan summer, he made one of the most painful mistakes in his life and what his own dad did about it. A tough, painful and yet somehow powerful episode as Bubba unpacks a parenting betrayal in real time and how to move forward without living in regret. 

This story originally aired inside Episode 33 ("Two grapes and a hate crime"). We pulled it out and put it on its own for our one-year anniversary. Sunday — the grapes, the dog, the black eye — is still in the original.

Heads up: this one deals with spanking and race, and we don't pretend to have handled either well.