Dear Sugars

In this episode, the Sugars take questions exclusively from teenagers. They answer two letters that get at the universal themes of adolescence — the sense of being alone, the fear of being left out, the desire to please others — and one letter from a teenager for whom outside forces have marked her teenage experience as different from her peers. The Sugars are joined by Tavi Gevinson, the 19-year-old founder and editor of Rookie, a digital magazine for teenage girls.

The Sugars take a question from a young man whose mother has metastatic breast cancer. He is spending a month back home in Kentucky over the summer, then returning to graduate school in the fall. He is wracked with guilt about not being with her, but also at the thought of her dying without knowing who he really is — a gay man in a family where homosexuality has always been condemned.

Love is complicated in the digital age. Many of us go online in search of connection, but those interactions often leave us feeling profoundly disconnected. The Sugars take on two questions that explore different ways in which we try to connect online - one from a married woman who finds herself caught up in an illicit relationship on Facebook, the other from a young woman who is obsessed with tracking her boyfriend's ex on Instagram.

The Sugars take a question from a young woman whose best friend since childhood is about to get married to a man she's known for only six months. The two friends are very different, and the letter writer worries that her impulsive, drama-prone friend is rushing into another bad situation. She wonders whether to confront her. The Sugars are joined by the author Ann Patchett

In this episode, the Sugars take a question from a young woman who came to the United States as an 11-year-old undocumented immigrant. After years of uncertainty and limbo, she is now poised to become a citizen, but wonders how she can ever make up for the time she lost. The Sugars are joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ruben Vives, who grew up under similar circumstances.

The Sugars take on a letter from a young woman who is a habitual liar — telling her friends about imagined experiences of rape and loss. The lying always seems to happen at a moment of emotional connectedness, when the letter writer wishes to share her feelings of sadness and depression, but struggles to find the right language to do so.

We all know the narrative of the good father. That's the father we all want, but it's not the father we all got. The Sugars take two questions on fatherhood — from a new father who fears that his depression will be felt by his baby daughter, and from a young woman who yearns for a deeper connection with her distant father.

Money makes us crazy. In this episode, the Sugars take questions from two letter writers struggling with complicated relationships to money. The first, an aspiring playwright, feels guilty about all the advantages that her parents' wealth has provided to her. The second, a divorced mother, is unable to control her spending and on the verge of bankruptcy.

In this short episode, the Sugars take a question from a young woman who is engaged to the man she's been with since she was 19. As a child of divorce, whose parents were married young, the letter writer knows that there are risks.

Are we ever able to fully let go of our past? The Sugars address a letter writer grappling with that essential question. At 68 years old, she is troubled to recognize that her life is still being influenced by her early experience with an alcoholic father. The Sugars are joined by a Freudian psychoanalyst, who also happens to be Steve's father.