PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Faith, this week, The New York Times profiled a popular Dutch tradition known as the dropping. Tell me, Faith...
FAITH SALIE: Yes.
SAGAL: ...What is the dropping?
SALIE: It's a Dutch tradition.
SAGAL: Dutch tradition.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: It is when you drop the wheel of Gouda into your clog, Peter.
(LAUGHTER)
PETEY DEABREU: Wheel of Gouda into a clog...
SAGAL: A whole wheel of Gouda would not fit into a wooden clog.
SALIE: And if it makes a sound, you know the Gouda is ripe.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: Anyway...
SAGAL: It's a fascinating thing. It turns out that people - this is so common in Holland that people there were kind of amazed that it's weird and it would be weird if we did it in America.
DEABREAU: You detach the windmill from - and let it roll down a hill for all the kids to run from.
SALIE: That's the dropping.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's a parenting thing, and all Dutch parents do it. It was done to them when they were children.
SALIE: Does this have to do with poop?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No.
SALIE: OK. I need more of a hint.
SAGAL: Apparently. But it's fun to watch you flail.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It's sort of like a game of hide and no seek.
SALIE: Oh, my gosh. You just leave your child?
SAGAL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: But where?
SALIE: In the red-light district of Amsterdam?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Adam, do you know?
SALIE: Do you know this, Petey?
DEABREAU: I would imagine you leave them in the woods and let them find their way home.
SALIE: What is happening?
SAGAL: That's exactly it.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: You leave them in the woods.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And you let them find their way home. That's what it is. It's a tradition meant to teach pre-teen children independence. It starts when drivers release the sometimes blindfolded passengers...
SALIE: What?
SAGAL: ...Nine, 10, 11 years old on the side of a wooded road with nothing more than a rudimentary GPS. This is really helicopter parenting in that you have to call the park service to send a helicopter...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...When your kid doesn't come out.
SALIE: So this is a rite of passage.
SAGAL: This is a rite of passage that Dutch people think is totally normal. Sometimes, parents even follow along to make noises and scare them.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I mean, really. And you thought you were a bad parent. I mean, you are, but in a totally different way.
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED PERFORMANCE OF PROKOFIEV'S "PETER AND THE WOLF")
SAGAL: When we come back, brand-new material from a show we did a short while ago with special guest Renee Fleming. That's in a minute with more WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME from NPR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.