Be strong and stoic, but be vulnerable and open. Which one is it? We ask whether men have gotten soft or whether strength just means something different now. The door on a first date, the run one of our boys hated, what a friend in her 30s says about the men she dates, and why indecisiveness is still a decision.

Pull up a chair.

The question we leave on the table: What does strength look like in the men you admire most, and has that changed for you?

How many more times will you actually see your parents? Do the math. The number is smaller than you think.

This one starts with a barber who turns out to be closer to our boys' age than Chris's. Then it gets honest about getting older: the cosmetic procedure Chris told everyone about (and who admitted they'd done it too), why Mel refuses to go down without a fight, and why 18 summers with your kids is really far fewer.

Then Mel shares something she told her mom on the back steps at 17. It's the part of this conversation we'll remember most.

Pull up a chair.

The question we leave on the table: If you did the math on the people you love most, what would you change?

We have more tools, more information and more knowledge about health than any generation before us. So why are we sicker than ever?

This one’s Mel’s world, with Chris asking the questions. And the thing we kept coming back to is simple: what’s common isn’t the same as what’s normal. Most of us stopped noticing the difference a long time ago.

There’s the doctor’s visit that sent a brand-new mom out of the office in tears, and the afternoon our son looked at his own dad like a stranger — and the doctor who decided it was Dad’s fault for traveling. What a food executive admitted happens to ketchup a little more every single year. And why the “health freak” of the family still keeps chips in the pantry and never misses pizza Friday.

We don’t have it all figured out. One of us thought gluten-free was nonsense right up until a Chipotle wrap proved otherwise.

Pull up a chair.

The question we leave on the table: What’s something everyone around you treats as normal that you’ve quietly stopped accepting?