Greetings, my own mother, my husband’s mother, and various mothers of high school students who are trying to obtain rights to perform monologues from my short plays! Maybe before you were watching Switched at Birth because I was writing for it for 3 seasons — but hear this: YOU STILL NEED TO WATCH IT. NOW. It’s fifth and final season is airing now on Freeform, and it’s blowing me away. Lizzy Weiss (show runner) never stops pushing herself, her writing staff, and then subsequently the network itself, to tell challenging stories that aren’t ever safe. On a network that’s designed to appeal to both teenagers and their parents, it’s hard to delve into  difficult social issues, like say, race, and it’s even harder to put your dearly loved main character (Daphne) in the thick of a really difficult moral and ethical conundrum. But Lizzy does it, in a way that’s both nuanced and surprising. As someone randomly wrote on my Facebook page today,’ Switched at Birth should be mandatory for high schoolers.’ TRUTH. But also, you should watch it too.