Paternal

Paternal

Nick Firchau

Paternal is a show about the brotherhood of fatherhood. Created and hosted by Nick Firchau, a longtime journalist and podcast producer, Paternal offers candid and in-depth conversations with great men who are quietly forging new paths in fatherhood. Listen as our diverse and thoughtful guests – a world-renowned soccer star in San Diego, a Oglala Sioux elder in South Dakota, a New York Knicks barber in Queens, a pioneering rock DJ in Seattle and many more - discuss the models of manhood that were passed down to them, and how they're redefining those models as they become fathers themselves.

#124 Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg: What Type Of Parent Are You?

#124 Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg: What Type Of Parent Are You?

Authoritarian parents. Permissive parents. Disengaged parents. Lighthouse parents. How would you describe the parents you had as a kid and, more importantly, what type are you now that you’re a parent? The answer could speak volumes about how you interact with your kids when it comes to the rules of the house, how to build resilience, and how much you value expressing emotions. And it will likely determine just how strong the bond is between you and your kids for the rest of their lives. On this

Feb 13, • 38:45

#123 Frank: A Father’s Week Of Life On The Street (2018)

#123 Frank: A Father’s Week Of Life On The Street (2018)

Meet Frank. He’s a 62 year-old father of four grown kids, and grandfather to seven grandchildren. Back in the summer of 2017, Frank decided to leave his home in San Diego and spend a week in Denver with his son Tommy, but it was no ordinary trip.  Tommy is a homeless drug addict who lives in and around Civic Center Park in Denver, and he needs help. But can a committed father really change the course of life for his son, who’s caught in the deadliest drug crisis in American history? On this 2018

Jan 29, • 47:25

#122 Scott Oake: The Perfect Place To Heal

#122 Scott Oake: The Perfect Place To Heal

Bruce Oake didn’t speak until the age of two, but once he started, he never stopped. A precocious kid with boundless energy growing up in Winnipeg, Oake was an amateur boxer as a teenager and a talented hip hop artist who adored the ragged, tough guy aura of some of his musical heroes. But by his mid-20s Bruce was firmly caught up in the opioid epidemic and struggling to find a way to get clean, leaving his parents to wonder what they could possibly do to help their son. On this episode of Pater

Jan 15, • 33:09

#121 Best of 2024: Conversations of the Year

#121 Best of 2024: Conversations of the Year

Paternal closes out the year with a collection of the best conversations from 2024, curating five of the best segments from the past year into one collection. On this episode, Paternal guests discuss a variety of topics, including why Evangelicals and young men flocked to Donald Trump during the presidential election, why black boys need love stories too, the role the gym plays for men as they deal with issues of grief and addiction, and why anxiety and anger are so prevelant for some men headin

Jan 2, • 1:00:20

#120 David Robertson: Learning To Live With Anxiety

#120 David Robertson: Learning To Live With Anxiety

When David Robertson discovered a mouse living in his minivan years ago, he knew it meant trouble. But what happened next - six weeks of Googling for information about mice, the viruses they carry, and the chances he might die from catching such an illness - was more than something a simple mousetrap could handle. It was indicative of the challenges Robertson faces every day, living with anxiety. On this episode of Paternal, Robertson discusses all the ways that anxiety has affected his life as

Dec 19, 2024 • 36:05

#119 Charles Bock: A Man In Over His Head

#119 Charles Bock: A Man In Over His Head

Sixteen years ago, novelist Charles Bock was the kind of guy who would never, ever want to appear on a podcast about fatherhood. He was single and living in New York City as an aspiring writer aching to finish his first novel and somehow get it published. He had no real desire to become a father, and he knew he was too immature to become anyone’s dad. And then he met Diana. On this episode of Paternal, Bock discusses what happens when a man reluctantly becomes a father, and then faces a life-alt

Dec 5, 2024 • 27:44

#118 Ian Marcus Corbin: The Science and Philosophy of Community

#118 Ian Marcus Corbin: The Science and Philosophy of Community

Three years after the worst of the COVID pandemic, is it really possible that America is still trapped in an epidemic of loneliness and isolation? Many of the nation’s experts believe it’s true, so much so that U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a report last year asserting the mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. And the crisis is disproportionately affecting men and young people, leaving many Americans searc

Nov 20, 2024 • 30:05

#117 John Branch: Donald Trump and the Battle For Male Voters

#117 John Branch: Donald Trump and the Battle For Male Voters

In one of the tightest presidential elections in U.S. history, is it possible that thousands of disaffected young men might be the ones casting the deciding votes? Donald Trump certainly thinks it’s a possibility, and the former president has made a concerted effort to court these Gen Z men through interviews with a constellation of podcast and YouTube stars of the Manoverse. But what’s really driving these men to turn out for Trump, and will the strategy work? On this episode of Paternal, Pulit

Oct 30, 2024 • 39:23

#116 Jason Reynolds: Black Boys Deserve Love Stories Too

#116 Jason Reynolds: Black Boys Deserve Love Stories Too

Over the past 10 years, Jason Reynolds has become one of the most prolific and celebrated writers working today. He writes for a young audience that he believes is ready to think about and discuss the hard things in life, and he recently added a MacArthur Genius Grant to his collection of awards earned for depicting the rich inner lives of kids of color, ensuring that they see themselves and their communities in literature. But in his latest book, Reynolds is writing for the first time about boy

Oct 17, 2024 • 37:23

#115 Gary Vider: The Con Man and The Comedian

#115 Gary Vider: The Con Man and The Comedian

Gary Vider is the son of a con man. His father Manny ran a series of schemes in and around New York City for years while Gary was growing up, including dozens of times when father and son conned their way into Madison Square Garden while posing as media members for Sports Illustrated for Kids. Gary met some of the biggest names in sports - John Elway, Mario Lemiuex, and even Michael Jordan - all because Manny had what all good con artists have: The ability to ignore all the possible consequence

Sep 18, 2024 • 38:10

#114 Mike Africa, Jr.: Prison, Parenthood, and the Legacy of a Revolution

#114 Mike Africa, Jr.: Prison, Parenthood, and the Legacy of a Revolution

Once you hear the story of the Black civil liberties group MOVE, it’s almost impossible to believe you never learned about it before. Dubbed by some as a cult and by others as revolutionaries in the mold of The Black Panther Party, MOVE members railed against racial injustice and inequality in Philadelphia during the 1970s and early 80s, frequently clashing with police. A number of MOVE’s members were either jailed or killed as a result, leaving its younger generation to make sense of the legacy

Aug 22, 2024 • 33:39

#113 Michael Ian Black: The Mystery Door To Male Competence (2022)

#113 Michael Ian Black: The Mystery Door To Male Competence (2022)

After a particularly feverish Twitter rant in 2018 landed him an invite to write a guest opinion on boys and violence from The New York Times, Michael Ian Black had to ask one simple question: Are you sure you want me? After all, Black is best known as a sketch and standup comic, and a particularly snarky one at that. But he wrote the essay and it subsequently went viral, leading Black to eventually pen the 2020 memoir A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter To My Son, which offers a candid ta

Aug 7, 2024 • 39:45

#112 W. Kamau Bell: Comedy, Cosby, And Raising Mixed Kids (2023)

#112 W. Kamau Bell: Comedy, Cosby, And Raising Mixed Kids (2023)

Over the past few years comedian and filmmaker W. Kamau Bell has become one of America’s most recognizable purveyors of humor and smart social commentary. And his success is due in large part to his willingness to tackle thorny topics like race, sexual assault, education, and policing, be it as a standup comic, an Emmy-nominated reality show host, or from behind the camera as a documentary filmmaker.  On this episode of Paternal, Bell discusses his latest film 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed and his

Jul 24, 2024 • 41:49

#111 Jonathan Rigsby: Behind The Wheel In Uber’s America

#111 Jonathan Rigsby: Behind The Wheel In Uber’s America

Everyone at some point has ridden in the back of an Uber, but how often do we think about the people behind the wheel, or how they got there? Jonathan Rigsby had a master’s degree and a full-time job when he gave his first Uber ride, reeling from a painful divorce and seeking a way to help support his young son. But Uber’s promises of big bucks and a flexible schedule were soon replaced by long nights filled with despair as Rigsby realized he, like millions of other Americans, had been trapped i

Jul 11, 2024 • 41:27

#110 Peter Doocy: Fatherhood and Fox News

#110 Peter Doocy: Fatherhood and Fox News

Peter Doocy isn’t the first guest to appear on Paternal as the son of a very famous father, but he’s definitely the only one who can claim to have an “adverserial bromance” with President Joe Biden. As the Senior White House Correspondent for Fox News, Doocy’s made it his job since 2021 to pepper the president and members of his administration with questions about immigration, inflation or international affairs, and in the process has become one of the network’s most recognizable figures - just

Jun 27, 2024 • 29:00

#109 The Best of Paternal: Real Advice For New Dads

#109 The Best of Paternal: Real Advice For New Dads

Paternal celebrates Father’s Day with a special episode paying tribute to all the new dads out there celebrating the holiday for the first time. Three past guests are back on the show to offer their thoughts on the early days of fatherhood and the challenges of becoming a new father, but also on the value of patience, the power a village has to raise a child, and why it’s so important to reconsider what we mean when we think of the word “sacrifice.” Guests on this episode of Paternal include aut

Jun 13, 2024 • 44:56

#108 Michael Andor Brodeur: Men, Muscles, and Masculinity

#108 Michael Andor Brodeur: Men, Muscles, and Masculinity

Michael Andor Brodeur is a “big man.” That’s the term he uses to describe himself after more than 30 years of lifting weights - some of those spent as a powerlifter, and all of those spent not just trying to get fit, but to get big. But for all the time he’s spent in the gym over the years, he’s probably spent just as much time thinking about the way men think about the connection between men, muscles, and masculinity. On this episode of Paternal, Brodeur discusses the concept of getting big and

May 30, 2024 • 33:33

#107 Bakari Sellers: It Might Not Be Okay

#107 Bakari Sellers: It Might Not Be Okay

When you’re talking to Bakari Sellers about fatherhood, you’re talking to a man who truly is a link between generations. As the son of a famous Civil Rights activist who befriended the likes of Stokely Carmichael and Martin Luther King, Jr., Sellers feels the weight of expectations from his ancestors and his community. And as the father of two young twins, he feels the pressure of helping ensure the world is better for them than it ever was for him. But what happens when that pressure sometimes

May 9, 2024 • 31:20

#106 Saul Austerlitz: Homer Simpson and The History of Sitcom Dads

#106 Saul Austerlitz: Homer Simpson and The History of Sitcom Dads

If you were a child of the 1980s and early 1990s, you lived through a golden age for sitcom dads. From The Cosby Show to Growing Pains and Roseanne to The Simpsons, fathers of all kinds ruled the airwaves for roughly a decade, providing an entire generation of wide-eyed kids a glimpse into what a father should look like and, for better or worse, what a family can be. But did these portrayals of paternal figures do more harm than good, and how did Friends and Seinfeld land a fatal blow to the fat

Apr 25, 2024 • 51:43

#105 Dr. Dennis S. Charney: How To Raise Resilient Kids

#105 Dr. Dennis S. Charney: How To Raise Resilient Kids

Paternal listeners email the show regularly with requests to cover various topics on the show. Some are serious and some are silly, but one request just keeps coming: How do we teach our kids resilience? Dr. Dennis S. Charney is a leading expert in the study of resilience and has spent decades examining the causes of anxiety, fear and depression. He’s also interviewed prisoners of war, victims of rape and assault, survivors of natural disasters, and frontline healthcare workers about the traits

Apr 10, 2024 • 33:33

#104 Rob Flanagan: Straddling Acceptance and Hope

#104 Rob Flanagan: Straddling Acceptance and Hope

Rob Flanagan is a husband and father who lives with his family outside of Boulder, Colorado, and roughly one year ago he and his wife Dana began an ordeal that changed their lives. After a few days of fighting a cold and a slight fever while missing out on attending kindergarten, their daughter Saoirse was suddenly hospitalized and then intubated, and it was unclear if she would ever wake up.  On this episode of Paternal, Flanagan recounts the experience of spending days in the ICU with his wife

Mar 27, 2024 • 42:37

#103 Waubgeshig Rice: The Pressure In My Head (2022)

#103 Waubgeshig Rice: The Pressure In My Head (2022)

Growing up on the Wasauksing First Nation indigenous reserve in Ontario, journalist and bestselling author Waubgeshig Rice learned early in his life about the value of culture and community. But as an Anishinaabe young man schooled in the challenges his ancestors faced as indigenous people in Canada, Rice was also keenly aware of what happens when a community loses its connection to its history, traditions and culture, and how men can easily fall victim to the effects of intergenerational trauma

Feb 28, 2024 • 38:54

#102 Kwame Alexander: What My Father Taught Me About Love (2023)

#102 Kwame Alexander: What My Father Taught Me About Love (2023)

Most people know Kwame Alexander as the Newbery Medal-winning author of The Crossover, the bestselling children’s book about two young brothers hooked on basketball. Long before he was an award-winning author, however, Alexander spent his time writing love poems, in an attempt to impress women and find his voice as a poet and a young man.  But three decades and two marriages later, Alexander is a 54-year-old father of two now reconsidering those relationships from his past, and what exactly he k

Feb 14, 2024 • 37:25

#101 Tim Alberta: My Father, My Faith, and Donald Trump

#101 Tim Alberta: My Father, My Faith, and Donald Trump

Longtime political journalist Tim Alberta spent more than three years speaking with pastors and churchgoers across the country in a search for answers about what’s happening in contemporary Evangelicalism. Why were so many congregations becoming more political, and seemingly less invested in traditional Christian values? Why were they so motivated by fear? How could so many Evangelicals support Donald Trump, who doesn’t share their beliefs? And what do all these dramatic changes mean for the fut

Jan 31, 2024 • 45:47

#100 Curtis Chin: Lessons From A Chinese Restaurant

#100 Curtis Chin: Lessons From A Chinese Restaurant

Curtis Chin spent most of his childhood looking for a comfortable place to sit. And that was especially difficult for Chin, who grew up in the 1970s and 80s as one of six kids raised by parents who owned Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, one of the most revered Chinese restaurants in Detroit. Despite its location in one of the roughest neighborhoods in the city, the restaurant sold more than four thousand egg rolls every week and was frequented by celebrities like Joni Mitchell, Smokey Robinson, and Se

Jan 17, 2024 • 38:19

#99 Best of 2023: Conversations of the Year

#99 Best of 2023: Conversations of the Year

Paternal closes out the year with a collection of the best conversations from 2023, curating five of the best segments from the past year into one collection. On this episode, Paternal guests discuss a variety of topics including the challenges of raising mixed-race kids, how father-son relationships impacted some of the biggest rock acts of the 1990s, how burnout at work can affect your parenting, dealing with grief after the loss of a partner, and how we can hold all the good and bad of life t

Dec 20, 2023 • 1:00:47

#98 Paternal Workshop: Sex and Intimacy

#98 Paternal Workshop: Sex and Intimacy

Award-winning research psychologist and professor Dr. Michael Addis returns to Paternal for the latest in a series of special episodes, this time to discuss the connection between the social construction of masculinity and men’s relationship with sex and intimacy. Men receive convoluted messages about what sex and intimacy are supposed to look like from an early age, but can they really take stock of what they’ve learned and change their behavior as they get older? Dr. Addis also discusses how b

Dec 6, 2023 • 33:52

#97 Brandon Stosuy: The Crying Guy

#97 Brandon Stosuy: The Crying Guy

Back in 2016, Brandon Stosuy began to notice something strange about many of the people around him. Seemingly no matter where he went - jogging in Brooklyn, riding the subway into Manhattan, waiting for a plane at JFK - he spotted someone crying. Stosuy has spent the past seven years thinking about those people and what brought them to tears, and now he’s become known to a number of his friends, thousands of strangers, and even a few famous rock musicians as The Crying Guy. On this episode of Pa

Nov 22, 2023 • 30:17

#96 Isaac Fitzgerald: Hope For A Lost Cause

#96 Isaac Fitzgerald: Hope For A Lost Cause

Isaac Fitzgerald has a large tattoo on his right forearm of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible or lost causes. It might seem like a fitting mark for a man who resorted to drugs and alcohol to endure a childhood full of insecurity and violence, but Saint Jude is also the patron saint of hope. And for Fitzgerald - the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Dirtbag, Massachusetts - hope lies in the communities where others might never expect to look. On this episode of Pater

Nov 8, 2023 • 36:45

#95 Bill McKibben: The Decade That Changed America

#95 Bill McKibben: The Decade That Changed America

Bill McKibben doesn’t exactly do memoirs. But the latest work from the bestselling author and influential environmental activist is about as close as he’ll get, examining why two crucial moments from his childhood - an anti-war protest followed by the rejection of low and middle-income housing in his otherwise affluent Massachusetts suburb - helped symbolize a dramatic and costly shift to individualism in America during the 1970s. On this episode of Paternal, McKibben reflects on those moments a

Oct 25, 2023 • 41:17

#94 Andre Dubus III: Fighting To Get Free

#94 Andre Dubus III: Fighting To Get Free

Acclaimed author Andre Dubus III once wrote that he’s drawn to writing about “working class men who work with their hands … men up against it who only know one or two ways how to get free, both of which can hurt other people or themselves.” Dubus knows from experience. He grew up in the 1970s and 80s with a famous but notoriously absent father in the mill towns along the Merrimack River in Massachusetts, always eager to throw a punch if it proved his worth as a man. His experiences led to the ce

Oct 11, 2023 • 37:20

#93 W. Kamau Bell: Comedy, Cosby, And Raising Mixed Kids

#93 W. Kamau Bell: Comedy, Cosby, And Raising Mixed Kids

Over the past few years comedian and filmmaker W. Kamau Bell has become one of America’s most recognizable purveyors of humor and smart social commentary. And his success is due in large part to his willingness to tackle thorny topics like race, sexual assault, education, and policing, be it as a standup comic, an Emmy-nominated reality show host, or from behind the camera as a documentary filmmaker.  On this episode of Paternal, Bell discusses his latest film 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed and his

Sep 27, 2023 • 41:56

#92 Israel del Toro, Jr.: You’re Not Gonna Die Here

#92 Israel del Toro, Jr.: You’re Not Gonna Die Here

When Israel “DT” Del Toro, Jr. was 12 years old, he made a promise to his ailing father that he would always watch over his younger siblings, and take care of his family. When he was a 30 year-old Staff Sergeant in the Air Force, he made a promise to his wife and young son that he would return safely from Afghanistan. But then everything changed with a flash of light and an explosion that literally shook the ground beneath his feet, leaving Del Toro, Jr. severely wounded and wondering if he woul

Sep 13, 2023 • 32:35

#91 Jay Rosenblatt: How Do You Measure A Year?

#91 Jay Rosenblatt: How Do You Measure A Year?

Roughly two decades ago filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt started a ritual with his daughter Ella that he never expected would lead anywhere but the family archives. But the project that unfolded - an annual series of questions he asked Ella on her birthday until she turned 18 - eventually led to an acclaimed portrayal of a father-daughter relationship, and an Academy Award nomination.  On this episode of Paternal, Rosenblatt looks back on the origins of his celebrated short film How Do You Measure A Yea

Aug 23, 2023 • 29:08

#90 Alexi Lalas: Embracing Kids And Critics (2018)

#90 Alexi Lalas: Embracing Kids And Critics (2018)

Alexi Lalas knows all about opportunity. As a professional soccer player and member of the United States national team during the 1990s, Lalas used the global platform of the 1994 FIFA World Cup to introduce the world to his carefully cultivated image of a rebellious red-headed rockstar with a love for the world’s game, and life’s never been the same since. More than two decades later Lalas is still in the public eye as a television analyst for Fox Sports at this summer’s Women’s World Cup in Au

Aug 9, 2023 • 35:37

#89 Rob Harvilla: Dad Rock Comes For Every Man

#89 Rob Harvilla: Dad Rock Comes For Every Man

Longtime rock critic Rob Harvilla has made a lengthy career out of his love for the '90s-era songs that shaped his days as a teenager and college student. He’s the host of the hit podcast “60 Songs That Explain the ‘90s” and he’s built a devoted fan base of equally obsessed music fans while exploring songs from artists like Nirvana, Madonna, REM, and the Wu-Tang Clan. But despite his success, sometimes he just likes to mow the lawn with an old Soul Asylum album in his headphones before he gets b

Jul 26, 2023 • 48:34

#88 Jake Tapper: Leadership and Vulnerability

#88 Jake Tapper: Leadership and Vulnerability

Jake Tapper has been a leading figure in American media for more than a decade, serving as the chief DC anchor at CNN, the host of the network’s weekday show “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” and the co-host of the Sunday public-affairs show, “State of the Union.” During that time he’s interviewed some of the most consequential and controversial figures in American politics, and in the process learned a few things about why powerful men are so reluctant to admit when they’re wrong, and what it costs

Jul 12, 2023 • 36:29

#87 Matt Moore: Meat, Men, And The Fourth of July

#87 Matt Moore: Meat, Men, And The Fourth of July

Good food has always been an integral part of Matt Moore’s family. As the grandson of a man who helped run a popular food store in southern Georgia and the grand nephew of a soldier who endured World War II in part on his family’s famous fried chicken, Moore has always been connected to the role food can play in a family’s story. And now, as a Nashville-based cook, father, and the author of five popular cookbooks, Moore spends his days cooking for his family and preaching how other men can make

Jun 28, 2023 • 26:43

#86 The Best of Paternal: Advice For New Dads, Part 2

#86 The Best of Paternal: Advice For New Dads, Part 2

Paternal celebrates Father’s Day by paying tribute to all the new dads out there celebrating the holiday for the first time, this time by bringing back three of the show’s most beloved guests to weigh in on how they survived the early days of parenting. The guests weigh in on what surprised them about becoming a father, what they did right as new dads, what they did wrong, and which piece of advice they would give their new-dad selves all these years later. Guests on this special episode of Pate

Jun 14, 2023 • 35:49

#85 Kwame Alexander: What My Father Taught Me About Love

#85 Kwame Alexander: What My Father Taught Me About Love

Most people know Kwame Alexander as the Newbery Medal-winning author of The Crossover, the bestselling children’s book about two young brothers hooked on basketball. Long before he was an award-winning author, however, Alexander spent his time writing love poems, in an attempt to impress women and find his voice as a poet and a young man.  But three decades and two marriages later, Alexander is a 54-year-old father of two now reconsidering those relationships from his past, and what exactly he k

May 17, 2023 • 36:55

#84 Jonathan Malesic: Dads, Work, And Burnout

#84 Jonathan Malesic: Dads, Work, And Burnout

Jonathan Malesic spent more than a decade in what he thought was his dream job as a college professor. But after years on the clock he found himself exhausted, angry, and struggling to feel like he was making an impact with his students. But even when he quit his job in order to solve one problem, he quickly realized he had another on his hands: Without a job, was he suddenly less of a man? On this episode of Paternal, Malesic recounts the experience that led him to studying the phenomeno

May 3, 2023 • 38:57

#83 Bryce Andrews: My Grandfather’s Gun

#83 Bryce Andrews: My Grandfather’s Gun

When Bryce Andrews was a kid growing up in Seattle, he always admired Montana-born cowboys, and men who rope and herd cattle. So when he finally drove over the Cascades and settled in Montana as a young, do-it-all cattle rancher working under an endless blue sky, he knew he’d found his place. But then he was gifted his grandfather’s Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, a weapon that fascinated him as a little boy and haunted him as a man living alone on a desolate cattle ranch an hour’s drive

Apr 19, 2023 • 39:03

#82 Paternal Workshop: Everything Turns Into Anger

#82 Paternal Workshop: Everything Turns Into Anger

Award-winning research psychologist and professor Dr. Michael Addis returns to Paternal for the latest in a series of special episodes, this time to discuss the complicated relationship so many men have with anger. We teach boys that anger is an acceptable emotion even at a very young age, but what’s really at the core of the issue when a boy or man loses his temper? Dr. Addis also dives deep into the connection between anger and control, why so many men are ambivalent about each other's angry o

Apr 5, 2023 • 32:58

#81 Clint Smith: Holding It All Together

#81 Clint Smith: Holding It All Together

Clint Smith is a man deeply interested in the contrasts and complexities of the human experience. Be it in his professional life as the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestselling narrative nonfiction book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery, or in his personal life as an often-humbled father to two young children, Smith is constantly considering how experiences shape us as people. “Parenthood is the most remarkable, awe-inspiring experience of your life,

Mar 22, 2023 • 37:54

#80 Matthew Salesses: A Sense Of Wonder

#80 Matthew Salesses: A Sense Of Wonder

Matthew Salesses clearly remembers the first time he saw Jeremy Lin on the basketball court. It was three years before Lin became an international celebrity and “Linsanity” took over Madison Square Garden in New York City, but even then Salesses knew there was something special about watching an Asian American basketball player dominate on the court. More than a decade later Lin’s rise to fame - and the mix of recognition and racism he endured on the way - is the template for Salesses’s new nove

Mar 8, 2023 • 38:12

#79 Jaed Coffin: Bloodlines And Boxing (2020)

#79 Jaed Coffin: Bloodlines And Boxing (2020)

When Jaed Coffin was 23 years old he had recently graduated from college, and like a lot of people in that stage of their lives, he found himself looking ... for something. What he found was an austere and single-minded life in Southeast Alaska, training to become the next big thing in the sport of roughhouse boxing, a boozy, bloody, and rugged class of amateur boxing. Coffin chronicled his rise from wide-eyed novice to eventual middleweight champion in his 2019 memoir Roughhouse Friday, which t

Feb 22, 2023 • 39:16

#78 Dan Houser: Anger Is Your Armor

#78 Dan Houser: Anger Is Your Armor

When Dan Houser was in his 20s, he would walk down the street and smash the windows out of parked cars. In the bars he would have a few drinks, eyeball the worst-looking guy in the place, and start a fight. After years of powerlifting he had built himself into a frightening 250-pound man who never cared about consequences, and knew that no one could stop him. But now, more than 20 years removed from his days as a man motivated by confrontation, Houser reflects on the armor he built around

Feb 9, 2023 • 31:51

#77 John Vercher: Acting In The Face Of Fear

#77 John Vercher: Acting In The Face Of Fear

What does it mean to truly face down one of the biggest fears in your life? John Vercher went through much of his life being scared, until he couldn’t take it anymore. Following years of training and decades after he was weaned on 1980s-era martial arts theater programs on television, Vercher stepped inside the cage for a mixed martial arts fight during his mid 30s, seeking the answer to one question: Can I do something in the face of my fear? More than a decade later Vercher is a father of two

Jan 25, 2023 • 27:02

#76 Jesse Leon: The Unbreakable Man

#76 Jesse Leon: The Unbreakable Man

Paternal opens 2023 with a conversation with Jesse Leon, a 48 year-old author and social impact consultant who has endured life experiences unlike any other guest in Paternal’s past. As the son of immigrants and raised in a working-class neighborhood in San Diego, Leon grew up hiding a painful secret from his community and from his father, a former Mexican boxer who embodied the negative aspects of machismo culture and lived by the motto, “there are no friends in this world, and trust no man.”

Jan 11, 2023 • 33:51

#75 Best of 2022: Conversations of the Year

#75 Best of 2022: Conversations of the Year

Paternal closes out the year with a collection of the best conversations from 2022, curating five of the best segments from the past year into one collection. On this episode, Paternal guests discuss a variety of topics including the personal, psychological effects of waging war in Afghanistan, why there are no father figures in the world of Star Wars, the legacy of Richard Pryor on comedy and male vulnerability, why your kids are smarter and more capable than you think, and why sons are tasked

Dec 29, 2022 • 54:52

#74 Paternal Workshop: The Scallop Problem

#74 Paternal Workshop: The Scallop Problem

Author and professor Andrew Reiner returns to Paternal for the latest in a series of special episodes, this time to discuss how and why men often neglect to examine and express their emotional needs in a relationship, and what happens when they seethe in silence. Reiner is the author of the 2020 book Better Boys, Better Men and earlier this year wrote an article for The Washington Post about why men are often taught very young to diminish, or even ignore, their emotions in relationships. The a

Dec 14, 2022 • 28:14

#73 Kurt Braunohler: You’re Such A F*cking Baby

#73 Kurt Braunohler: You’re Such A F*cking Baby

Does the world really need another dad comic? Kurt Braunohler certainly doesn’t think so, but as a 40-something father of two and a proven comic who’s been on stage since the late 1990s, Braunohler is walking a fine line. Dubbed “a charismatic comedian with a flair for the absurd” by the New York Times and “the closest thing we have to a real-life Willy Wonka” by Vice,  Braunohler is discussing more personal and vulnerable topics these days, including fatherhood, and his own relationship with a

Nov 16, 2022 • 33:48

#72 Pietro La Greca Jr.: The Don Corleone of Mexico

#72 Pietro La Greca Jr.: The Don Corleone of Mexico

When Pietro La Greca Jr. was 13 years old, his father bought him a solid gold Piaget Polo watch. Not because it was his birthday or because it was Christmas. Just because he could. When Pietro Jr. learned to drive, his father gave him an all-white Mercedes-Benz 500 S Class with white rims that could do 170 miles per hour on the highway between San Diego and Tijuana. Such was the life for the son of the greatest money man along the U.S.-Mexico border, and someone once dubbed “Mexico’s real life D

Nov 2, 2022 • 36:56

#71 Cory Silverberg: Sex Is A Funny Word

#71 Cory Silverberg: Sex Is A Funny Word

When Cory Silverberg was 17 years old growing up in Canada, there simply weren’t many resources available for a teenager confused about gender. But Silverberg - who uses they pronouns, and doesn’t identify as a man - found surprising solace in the form of a retail job at a local sex shop, and discovered a rare super power that would shape their life. “Other people’s sex stuff didn’t freak me out,” Silverberg says, “and I knew how to show that it didn’t freak me out.” Decades later Silverbe

Oct 19, 2022 • 40:11

#70 Ted Bunch: A Cry For Healthier Manhood

#70 Ted Bunch: A Cry For Healthier Manhood

Ted Bunch has spent the bulk of his adult life as an educator, activist and lecturer, focused specifically on the intersection of masculinity and violence against women. He’s also spent 18 years as the Chief Development Officer of the violence prevention organization A Call To Men, and in that time he’s become one of the nation’s leading voices on the perils of male socialization and the misperception of toxic masculinity. On this 2020 episode of Paternal, Bunch breaks down the challenges men an

Oct 5, 2022 • 30:12

#69 Dr. Michael Thompson: Emotional Illiteracy Of Fathers And Sons (2018)

#69 Dr. Michael Thompson: Emotional Illiteracy Of Fathers And Sons (2018)

Long before he became one of the nation’s leading voices on the emotional lives of adolescent boys, psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Michael G. Thompson actually focused his studies on the psychological issues of young women. “I got into schools as a consultant,” Thompson says, “and all of a sudden, all of my work was little boys.” Thompson and co-author Dan Kindlon released their acclaimed book Raising Cain in April 1999, six days after the shooting at Columbine High Scho

Sep 21, 2022 • 45:41

#68 David Ambroz: A Place Called Home

#68 David Ambroz: A Place Called Home

Memories are a tricky subject for David Ambroz. He has no photo albums documenting his childhood, and no adults who he can ask about where he came from. He never marked the passage of time by holidays or school years, and his height was never measured on a wall in the kitchen of a home. Instead Ambroz and his family moved in and out of apartments and homeless shelters and lived a life of poverty, violence, and instability wherever they turned.  Now in his early 40s, Ambroz is considered one of t

Sep 7, 2022 • 40:23

#67 Paternal Workshop: The Problem In Your Group Chat

#67 Paternal Workshop: The Problem In Your Group Chat

Award-winning research psychologist and professor Dr. Michael Addis returns to Paternal for the latest in a series of special episodes, this time to discuss how male group dynamics work, and what happens when one guy crosses the line. He also explains why some men lean on misogyny or homophobia in order to win over a crowd of new male friends, and the stakes for everyone involved. He also introduces the concept of TRAP (trigger, response, avoidance pattern) and why it’s crucial for men to identi

Aug 24, 2022 • 31:37

#66 Chris Ballew: Fame, Fatherhood, and Caspar Babypants (2020)

#66 Chris Ballew: Fame, Fatherhood, and Caspar Babypants (2020)

Even before his third birthday, Chris Ballew was transfixed by music. He would sit on the floor in his parents’ Seattle-area home and listen to The Beatles’ seminal 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and not long after he was writing and performing his own songs. By the mid-90s he was fronting the Presidents of the United States of America -  one of the hottest bands in rock'n'roll - and appearing regularly on MTV. But he was quietly harboring a secret: “On a gut level, I wanted o

Aug 10, 2022 • 29:47

#65 Steve Leder: Twelve Questions to Tell a Life Story

#65 Steve Leder: Twelve Questions to Tell a Life Story

Steve Leder is a husband, father, bestselling author and, as the senior rabbi at Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, one the most influential religious leaders in America. During his 35 years at Southern California’s oldest synagogue he has proven to be something of an expert in the human experience, and overseen not just regular services at the temple, but also countless weddings - including that of his friend and Academy Award winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin - and his fair share of fun

Jul 27, 2022 • 38:59

#64 Jason Kander: Politics, Parenthood, and PTSD

#64 Jason Kander: Politics, Parenthood, and PTSD

Back in early 2018, Jason Kander was riding high as one of the brightest young stars in American politics. After becoming the youngest statewide elected official in the nation and nearly toppling a Republican incumbent for a U.S. Senate seat from his native Missouri, Kander was invited to meet with Barack Obama, where the former president personally encouraged Kander to one day consider his own run for the White House, telling Kander, “You have what I had. You’re the natural.”  But Kander’s publ

Jul 13, 2022 • 41:57

#63 Jesse Thistle: Tracing Our Fathers’ Footsteps (2021)

#63 Jesse Thistle: Tracing Our Fathers’ Footsteps (2021)

Jesse Thistle is an assistant professor at York University in Toronto and an award-winning memoirist who wrote the top-selling Canadian book in 2020, but his success didn’t come easily. Prior to penning his celebrated emotional memoir From the Ashes, Thistle spent years struggling with issues of addiction and homelessness, a lifestyle he sees to some degree as the result of the absence of a father figure in his life. His own father was an addict and a thief who disappeared nearly 40 years ago, a

Jun 22, 2022 • 36:59

#62 The Best of Paternal: Advice for New Dads

#62 The Best of Paternal: Advice for New Dads

The new dads have spoken, and they want some help. So in honor of those men celebrating Father’s Day for the first time this year, Paternal welcomes back four favorite guests from the past to offer advice on how to survive those early days of parenthood, including what they did right, what they did wrong, and what lessons they learned in the process of becoming a father. Guests on this special episode include New York Times chief theater critic Jesse Green, entrepreneur Jelani Memory, author

Jun 15, 2022 • 42:48

#61 Andrew Reiner: Better Boys, Better Men

#61 Andrew Reiner: Better Boys, Better Men

A number of years ago, the dean at the Honors College at Towson University in Maryland went on the prowl for ideas for new seminar courses at the college. Andrew Reiner wasted no time in offering an idea for a seminar on a subject that he says has become a compulsion in his life: Masculinity. What if the school offered a course where he could work with students to deconstruct our ideas around masculinity and what it looks like now for a new generation of college students, men and women?   On thi

Jun 1, 2022 • 38:27

#60 Michael Ian Black: The Mystery Door To Male Competence

#60 Michael Ian Black: The Mystery Door To Male Competence

After a particularly feverish Twitter rant in 2018 landed him an invite to write a guest opinion on boys and violence from The New York Times, Michael Ian Black had to ask one simple question: Are you sure you want me? After all, Black is best known as a sketch and standup comic, and a particularly snarky one at that. But he wrote the essay and it subsequently went viral, leading Black to eventually pen the 2020 memoir A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter To My Son, which offers a candid take

May 18, 2022 • 39:23

#59 Akhil Sharma: Fatherhood at Fifty

#59 Akhil Sharma: Fatherhood at Fifty

Of all the guests on Paternal over the years, it’s safe to say that Akhil Sharma was the last guy who would have expected to appear on a podcast about fatherhood. Over the past three decades he carved out a nice life as an Ivy League educated investment banker, and then a successful writer and college professor. Fatherhood never really entered the equation because, in his mind, he was worthless when it came to what he could possibly teach a child.  On this episode of Paternal, Sharma reflects on

May 4, 2022 • 35:11

#58 Eric Larsen: On The Ice With A Polar Explorer (2018)

#58 Eric Larsen: On The Ice With A Polar Explorer (2018)

For centuries, the ends of the Earth have captivated and courted the world’s bravest characters. The highest peaks of the Himalayas, the furthest depths of the oceans, and the poles, frozen pinpoints on opposite ends of the globe that still serve as two of the most ambitious destinations for a certain type of person you may have thought died out years ago: The explorers. Eric Larsen is one of those people, a veteran explorer who has not only reached both the geographic north and south poles, but

Apr 6, 2022 • 35:17

#57 Paternal Workshop: The Masculinity Trap

#57 Paternal Workshop: The Masculinity Trap

Award-winning research psychologist and professor Dr. Michael Addis returns to Paternal for the third in a series of special episodes examining various issues affecting men’s mental health. In this episode, Dr. Addis calls on his decades of research to break down the links between social learning and the social construction of masculinity, and why he considers masculinity a form of anxiety disorder for some men. Dr. Addis also explains how and when young boys are first exposed to the ideas of ma

Mar 23, 2022 • 34:41

#56 Max Lowe: Daddy’s On The Mountain

#56 Max Lowe: Daddy’s On The Mountain

One world-renowned climber dies and leaves a widow and three young sons behind, and his climbing partner and best friend helps pick up the pieces by marrying the widow and helping raise a trio of boys who lost their father. Among the world’s mountaineers, climbers and explorers, the life and tragic death of Alex Lowe is nothing short of legend. For newcomers hearing the story for the first time, it’s a fascinating examination of circumstance and fate, love lost and then rediscovered.    But for

Mar 9, 2022 • 38:18

#55 Daniel José Older: Fatherhood In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

#55 Daniel José Older: Fatherhood In A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Daniel José Older was three years old when he caught his first glimpse of the characters who occupied the Star Wars galaxy, and he was so frightened he made a run for the exit of the movie theater. But Older - now a New York Times bestselling fantasy and sci-fi author - went back in, and his life has never been the same. Older is a lead story architect for Star Wars: The High Republic, a series of young adult and middle grade novels and comic books, and he’s keenly aware that most of the Star Wa

Feb 23, 2022 • 37:19

#54 Mickey Rowe: The World Needs What Makes You Different

#54 Mickey Rowe: The World Needs What Makes You Different

Mickey Rowe has made a career out of one simple motto: The world needs what makes you different. An autistic actor who started out as a street performer in Seattle but was never given speaking roles in the theater during his 20s, Rowe eventually earned the lead role in the theater adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In the process Rowe became the first autistic actor to play the demanding lead role of Christopher Boone, a teenager on the s

Feb 9, 2022 • 40:02

#53 Brendan Kiely: Reckoning With Our White Privilege

#53 Brendan Kiely: Reckoning With Our White Privilege

Author and teacher Brendan Kiely has spent years speaking to young adults about the difficult issues they might face in their teen years, and he’s in awe of the amount of hope that lies within the next generation. But after seemingly endless recent incidents of police brutality against African American men and the centuries of racism that came before, he’s writing for young adults about what it means to live with the benefits of white privilege. And he’s figuring out how to start the same conver

Jan 26, 2022 • 37:05

#52 Waubgeshig Rice: The Pressure In My Head

#52 Waubgeshig Rice: The Pressure In My Head

Growing up on the Wasauksing First Nation indigenous reserve in Ontario, journalist and bestselling author Waubgeshig Rice learned early in his life about the value of culture and community. But as an Anishinaabe young man schooled in the challenges his ancestors faced as indigenous people in Canada, Rice was also keenly aware of what happens when a community loses its connection to its history, traditions and culture, and how men can easily fall victim to the effects of intergenerational trauma

Jan 12, 2022 • 37:49

#51 Paternal Workshop: Holiday Anxiety and New Year’s Resolutions

#51 Paternal Workshop: Holiday Anxiety and New Year’s Resolutions

Award-winning research psychologist and professor Dr. Michael Addis returns to Paternal for the second in a series of special episodes examining various issues in men’s mental health, and the final episode of Paternal for 2021. In this episode, Dr. Addis discusses a variety of issues brought on by the holiday season, including anxiety, stress, loneliness, and why we create a mythology around the holidays that can be tough to live up to year after year. Dr. Addis also discusses the value of New Y

Dec 22, 2021 • 21:54

#50 Ivan Maisel: Love And Grief

#50 Ivan Maisel: Love And Grief

Former Sports Illustrated and ESPN journalist Ivan Maisel spent the bulk of his life holding big emotions at bay, and turning to run at the first sign of emotional pain. It was behavior learned from years of watching his parents, who valued strength and stoicism in the face of tragedy, which Maisel himself successfully dodged for 55 years. Then his son Max went missing, and everything changed. On this episode of Paternal, Maisel discusses his 2021 memoir I Keep Trying To Catch His Eye and reflec

Dec 8, 2021 • 38:40

#49 Iain Cunningham: My Mother’s Ghost

#49 Iain Cunningham: My Mother’s Ghost

Documentary filmmaker and father Iain Cunningham knows all about the myths we like to tell ourselves about family. But he knows just as much about the details our parents sometimes leave out, and the impact those family secrets can have on children who never learn the truth. Cunningham’s mother Irene passed away when he was just three years old, and his family rarely spoke or shared memories of her for decades, leaving Iain to wonder what kind of person his mother was, and what exactly led to he

Nov 17, 2021 • 36:54

#48 Omar Mouallem: Faith and Fatherhood

#48 Omar Mouallem: Faith and Fatherhood

Journalist and filmmaker Omar Mouallem first learned he was Muslim when his mother scolded him for eating Hawaiian pizza during preschool. Over the past three decades he’s tried to make sense what exactly his faith means to him and how he identifies as Muslim as grown man and a father, punctuated with the release of his acclaimed 2021 examination of Islam’s role in the Americas, Praying to the West. On this episode of Paternal, Mouallem reflects on his Lebanese parents and the moment he realized

Nov 3, 2021 • 40:46

#47 Paternal Workshop: Shame And Coming Up Short

#47 Paternal Workshop: Shame And Coming Up Short

Award-winning research psychologist and professor Dr. Michael Addis returns to Paternal for the first in a series of special episodes examining various issues in men’s mental health. In this episode, Dr. Addis dives deep into the topic of shame, including the definition of shame, what triggers the emotion in men, and how it manifests itself in men’s behavior.   Dr. Addis also explains why he chose shame as the first topic in a series of these special episodes of Paternal, why most people avoid s

Oct 20, 2021 • 25:40

#46 Dr. Ian Kerner: The Sex Episode

#46 Dr. Ian Kerner: The Sex Episode

Dr. Ian Kerner is a licensed psychotherapist and nationally recognized sexuality counselor who specializes in sex therapy, couples therapy and working with individuals on a range of relational issues that often lead to distress. He’s the author of a number of books on sexuality including the new York times bestseller She Comes First, and earlier this year released his latest book, So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex, where he shares the some fundamental exercises he uses to help thousands

Oct 6, 2021 • 40:22

#45 Jesse Thistle: Tracing Our Fathers’ Footsteps

#45 Jesse Thistle: Tracing Our Fathers’ Footsteps

Jesse Thistle is an assistant professor at York University in Toronto and an award-winning memoirist who wrote the top-selling Canadian book in 2020, but his success didn’t come easily. Prior to penning his celebrated emotional memoir From the Ashes, Thistle spent years struggling with issues of addiction and homelessness, a lifestyle he sees to some degree as the result of the absence of a father figure in his life. His own father was an addict and a thief who disappeared nearly 40 years ago, a

Sep 22, 2021 • 35:30

#44 Jelani Memory: How To Have Tough Conversations With Your Kids

#44 Jelani Memory: How To Have Tough Conversations With Your Kids

When it comes to being a father, Jelani Memory lives by a fairly simple motto: Kids are ready to have difficult conversations. He and his wife have put that idea into practice with their six kids and he’s also made it the anchor of A Kids Company About, a media company he co-founded in 2019 that focuses on developing books, podcasts and online courses rooted in helping parents better communicate with their kids about tough topics like racism, shame, gender, addiction and more. A Kids Company Abo

Sep 8, 2021 • 36:53

#43 Jordan Shapiro: The 21st Century Father Figure

#43 Jordan Shapiro: The 21st Century Father Figure

It doesn’t really matter if you’ve seen a single episode of the 1950s sitcom Father Knows Best to understand the template for what a TV dad is supposed to be like. He works hard all day and inevitably serves as the family’s main source of some combination of three things: tough love, gentle fatherly insight or bumbling but endearing ineptitude. Jordan Shapiro is out to help break the mold. A father of four, senior fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at the Sesame Workshop, and former New York

Aug 25, 2021 • 37:39

#42 Joshua Mohr: Father, Son, Addict, Survivor

#42 Joshua Mohr: Father, Son, Addict, Survivor

Novelist and memoirist Joshua Mohr has managed to be a number of different men in his life. He’s been a writer, college professor, husband, father, son, addict and survivor, and he’s committed himself over the past few years to ensuring that his daughter understands exactly how all those men can fit into one lifetime. That effort culminated in the 2021 memoir Model Citizen, which looks back on Josh’s decades of drug and alcohol abuse in the bars and streets of San Francisco and subsequent healt

Aug 4, 2021 • 36:27

#41 Chris Jones: When Life Becomes A Smoking Crater

#41 Chris Jones: When Life Becomes A Smoking Crater

Journalist and screenwriter Chris Jones spent 14 years as a contributing editor and writer-at-large for the men’s magazine Esquire, writing everything from celebrity profiles on George Clooney and Penelope Cruz to in-depth features on astronauts, soldiers and wild animal zookeepers. He twice won the National Magazine Award in Feature Writing for his work at the magazine, in large part because of his commitment to looking back on past events and dissecting how they happened. And what went wrong.

Jul 21, 2021 • 33:46

#40 Dr. Michael Addis: The Isolation Of Modern Men

#40 Dr. Michael Addis: The Isolation Of Modern Men

The worst of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be over in the United States. More than half the U.S. population has received at one least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and new daily cases of the disease are at their lowest point since the early days of the pandemic in April 2020. But that doesn’t mean that the stress and anxiety building over the past 16 months is gone, especially for men still struggling to articulate or even identify how they’re feeling when it comes to careers, relationships

Jul 7, 2021 • 36:35

#39 Chris Ballew: Fame, Fatherhood, and Caspar Babypants

#39 Chris Ballew: Fame, Fatherhood, and Caspar Babypants

Even before his third birthday, Chris Ballew was transfixed by music. He would sit on the floor in his parents’ Seattle-area home and listen to The Beatles’ seminal 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and not long after he was writing and performing his own songs. By the mid-90s he was fronting the Presidents of the United States of America -  one of the hottest bands in rock'n'roll - and appearing regularly on MTV. But he was quietly harboring a secret: “On a gut level, I wanted o

Jul 22, 2020 • 29:15

#38 Jayson Greene: The Language of Grief

#38 Jayson Greene: The Language of Grief

When Jayson Greene was in the fourth grade, his teacher gave him an assignment that most kids get at some point in grade school: What do you want to be when you grow up? Jayson mentioned two goals for himself, one of which may come as a surprise for a kid in grade school. He wanted to be a writer, and a father. On this episode of Paternal, Jayson discusses his celebrated 2019 memoir Once More We Saw Stars, which chronicles the life and death of his two-year-old daughter Greta, and how he and his

Jul 1, 2020 • 32:12

#37 Ted Bunch: A Cry For Healthier Manhood

#37 Ted Bunch: A Cry For Healthier Manhood

Ted Bunch has spent the bulk of his adult life as an educator, activist and lecturer, focused specifically on the intersection of masculinity and violence against women. He’s also spent 18 years as the Chief Development Officer of the violence prevention organization A Call To Men, and in that time he’s become one of the nation’s leading voices on the perils of male socialization and the misperception of toxic masculinity. On this episode of Paternal, Bunch breaks down the challenges men and boy

Jun 17, 2020 • 30:08

#36: Conversations About Race And Fatherhood

#36: Conversations About Race And Fatherhood

Paternal dives back into the archives to share the stories of three previous guests all focused on one topic: What it’s like to raise African American kids in the United States. This special episode begins with Ryan Harris, who spent nine years as an offensive lineman in the National Football League and won a Super Bowl in 2015 with the Denver Broncos. In this excerpt taken from his May 2018 episode, Harris outlines his experience raising his son and daughter in Denver, and discusses the unspoke

Jun 3, 2020 • 27:09

#35 Jaed Coffin: Bloodlines And Boxing

#35 Jaed Coffin: Bloodlines And Boxing

When Jaed Coffin was 23 years old he had recently graduated from college, and like a lot of people in that stage of their lives, he found himself looking ... for something. What he found was an austere and single-minded life in Southeast Alaska, training to become the next big thing in the sport of roughhouse boxing, a boozy, bloody, and rugged class of amateur boxing. Coffin chronicled his rise from wide-eyed novice to eventual middleweight champion in his 2019 memoir Roughhouse Friday, which t

May 26, 2020 • 38:37

#34 John Richards: Quarantine Radio

#34 John Richards: Quarantine Radio

When news first broke that the Coronavirus pandemic had come to Seattle, John Richards had no idea how he could keep doing his job. More than two months later, his work has never been important. Richards is a father of two boys and the host of the “The Morning Show” on 90.3 KEXP FM in Seattle. KEXP is an independent radio station supported largely by its listeners, so that means John and the other DJs are free to take requests from people all over the world and play whatever they want. And the s

May 11, 2020 • 22:39

#33 Scott Cooper: The Front Lines of Coronavirus

#33 Scott Cooper: The Front Lines of Coronavirus

When beloved children’s television icon Fred Rogers was a child he would sometimes see troubling stories or images in the news, and he would look to his mother for help. Her advice was simple, but left its mark: “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Season 4 of Paternal opens with a conversation with Scott Cooper, a New Jersey-based single father of two with a daily glimpse into the severity of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. Scott is the Director of Professiona

Apr 23, 2020 • 27:39

#32 The Best of Paternal: Let Me Tell You About My Dad

#32 The Best of Paternal: Let Me Tell You About My Dad

Paternal celebrates Father’s Day by looking back at some of the show’s best interviews while focusing about one thing in particular: What we think of when we think about our dads. Although that’s a topic that has come up quite a bit on the show over the first 31 episodes, certain guests over the years have offered candid insight into their relationships with their own dads, the good stuff and the bad. Paternal host Nick Firchau offers up conversations with six previous guests and each man reflec

Jun 13, 2019 • 49:43

#31 Keith Gaston: Tales of Teaching Fatherhood

#31 Keith Gaston: Tales of Teaching Fatherhood

Keith Gaston is a father, social worker and, just like his dad, a man born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. But the city has changed in the decades since Gaston grew up there, with a climbing unemployment rate, a declining city population and issues with gun violence and drugs that are taking a toll on some of the city’s young men. That’s where Gaston has stepped in, focused on teaching those same men the skills of being a father. On this episode of Paternal, Gaston reflects on an ambitious

May 29, 2019 • 27:35

#30 Jesse Green: The Gay History of Your Favorite Children’s Books

#30 Jesse Green: The Gay History of Your Favorite Children’s Books

Back in 1970, author and illustrator Arnold Lobel released the first in a series of award-winning children’s books chronicling the adventures of two good friends: Frog and Toad. Though the pair’s sexuality was never explicitly disclosed in the books, was it possible that Lobel created the characters to teach children about ideas of acceptance, tolerance and compassion? Author, father, and New York Times co-chief theater critic Jesse Green recently examined works by Lobel, Margaret Wise Brown, Ma

May 8, 2019 • 36:27

#29 Craig Scott: Twenty Years After Columbine

#29 Craig Scott: Twenty Years After Columbine

Craig Scott was a sophomore at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, when two students descended on the school and unleashed what was, at the time, the deadliest high school shooting in American history. And though Scott survived by hiding under a desk in the library, the shooters killed 12 students and a teacher that day, including Scott's friends, classmates, and older sister Rachel. Scott is now a speaker with and a co-founder of the Denver-based non-profit organization Value Up, dedicated

Apr 17, 2019 • 33:51

#28 Dr. Kyle Pruett: The Benefits of Engaged Dads

#28 Dr. Kyle Pruett: The Benefits of Engaged Dads

How many times have mothers and fathers argued about roughhousing with young kids, or why dad is a different disciplinarian than mom? After roughly four decades working in pediatrics and child psychiatry, Dr. Kyle Pruett knows the answer: Moms and dads simply parent differently, and that’s fine for everyone involved. Including the kid. On this episode of Paternal, Dr. Pruett examines some of the fundamental differences between men and women - how they communicate, how they discipline, even how t

Apr 3, 2019 • 33:10

#27 Mark Eckhardt: How Fatherhood F*cked Me Up

#27 Mark Eckhardt: How Fatherhood F*cked Me Up

How would you describe the feeling when you first became a parent? California businessman Mark Eckhardt never seriously thought of starting a family before the birth of his first daughter. And when she finally arrived he was overcome with joy, but also with the feeling that his entire life had been forever disrupted. In a conversation that echoes many of the candid complaints from both mothers and fathers, Eckhardt outlines his experience as a somewhat reluctant dad - a lack of natural emotional

Mar 13, 2019 • 35:53

#26 Andy Johnson: Farmering Up A Marriage

#26 Andy Johnson: Farmering Up A Marriage

Andy Johnson has spent much of his life fixing things. As a 35-year-old farmer growing corn and hay in Colorado, Johnson is a model of resourcefulness, spending the days on his 1,000 acres of farmland as an agronomist, a car mechanic, or a welder. Every year the summer storms come and go, crops thrive and die. But his farmer’s ingenuity has always persisted through the seasons, a trait passed down through five generations of men making their living off the land. But when his wife, Sarah, was inv

Feb 20, 2019 • 29:59

#25 John Vanek: Finding My Biological Father

#25 John Vanek: Finding My Biological Father

What if you spent the first three decades of your life building a relationship with your father, and then one day, you found out he wasn’t the only father you had? There are two guests on this episode of Paternal - one is 33-year-old John Vanek, a husband and father of two young girls living in the suburbs of Minneapolis. And the other is his biological father, Dr. Bruce A. Olmscheid, a physician who lives nearly 2,000 miles away in Southern California. Neither man knew the other one existed for

Jan 31, 2019 • 39:59

#24 James Vlahos: The Quest For Artificial Immortality

#24 James Vlahos: The Quest For Artificial Immortality

How far would you be willing to go to somehow preserve the memory of someone you lost? When James Vlahos found out his father was dying of lung cancer, he set out to create a chatbot fueled by a treasure trove of interviews with his dad, and artificial intelligence software. The end result is the Dadbot, an interactive and compelling program that questions if artificial immortality might actually exist. Listen as Vlahos describes the experience of interviewing his father during the final months

Jan 9, 2019 • 36:27

#23 Schwan Park: My Son, The Rubik's Cube Champion

#23 Schwan Park: My Son, The Rubik's Cube Champion

Prior to the birth of his first son, the only things Schwan Park knew about autism were gleaned from watching Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. But after he and his wife realized something was different about the development of their son Max, Park reluctantly pushed himself to learn more about the symptoms of autism, and ultimately to accept a new reality for his family. “It’s sort of like you’re opening a door and trying to find something,” Park says, “but you really hope it’s not in there.” But at t

Dec 12, 2018 • 31:17

#22 Jason Hairston: A Hunt For Meaning

#22 Jason Hairston: A Hunt For Meaning

Jason Hairston was always up for a challenge. As an undrafted free agent seeking a spot in the National Football League, as an entrepreneur looking to build his business, and as an experienced hunter stretched to his limits somewhere above the tree line. And by the time he was 47 years old he had overcome his fair share to become a family man, successful CEO of outdoor apparel giant KUIU, and a guru to thousands of like-minded men all looking for their own personal, primal experience on the hunt

Nov 27, 2018 • 37:48

#21 Eric Larsen: On The Ice With A Polar Explorer

#21 Eric Larsen: On The Ice With A Polar Explorer

For centuries, the ends of the Earth have captivated and courted the world’s bravest characters. The highest peaks of the Himalayas, the furthest depths of the oceans, and the poles, frozen pinpoints on opposite ends of the globe that still serve as two of the most ambitious destinations for a certain type of person you may have thought died out years ago: The explorers. Eric Larsen is one of those people, a veteran explorer who has not only reached both the geographic north and south poles, but

Nov 14, 2018 • 32:32

#20 Joe Andruzzi: A Career After Cancer

#20 Joe Andruzzi: A Career After Cancer

Joe Andruzzi has always been surrounded by family. As one of four sons born to a New York City police officer and his wife in Staten Island, New York, Andruzzi learned early on about the value of giving back to his community and how family can help people through the toughest times of their lives. And he never valued family more than in 2007, when he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer that nearly took his life in a Boston hospital bed. Despite playing 10 seasons in the Natio

Oct 31, 2018 • 33:31

#19 Neal Thompson: Dropping In With A Skate Dad

#19 Neal Thompson: Dropping In With A Skate Dad

Seattle author Neal Thompson has profiled a range of intriguing characters during his career as an acclaimed author, but for his fifth book he turned his eye to his sons, two boys fixated on the sport and culture of skateboarding. In the debut episode of Season 3 of Paternal, Thompson discusses his kids' all-encompassing passion for the sport and their embrace of a counter-culture lifestyle that led to drugs, alcohol, vandalism and concerns from their father that he had somehow let his boys go t

Oct 17, 2018 • 30:54

#18 Frank: A Father’s Week Of Life On The Street

#18 Frank: A Father’s Week Of Life On The Street

Meet Frank. He’s a 62 year-old father of four grown kids, and grandfather to seven beautiful grandchildren. Back in the summer of 2017, Frank decided to leave his home in San Diego and spend a week in Denver with his son Tommy, but it was no ordinary trip. Tommy is a homeless drug addict who lives in and around Civic Center Park in Denver, and he needs help. But can a committed father really change the course of life for his son, who’s addicted to heroin and caught in the deadliest drug crisis i

Jul 24, 2018 • 45:14

#17 Ashanti Branch: Behind the Masks of Teenage Boys

#17 Ashanti Branch: Behind the Masks of Teenage Boys

What if every teenage boy could tell you what he’s thinking, and what he fears when he leaves the house to walk to go to school? Oakland educator and youth advocate Ashanti Branch has spent more than a decade trying to provide young men with a place to do just that. In 2004 he founded the Ever Forward Club, gathering a small group of young men together in his classroom to offer them a safe space to share their concerns about life and establish a brotherhood with other teenagers from all over the

Jul 9, 2018 • 36:59

#16 Alexi Lalas: Embracing Kids And Critics

#16 Alexi Lalas: Embracing Kids And Critics

Alexi Lalas knows all about opportunity. As a professional soccer player and member of the United States national team during the 1990s, Lalas used the global platform of the 1994 FIFA World Cup to introduce the world to his carefully cultivated image of a rebellious red-headed rockstar with a love for the world’s game, and life’s never been the same since. More than two decades later Lalas is still in the public eye as a television analyst for Fox Sports at this summer’s World Cup in Russia, bu

Jun 26, 2018 • 35:20

#15 Jason Smith: What If She Dies?

#15 Jason Smith: What If She Dies?

Paternal celebrates Father’s Day with one of its most personal and uplifting episodes to date, examining what it means to risk loss in the pursuit of love, and how one father helped hold his family together during a life-altering set of circumstances. Ten years ago, Jason Smith found himself in a hospital waiting room in Boston, waiting to see is his wife would live through the night after a dangerous allergic reaction to chemotherapy. Smith, a psychotherapist and father of two, endured that ago

Jun 13, 2018 • 40:35

#14 Alex Bogusky: The Elvis Of Advertising

#14 Alex Bogusky: The Elvis Of Advertising

Alex Bogusky spent years atop the advertising world while running one of the hottest ad agencies in the country, Crispin Porter + Bogusky. But he left the business while at the top of his game in 2010, switching his focus to spending more time with his two young children and working with social entrepreneurs. On this episode of Paternal, Bogusky discusses his decision to leave the ad industry, the problems with advertising to young children and how he dealt with his father’s depression while run

May 29, 2018 • 34:19

#13 Dr. Michael Thompson: Emotional Illiteracy Of Fathers And Sons

#13 Dr. Michael Thompson: Emotional Illiteracy Of Fathers And Sons

Long before he became one of the nation’s leading voices on the emotional lives of adolescent boys, psychologist and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Michael G. Thompson actually focused his studies on the psychological issues of young women. “I got into schools as a consultant,” Thompson says, “and all of a sudden, all of my work was little boys.” On this episode of Paternal, Thompson discusses his acclaimed book Raising Cain, how we should protect the emotional complexities of young boys,

May 15, 2018 • 43:58

#12 Ryan Harris: Fatherhood In The NFL

#12 Ryan Harris: Fatherhood In The NFL

Ryan Harris spent nine years as an offensive lineman in the National Football League, earning a reputation as one of the brightest and most thoughtful players in any locker room in the league. He also won a Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos before retiring from the game in 2017. On this episode of Paternal, Harris discusses a range of topics, including honoring his Muslim faith while playing at Notre Dame, getting cut in the NFL, raising African-American kids in Denver and if he’ll let his son

May 1, 2018 • 35:20

#11 Taylor Steele: Responsible Gypsy Father

#11 Taylor Steele: Responsible Gypsy Father

Despite being born and raised in an iconic beach town just north of San Diego, Taylor Steele didn’t exactly enjoy his first ride on a surfboard. Or his second. In fact, it took nearly 10 years for Steele to find his footing on a board, but after he embraced the sport - and his keen eye for making surf documentaries - his life changed forever. On this episode of Paternal, Steele discusses how he and his wife refused to let go of their dreams of travel and perfect careers after having kids, and ho

Apr 11, 2018 • 31:31

#10 Graham Parker: Adoption And Race In America

#10 Graham Parker: Adoption And Race In America

What’s it like when a New York City social worker hands over a newborn baby on your doorstep at 9 pm on a Friday night? For longtime artist and journalist Graham Parker, that’s only a small part of the experience of being a father. Since he and his wife first laid eyes on their young son more than five years ago, Parker has focused most of his energy on helping his son – who is African-American – navigate the complexities of race in America. Parker grew up in Ireland during frightening periods o

Mar 26, 2018 • 38:45

#9 Chris Matthew: A Conversation In The Barbershop

#9 Chris Matthew: A Conversation In The Barbershop

Noted social commentator, actress and New York native Fran Lebowitz once said, “You’re only as good as your last haircut.” But for Chris Matthew, a fellow New York native, lawyer, father and master barber, there’s far more to walking into the barbershop than just a new look. On this episode of Paternal, Matthew discusses what the barbershop means to men, and why he began cutting hair for homeless men after his father exposed him to the diverse faces of a drug rehab clinic in New York as a kid.

Mar 8, 2018 • 46:17

#8 George Apple: The Modern Lakota Warrior

#8 George Apple: The Modern Lakota Warrior

Few places in the United States can match South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation when it comes to challenges for a father to raise his kids. Poverty, soaring unemployment, alcoholism and isolation are all omnipresent for many of the Oglala Sioux men on Pine Ridge, but George Apple refuses to give in. On this episode of Paternal, George discusses his challenges as a father and grandfather, why he embraced the traditions of his ancestors, and why the future of his family is so closely connec

Feb 21, 2018 • 32:05

#7 Eric Tung: The Outlandish Idea Of A Gay Dad

#7 Eric Tung: The Outlandish Idea Of A Gay Dad

How would you describe the conversations at your family dinner table? When Eric Tung was a kid, there was never much room at dinner for communication with his parents, a pair of fairly conservative Chinese immigrants. So it comes as little surprise that they were shocked when he came out of the closet as an adult or that he wanted to find a way to raise a family. “That was even more outlandish,” Eric says. “They had never seen it. The notion of a gay dad was completely foreign to them.” This epi

Feb 7, 2018 • 29:22

#6 Martin Rogers: Love and Grief

#6 Martin Rogers: Love and Grief

Martin Rogers moved to the United States a decade ago to take a job in sports writing, a transplant from England with a wife and plans to one day start a family. After his marriage soured and his ex-wife returned to England he worked tirelessly to stay in constant contact with his young son, and he rarely thought about starting over. Then he met his new wife, and he unknowingly began down a path that taught him about love, grief and the possibility of changing your life story in the face of pain

Jan 23, 2018 • 32:58

#5 Shawn Francis: You Can’t Do Everything Those White Guys Do

#5 Shawn Francis: You Can’t Do Everything Those White Guys Do

When was the last time you asked a good friend about where he came from, or the influences that shaped his life? On this episode of Paternal, Nick welcomes longtime friend and noted New Jersey-based DJ Shawn Francis to discuss his father’s alcohol and drug abuse, what The Talk meant to him and what it’s like to raise two African-American kids in Donald Trump’s America.  Learn more about Paternal and sign up for our newsletter at www.paternalpodcast.com. You can also email host Nick Firchau at ni

Dec 4, 2017 • 30:12

#4 Ken Sanders: The Center on Fathering

#4 Ken Sanders: The Center on Fathering

What if there was a place where men could go to commiserate about fatherhood, and even learn how to be a better dad? This episode of Paternal goes inside the Center on Fathering in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to examine how the center and its founder work with men looking to manage and improve their relationships with their children. Center director Ken Sanders discusses how the classes work, and what motivated him to dedicate his career to helping men better shape their experience of fatherhood

Nov 15, 2017 • 36:27

#3 Landon Donovan: Athletes, Dads, And Masculinity

#3 Landon Donovan: Athletes, Dads, And Masculinity

Landon Donovan is widely recognized as the greatest male soccer player the United States has ever produced, appearing in three FIFA World Cups and winning six titles in Major League Soccer. But Donovan says he struggled to connect at times with teammates and coaches during his career because he was unlike some of the prototypical professional athletes in the locker room. On this episode of Paternal, Donovan discusses the role his father played in his childhood, why being raised primarily by his

Nov 1, 2017 • 35:58

#2 Jake and Anna: This Is A Girl’s Penis

#2 Jake and Anna: This Is A Girl’s Penis

Raising a transgender daughter has been no easy task for Jake and his wife, Anna. The couple has spent the past five years educating themselves on how to best deal with a set of unexpected challenges since their second child, who was born a boy, expressing her real gender identity even before she was 18 months old. Since then Jake has committed himself to unflinching support and love for his daughter, and he’s come to serve as a model for fellow parents dealing with the same circumstances. The n

Oct 18, 2017 • 28:06

#1 John Richards: A New Generation Of Dads

#1 John Richards: A New Generation Of Dads

John Richards is one of the most recognized radio voices in Seattle, and the host of the John in the Morning show on KEXP 90.3 FM. During his lengthy career on the air, Richards has helped uncover and promote bands like Interpol, Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Of Monsters and Men and others. But long before he became a DJ, Richards turned to iconic bands like The Pixies, REM, The Replacements and The Clash to find respite from an abusive, alcoholic father and the dissolution of his parents' m

Sep 19, 2017 • 41:34

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