Keith Oliver

Father Figures Pod

Kids EN ↓ 5 episodes

I started Father Figures because I knew I needed community. I knew I couldn't be the only one so I struck out to create the space that I felt was needed. This place was started to build community by amplifying honest stories of fatherhood—its struggles, growth, and the presence that still matters—through conversation and storytelling. This place was started for all fathers and father figures alike, to broaden the community and bring in all contributors. Last this place was started to amplify the counter-narrative around fatherhood disinterest and absence. Not perfection. Presence. Follow...

Author

Keith Oliver

Episodes

My Father, My First Example 21.06.2026 35:30

Recorded August 2025 For this episode, I sit down with the man who taught me what fatherhood looked like long before I became a father myself—my dad, Allen Oliver. Together, we explore our family history, the lessons passed down through generations, and the realities of growing up under fathers who expressed love differently than many do today. My father reflects on becoming a dad at 18, the value...

Stepping Up: An Inheritance 31.05.2026 1:03:41

Cornell Black Thomas grew up without his biological father, but he never grew up without a dad. In this first installment of a two-part Father Figures conversation, Cornell reflects on the man who stepped into his life, the lessons he inherited about work, sacrifice, and responsibility, and how those lessons carried him through some of the most difficult seasons of his life—including incarceration...

The Art of Fatherhood 30.04.2026 1:01:35

*Recorded 2025 This episode of Father Figures starts with a personal reflection on what it means to grow apart from something you once loved—and how fatherhood can reshape that relationship. Then I sit down with Dr. Jeremy L. George to really talk through what it looks like to balance being an artist and being a father in real life. From touring stages to bedtime routines, Dr. George shares how f...

I Wonder What's He Telling His Son 31.03.2026 59:25

Recorded Oct 2025 On this episode of Father Figures, Keith is trying to figure out what it really means to father—after opening with a semi-autobiographical poem that reflects multiple father identities and a quiet moment of watching another dad “drop jewels” to his son. Through a conversation with Dr. Waldo Johnson, Vice Provost of Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Social Work in the Crown...

The Journey of a Thousand steps 01.03.2026 38:23

Season 1 of Father Figures starts where it has to: with Keith Oliver telling the truth about becoming a dad — the wins, the losses, the doubts, the growth — and everything it took to reach day one of fatherhood. No highlight reel. Just the real journey. Retractions: 1. We went to Chicago Feb 2020 for auditions 2. My wife had 3 rounds of IUI (intrauterine insemination). Not as many injections and m...