Paternal

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....

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 Pate...

Four 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...

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 dri...

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...

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 Lemieux, and even Michael Jordan - all...

Once you hear the story of the Black civil liberties group MOVE, it's almost impossible to believe you had 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 memb...

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 eventua...

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 filmmak...

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 ni...

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 interna...

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 reconside...

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, mus...

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 t...

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 p...

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...

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...

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, t...

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...

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 Do...

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 thousan...

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...

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...

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, t...

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 - h...