#108 Michael Andor Brodeur: Men, Muscles, and Masculinity
Paternal
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 why some men are so motivated to do so, the connection between how men build their bodies...
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#107 Bakari Sellers: It Might Not Be Okay
Paternal
When you’re talking to 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 feels like too much? And what happens when, despite all the work he and his father have done to make it...
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#106 Saul Austerlitz: Homer Simpson and The History of Sitcom Dads
Paternal
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 fate of sitcom dads? Comedy historian and author joins this episode of Paternal to take a deep dive on...
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#105 Dr. Dennis S. Charney: How To Raise Resilient Kids
Paternal
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? 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 that have helped them overcome trauma, all in an effort to better understand how we can all learn to be more resilient....
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#104 Rob Flanagan: Straddling Acceptance and Hope
Paternal
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 while they awaited word on the health of their daughter, what the doctor’s diagnosis meant...
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#103 Waubgeshig Rice: The Pressure In My Head (2022)
Paternal
Growing up on the Wasauksing First Nation indigenous reserve in Ontario, journalist and bestselling author 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. On this 2022 episode of Paternal, Rice recounts his experience on Wasauksing First Nation and his sometimes...
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#102 Kwame Alexander: What My Father Taught Me About Love (2023)
Paternal
Most people know 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 knows - and doesn’t know - about love. And in order to do that, he’s thinking more about the marriage his...
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#101 Tim Alberta: My Father, My Faith, and Donald Trump
Paternal
Longtime political journalist 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 future of Evangelicals in the United States, including Alberta's three young sons? On this episode of...
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#100 Curtis Chin: Lessons From A Chinese Restaurant
Paternal
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 Senator Eugene McCarthy. On this episode of Paternal, Chin reflects on the experience of growing up...
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#99 Best of 2023: Conversations of the Year
Paternal
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 together in the same hands. Guests on this episode of Paternal include comedian and filmmaker , rock...
info_outlineMost 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 knows - and doesn’t know - about love. And in order to do that, he’s thinking more about the marriage his parents modeled for him as a child, as well as what he learned about love and relationships from his father, a hard-nosed Baptist minister who rarely showed affection.
Alexander’s book, Why Fathers Cry at Night, is available wherever you buy books, as is his latest collection of poems, This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - 07:25 - Intro
07:25 - 09:50 - on learning to love from watching our parents’ relationship
09:50 - 19:47 - discussing Kwame Alexander’s father’s version of tough love
19:47 - 24:26 - digging into his father’s jazz collection
26:31 - 32:40 - on the vulnerability required to write about broken relationships
32:40 - 35:36 - on talking to our parents and children about love