#106 Saul Austerlitz: Homer Simpson and The History of Sitcom Dads
Release Date: 04/25/2024
#133 Augustine Sedgewick: A History of Fatherhood, From Thomas Jefferson to Bob Dylan
Paternal
How did Thomas Jefferson’s thoughts on fatherhood influence the American Revolution? What did Charles Darwin learn about evolution from watching his own kids? And why did Bob Dylan tell everyone he couldn’t stand his father? After becoming a father himself, historian and author dove into the past to learn more about these and other hugely influential men, and how being a father and a son shaped their lives and work, for better or worse. On this episode of Paternal, Sedgewick reflects on why he went looking through the past for paternal role models, and why the lives of Jefferson,...
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#132 Sam Graham-Felsen: Where Have All My Male Friendships Gone?
Paternal
In the final scene of the 1986 coming-of-age film Stand By Me, the film’s narrator sums up boyhood friendship with the simple line, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.” And that’s largely true for a number of men who had no trouble developing deep, meaningful friendships with other boys. So why has a lack of friendship among dads become a cliche, or even a running joke? Why can’t guys hang onto those intimate friendships from their past, and what keeps them from making new friends as adults? On this episode of Paternal, journalist and novelist ...
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#131 James Patterson: The King of Paperback Fiction Tackles Fatherhood
Paternal
has sold more than 425 million books over the past 30 years, making him one of the richest and most successful authors in the world. At 78 years old and entering the final stage of his career, Patterson has legions of fans devoted to his brand of psychological thrillers and police procedurals, and he can effectively write about anything he wants, whenever he wants. So what’s the king of paperback fiction doing writing a book about fatherhood? On this episode of Paternal, Patterson discusses the motivations for his new how-to manual The #1 Dad Book and what he’s learned from his own...
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#130 Paternal Workshop: Your Tween’s Mind, Explained
Paternal
You could fill an entire bookshelf with guides on babies and toddlers, or the best strategies for dealing with teenagers. But for Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, one of the most critical stages for child development is the pre-adolescent phase, when kids really begin to push their parents away and first ask the biggest questions of their lives: Who am I? Am I normal? Where do I fit in? On this episode of Paternal, Dr. Ginsburg returns to the show for the first in a series of special episodes devoted to the issues affecting our kids. He dives deep into the idea of brain puberty and what’s happening in...
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#129 Christopher Blackwell: How A Prison ‘Heal Circle’ Helps Incarcerated Men
Paternal
has been a lot of things in his life. As a young boy he was a son longing to connect with his father over classic cars and football. As a teenager he was an insecure class clown, and then a dropout. In his 20s he was a drug dealer living in survival mode in a neighborhood riddled with crime and violence. And now he’s an inmate in the Washington Corrections Center, serving a 45-year prison sentence for robbery and murder. But Blackwell is also an award-winning journalist, the co-founder of a non-profit organization focused on prison reform, a mentor to other inmates, and a husband. On this...
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#128 Austin Davis: A Young Father Forges the Future of Pennsylvania Politics
Paternal
was just a teenager when the trajectory of his life changed forever. A fatal shooting rattled his neighborhood in the working class Pennsylvania town of McKeesport, and spurred him to attend a city council meeting of all white officials who were skeptical of the concerned Black teenager raising his voice. “ The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power,” Davis says. “ I had a stake in that community just as much as they did as somebody who lived there and grew up there, and I wanted to make it a better place.” Nearly two decades later Davis was elected the...
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#127 Jake Tapper: Leadership and Vulnerability (2023)
Paternal
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 them in the end. On this 2023 episode of Paternal, Tapper discusses how he balanced a...
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#126 Paternal Workshop: Why It’s Hard For Men To Say “I’m Sorry”
Paternal
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 a subject that a number of past guests have brought up over the years: Grace and self-compassion. He examines why some men hold themselves to impossible standards when it comes to work, relationships and parenting, and why the inability to forgive yourself is connected to the ability to apologize to others, and actually mean it. Dr. Addis is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. He also...
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#125 Joseph Earl Thomas: Fatherhood, Regardless of Your Expectations
Paternal
Acclaimed author spent much of his childhood watching everyone around him, trying to figure out where he belonged. He grew up attending public school in Philadelphia and constantly scanned the classrooms and hallways to avoid being beaten up by bigger, stronger boys. And throughout his adolescence Thomas was always trying to figure out what a man is and what a man isn’t. Then he realized that he shouldn’t even bother with those expectations. On this episode of Paternal, Thomas recounts what life was like growing in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Frankford, what he learned about violence...
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#124 Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg: What Type Of Parent Are You?
Paternal
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 episode of Paternal, - a pediatrician specializing in Adolescent Medicine at the...
info_outlineIf 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 Saul Austerlitz joins this episode of Paternal to take a deep dive on the history of the family sitcom, tracing the genre’s roots back to the dawn of television. He discusses how fathers were first portrayed in the 1950s and how they have evolved during each decade thereafter, including iconic sitcom dads on Leave it to Beaver, All in the Family, The Cosby Show, Married With Children, Roseanne, and The Simpsons.
Austerlitz is a faculty member at NYU who teaches courses on writing about American comedy and writing about television drama, and he’s the author of six books, including on the history of sitcoms and the success of the hit series Friends. He recently wrote an article in The Atlantic entitled “Dad Culture Has Nothing to Do With Parenting.”