#137 Robert Gallery: Football, Rage, and Recovery
Paternal
When was a senior at the University of Iowa, he was one of the most respected and feared college football players in the country. At 6-foot-7 and 320 pounds, Gallery leveraged his size, talent and tenacity into a lucrative contract and an eight-year career in the National Football League. But all the while he was quietly suffering one concussion after another on the football field, and when his career finally ended, he struggled to handle bouts of rage that left him shaking in a chair after his young child spilled a glass of milk. On this episode of Paternal, Gallery reflects on the difficult...
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#136 Aymann Ismail: Three Generations of Men in the Mosque
Paternal
What were the first words you said to your child when you became a parent? Was there something you needed to say to officially welcome him or her into this world, or was it all just a blur? For longtime Slate journalist and author the task was clear: He had to recite a Muslim call to prayer into his newborn son’s right ear, a ritual that’s been performed by countless Muslim fathers through the generations, all over the world. But was he appeasing God, or his own father? On this episode of Paternal, Ismail discusses a life spent navigating being a Muslim kid who preferred...
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#135 Jonathan Malesic: Dads, Work, And Burnout (2023)
Paternal
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 2023 episode of Paternal, Malesic recounts the experience that led him to studying the phenomenon of burnout, how it affects men and women differently, what role work plays in defining a man’s sense of...
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#134 Jayson Greene: Can Artificial Intelligence Help Us Cope With Grief?
Paternal
Proponents of Artificial Intelligence assure us that everything in life is about to change: Work, education, healthcare, art, and even how we remember our loved ones. But what role can AI actually play in alleviating psychological and emotional suffering, especially when a parent loses a child? Welcome to the mind of author Jayson Greene, who penned the celebrated memoir back in 2019 after the tragic loss of his daughter Greta, and who’s very familiar with how opportunistic companies position AI technology as a solution to avoid feeling the pain of grief and loss. On this episode of...
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#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...
info_outlineWhat were the first words you said to your child when you became a parent? Was there something you needed to say to officially welcome him or her into this world, or was it all just a blur? For longtime Slate journalist and author Aymann Ismail the task was clear: He had to recite a Muslim call to prayer into his newborn son’s right ear, a ritual that’s been performed by countless Muslim fathers through the generations, all over the world. But was he appeasing God, or his own father?
On this episode of Paternal, Ismail discusses a life spent navigating being a Muslim kid who preferred cartoons over daily prayers, and then how his faith influences his role as a father to two young kids now. And all the while he’s been trying to somehow live up to the expectations of his father, a devout and educated Muslim man fixated on the kind of man he believes his son should be.
Ismail’s new book, Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith and Finding Meaning in America, is available now wherever you buy books.