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 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. On this episode of Paternal, Dr. Charney discusses some of the most compelling factors to building resilience in yourself and your kids, including facing your fears, developing social groups, and establishing core values for you and your family. He also recounts a life-threatening experience that tested his own resilience, decades after living a charmed life studying the challenges of others. Dr. Charney is the co-author of Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges.

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 for their family, and how he learned to embrace both acceptance and hope on the path to becoming a better father.

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, 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 conflicted emotions about growing up on the reserve, as well as the challenges his own father faced in trying to reclaim the family’s Anishinaabe identity. Rice - who penned the celebrated apocalyptic thriller Moon of the Crusted Snow as well as the recently released follow-up Moon of the Turning Leaves, and was dubbed “one of the leading voices reshaping North American science fiction, horror and fantasy” by the New York Times - also discusses the emotional strain he experienced after the complicated birth of his first son, and how masculinity and vulnerability are valued on “the rez.”

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 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 Read The Transcript For This Episode

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 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 Paternal, Alberta discusses his life as an Evangelical Christian, the influence of his born-again Christian father, what he learned about Evangelicalism from speaking with today’s church leaders, and why some churchgoers confronted him at his own father’s funeral about politics in the era of Trump. Alberta is a staff writer for The Atlantic and the author of the New York Times bestselling book The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism, which is available now wherever you buy books.

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 in the sweaty back kitchen of a Chinese restaurant, and reflects on what he learned from his father, a charismatic waiter who happily welcomed local dignitaries from City Hall along with pimps and prostitutes from down the block. Chin also discusses the challenge of being a young gay man during the height of the AIDS crisis, and the legacy of Chung’s, which made an unexpected return to his life long after he thought he’d left it behind. Chin’s memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, is available wherever you buy books.

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 W. Kamau Bell, rock critic and podcast host Rob Harvilla, author and professor Jonathan Malesic, author and professor Matthew Salesses, and New York Times bestselling author and poet Clint Smith. Stay tuned for all new episodes of Paternal in 2024. Episode Timestamps: 00:00 - 02:01 - Introduction 02:01 - 05:29 - W. Kamau Bell on discussions with his wife about racism and feminism 05:29 - 10:28 - W. Kamau Bell on raising mixed-race kids 11:31 - 19:47 - Rob Harvilla on father/son themes in 90s rock songs 19:47 - 22:34 - Rob Harvilla on discussing hard subjects with his kids 23:29 - 25:33 - Jonathan Malesic on his experience with burnout 25:33 - 34:16 - Jonathan Malesic on the three criteria for burnout and how men deal with burnout differently that women 35:23 - 40:02 - Matthew Salesses on the death of his wife and the connection to K Dramas 40:02 - 44:51 - Matthew Salesses on coping with grief with his kids 46:12 - 52:22 - Clint Smith on becoming a father and the double-sided nature of parenting 52:22 - 57:17 - Clint Smith on what he’s good at what and he struggles with as a father Read The Transcript For This Episode Learn more about Paternal and sign up for our newsletter at www.paternalpodcast.com. You can also email host Nick Firchau at nick@paternalpodcast.com with any comments or suggestions for men he should profile on the show. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening, then keep an eye on your feed for new episodes.

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 of what they’ve learned and change their behavior as they get older? Dr. Addis also discusses how boys’ early exposure to intimacy and vulnerability can shape their sex lives as men, the metaphor of men’s bodies as performative machines, why it’s so hard for men to discuss sex with one another, and solutions for men looking to reexamine how they think about intimacy and improve their sex life. Dr. Addis is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. He also provides personal coaching and consultation for men at michaeladdiscoaching.com. Episode Timestamps: 00:00 - 06:16 - Introduction 06:16 - 11:39 - The connection between sex and familiarity with intimacy 10:44 - 18:37 - The idea of man as a performative machine 20:13 - 26:12 - On why men don’t talk about sex with other men 26:12 - 33:08 - Solutions for being more comfortable discussing sex and intimacy Read The Transcript For This Episode Learn more about Paternal and sign up for our newsletter at www.paternalpodcast.com. You can also email host Nick Firchau at nick@paternalpodcast.com with any comments or suggestions for men he should profile on the show. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening, then keep an eye on your feed for new episodes.

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, thousands of strangers, and even a few famous rock musicians as The Crying Guy. On this episode of Paternal, Stosuy reflects on those first few people he saw in tears in New York and how he turned those observations into a collection of essays from more than 100 people about the last time they cried and why, including death, childbirth, breakups, or simply listening to the right song at the right time. Sad Happens: A Celebration of Tears is available now wherever you buy books. Learn more about Paternal and sign up for our newsletter at www.paternalpodcast.com. You can also email host Nick Firchau at nick@paternalpodcast.com with any comments or suggestions for men he should profile on the show. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening, then keep an eye on your feed for new episodes.

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 - hope lies in the communities where others might never expect to look. On this episode of Paternal, Fitzgerald recounts why an unstable home life in rural Massachusetts led him to seek comfort in teenage fight clubs and bars, and why he’s spent years distrusting feelings of security. He also discusses why he sees his father in a different light as an adult, and how a therapist taught him the real meaning of forgiveness. Fitzgerald’s 2022 memoir Dirtbag, Massachusetts,  is now available in paperback wherever you buy books. Learn more about Paternal and sign up for our newsletter at www.paternalpodcast.com. You can also email host Nick Firchau at nick@paternalpodcast.com with any comments or suggestions for men he should profile on the show. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening, then keep an eye on your feed for new episodes.