Paternal

Novelist and memoirist Joshua Mohr has managed to be a number of different men in his life. He’s been a writer, college professor, husband, father, son, addict and survivor, and he’s committed himself over the past few years to ensuring that his daughter understands exactly how all those men can fit into one lifetime. That effort culminated in the 2021 memoir Model Citizen, which looks back on Josh’s decades of drug and alcohol abuse in the bars and streets of San Francisco and subsequent health scares, all posited as proof to his young daughter that while he’s far from perfect, at least he’s honest. On this episode of Paternal, Josh examines how discord in the home as a young child led to years of addiction, as well as the narrative he created to explain the mindset of his father, who left his family when Josh was in grade school. He also discusses how a series of frightening strokes before the age of 40 set him on a path to being more forthcoming about his life in “Model Citizen,” and why it’s crucial to recognize and celebrate human complexities, especially among our parents. 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.

Journalist and screenwriter Chris Jones spent 14 years as a contributing editor and writer-at-large for the men’s magazine Esquire, writing everything from celebrity profiles on George Clooney and Penelope Cruz to in-depth features on astronauts, soldiers and wild animal zookeepers. He twice won the National Magazine Award in Feature Writing for his work at the magazine, in large part because of his commitment to looking back on past events and dissecting how they happened. And what went wrong. On this episode of Paternal, Jones looks back on two major events in his life, and how they shaped his stance on what it means to be a man today. The anxiety from work, fatherhood, and marriage led him to nearly commit suicide twice more than a decade ago - he wrote about the experiences for Esquire in a candid essay in 2011 - and then his first marriage fell apart years later, leaving him to sort out fatherhood and what the second half of his life looks like now. “If your life becomes a smoking crater,” Jones says, “it’s little fixes everyday. You can’t fix it all at once.” If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts please visit suicidelifeline.org to access a national network of local crisis centers that provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  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.

The worst of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be over in the United States. More than half the U.S. population has received at one least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and new daily cases of the disease are at their lowest point since the early days of the pandemic in April 2020. But that doesn’t mean that the stress and anxiety building over the past 16 months is gone, especially for men still struggling to articulate or even identify how they’re feeling when it comes to careers, relationships, or the stress they’re feeling after COVID. Dr. Michael Addis is an award-winning research psychologist and a professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. He specializes in the links between social learning and social construction of masculinity, as well as the ways men experience, express and respond to the problems in their lives. On this episode of Paternal, Dr. Addis examines why most men are still reluctant to seek help dealing with the problems in their lives, and how men learn as young children to avoid showing vulnerability or pain to their peers. He also discusses the value of lasting male friendships and the challenges men face in making them, the psychological effects of parenting, and much more. Learn more about Dr. Addis’s 2011 release Invisible Men here. 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.

Even before his third birthday, Chris Ballew was transfixed by music. He would sit on the floor in his parents’ Seattle-area home and listen to The Beatles’ seminal 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and not long after he was writing and performing his own songs. By the mid-90s he was fronting the Presidents of the United States of America -  one of the hottest bands in rock'n'roll - and appearing regularly on MTV. But he was quietly harboring a secret: “On a gut level, I wanted out immediately.” On this episode of Paternal, Ballew looks back at his early experiences with fame, and examines the instinct that led him to leave modern rock behind to take on a new stage presence: celebrated children’s musician Caspar Babypants. Ballew has released 17 albums and been nominated for a Grammy during his career as Caspar, all driven by a desire to imbue his music with the same lyrical elements he found in the music of the Beatles, and to help weary parents make it through the day. Songs Featured In This Episode: Spider John - Caspar Babypants A Day In The Life - The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - Caspar Babypants Naked and Famous - The Presidents of The United States of America Kick Out The Jams - The Presidents of The United States of America Sun Go - Caspar Babypants (featuring Frances England) Nap In The Afternoon - Caspar Babypants 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.

When Jayson Greene was in the fourth grade, his teacher gave him an assignment that most kids get at some point in grade school: What do you want to be when you grow up? Jayson mentioned two goals for himself, one of which may come as a surprise for a kid in grade school. He wanted to be a writer, and a father. On this episode of Paternal, Jayson discusses his celebrated 2019 memoir Once More We Saw Stars, which chronicles the life and death of his two-year-old daughter Greta, and how he and his wife Stacy dealt with the grief stemming from their daughter’s death and the challenges of becoming parents again to their son, Harrison. Jayson also discusses the striking parallels of birth and death, and how he and Stacy communicate with their son about his sister, and the family’s recurring commitment to hope in the face of grief. Learn more about Once More We Saw Stars here and read Jayson’s 2016 essay “Children Don’t Always Live” from the New York Times here. 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.

Ted Bunch has spent the bulk of his adult life as an educator, activist and lecturer, focused specifically on the intersection of masculinity and violence against women. He’s also spent 18 years as the Chief Development Officer of the violence prevention organization A Call To Men, and in that time he’s become one of the nation’s leading voices on the perils of male socialization and the misperception of toxic masculinity. On this episode of Paternal, Bunch breaks down the challenges men and boys face due to the rigid expectations of who society expects them to be - strong, fearless, emotionless, and in control - and why it’s so dangerous for them and their kids to fall into that trap. He also discusses how his parents - two college educators and civil rights activists - influenced his path towards social justice, but also the challenges he faced while growing up black in a largely white community in Westchester County, New York. 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.

Paternal dives back into the archives to share the stories of three previous guests all focused on one topic: What it’s like to raise African American kids in the United States. This special episode begins with Ryan Harris, who spent nine years as an offensive lineman in the National Football League and won a Super Bowl in 2015 with the Denver Broncos. In this excerpt taken from his May 2018 episode, Harris outlines his experience raising his son and daughter in Denver, and discusses the unspoken lessons passed down through generations of African American men and boys about the risks of dealing with police. Artist and journalist Graham Parker also weighs in on his life as father to adopted son Artie, who began asking questions about race and identity not long after he learned to speak. In this conversation from his March 2018 episode, Parker outlines how he and his wife have worked tirelessly over the years to communicate openly about race with their son, especially after the family moved from Brooklyn to a predominantly white community in a swing county in eastern Pennsylvania. And lastly, New Jersey-based DJ Shawn Francis weighs in on the role his stepfather played in giving him “The Talk,” and how he’s processed that lesson over the years. Recorded in December 2017, when Francis was feeling the weight of teaching his kids how to best negotiate the world while being black not long after the election of Donald Trump, his experience as a father resonates louder today than ever. 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.

When Jaed Coffin was 23 years old he had recently graduated from college, and like a lot of people in that stage of their lives, he found himself looking ... for something. What he found was an austere and single-minded life in Southeast Alaska, training to become the next big thing in the sport of roughhouse boxing, a boozy, bloody, and rugged class of amateur boxing. Coffin chronicled his rise from wide-eyed novice to eventual middleweight champion in his 2019 memoir Roughhouse Friday, which the LA Review of Books called “a beautifully crafted memoir about fathers and sons, masculinity, and the lengths we sometimes go to in order to confront our past.”    On this episode of Paternal, Coffin discusses life in the small Alaskan coastal town of Sitka, the phenomenon of roughhouse boxing, and how a complicated relationship with his father helped steer Jaed into the sport, where he came up close and personal with a unique cast of characters looking to prove their manhood in the ring.   Coffin also discusses his 2019 New York Times essay about his father’s need to go “Out to Sea,” an idea that offers forgiveness for men who sometimes or even permanently abandon their families when the burdens of real life become too overwhelming. 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.

When news first broke that the Coronavirus pandemic had come to Seattle, John Richards had no idea how he could keep doing his job. More than two months later, his work has never been important. Richards is a father of two boys and the host of the “The Morning Show” on 90.3 KEXP FM in Seattle. KEXP is an independent radio station supported largely by its listeners, so that means John and the other DJs are free to take requests from people all over the world and play whatever they want. And the station has received more notes and music requests from listeners over the past two months than ever before in the station’s history, giving Richards and his fellow DJs a unique perspective into how people all over the world are coping with the pandemic, and which songs are helping them through. Says Richards: “It’s been absolutely surreal, weird and intense, everyday I’ve been on the air.” Listen in as John recounts what he’s been hearing from listeners, how his work on the air now compares to his experience behind the mic on 9/11, and how he’s dealing with a new reality for his wife and kids as they try to balance work and home schooling.  You can also listen to John’s first appearance on Paternal from its debut episode in 2017 here, and follow John on Twitter and Instagram for more updates from KEXP. 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.

When beloved children’s television icon Fred Rogers was a child he would sometimes see troubling stories or images in the news, and he would look to his mother for help. Her advice was simple, but left its mark: “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Season 4 of Paternal opens with a conversation with Scott Cooper, a New Jersey-based single father of two with a daily glimpse into the severity of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. Scott is the Director of Professional Practice at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey, a hospital that has been inundated with Covid-19 patients since the virus took hold in March. Scott has ditched his suit and tie in favor of scrubs and a mask for roughly the past month, serving as a critical care nurse for patients placed in the hospital’s ever-expanding Intensive Care Unit. Despite nearly three decades in nursing the Tri-State Area, he’s never seen anything like this. He’s afraid he’ll get sick. He’s afraid his patients will die. And when he hears “Code Blue” on the hospital’s intercom, he runs. Listen in as Scott discusses the toll Covid-19 has taken on the hospital, what it’s like to lose a patient to the virus and how the hospital staff salutes the survivors. Scott also examines what lessons he’s learned from the experience of the past six weeks - suddenly he has become the helper Rogers was seeking - and how he’s speaking with his kids about times of trouble, as well as the opportunities that await whenever the pandemic finally ends. 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 we 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.