Do Dads Need to Fight for Their World or Their Family?
By Fatherly
February 14, 2019
A peaceful gardener from the Lower East Side determined to make the world a better place left his newborn child to go fight ISIS in Syria. He saw action and trauma. He wrapped wounds. He came home to his family and to discuss the experience with Fatherly Podcast hosts Joshua David Stein and Jason Gay. Their big question: How can parents know when it’s better to focus on changing the world or to focus on their families? The answer: It’s really complicated.
In an episode that speaks to both personal and global issues, a freedom-fighting father (name redacted) seeks to explain why he felt compelled to left a newborn at home to fight for a cause he believed in thousands of miles away. His motivations are complicated and his story is, at times, confusing. Why? Because it’s something of a moral litmus test. It’s easy to tell it as the tale of a man who left. But it’s also easy to tell it as the tale of a man who cared. And, in fact, both stories are true. To reconcile them, one must deeply consider the role of a father in the world.
And that’s precisely what Joshua and Jason do on this surprising episode of The Fatherly Podcast.
This story originally appeared in Fatherly