Paternal
Paternal is a show about the brotherhood of fatherhood. Created and hosted by Nick Firchau, a longtime journalist and podcast producer, Paternal offers candid and in-depth conversations with great men who are quietly forging new paths in fatherhood. Listen as our diverse and thoughtful guests – a world-renowned soccer star in San Diego, a Oglala Sioux elder in South Dakota, a New York Knicks barber in Queens, a pioneering rock DJ in Seattle and many more - discuss the models of manhood that were passed down to them, and how they're redefining those models as they become fathers themselves.
Episodes
Michael Andor Brodeur is a “big man.” That’s the term he uses to describe himself after more than 30 years of lifting weights - some of those spent as a powerlifter, and all of those spent not just trying to get fit, but to get big. But for all the time he’s spent in the gym over the years, he’s probably spent just as much time thinking about the way men think about the connection between men, muscles, and masculinity.
...When you’re talking to Bakari Sellers about fatherhood, you’re talking to a man who truly is a link between generations. As the son of a famous Civil Rights activist who befriended the likes of Stokely Carmichael and Martin Luther King, Jr., Sellers feels the weight of expectations from his ancestors and his community. And as the father of two young twins, he feels the pressure of helping ensure the world is better for ...
If 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 ...
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, survi...
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 episod...
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 ...
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...
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...
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 thousan...
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 af...
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 learn...
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, ...
Bill McKibben doesn’t exactly do memoirs. But the latest work from the bestselling author and influential environmental activist is about as close as he’ll get, examining why two crucial moments from his childhood - an anti-war protest followed by the rejection of low and middle-income housing in his otherwise affluent Massachusetts suburb - helped symbolize a dramatic and costly shift to individualism in America during the 1970s.
...
Acclaimed author Andre Dubus III once wrote that he’s drawn to writing about “working class men who work with their hands … men up against it who only know one or two ways how to get free, both of which can hurt other people or themselves.” Dubus knows from experience. He grew up in the 1970s and 80s with a famous but notoriously absent father in the mill towns along the Merrimack River in Massachusetts, always eager t...
Over the past few years comedian and filmmaker W. Kamau Bell has become one of America’s most recognizable purveyors of humor and smart social commentary. And his success is due in large part to his willingness to tackle thorny topics like race, sexual assault, education, and policing, be it as a standup comic, an Emmy-nominated reality show host, or from behind the camera as a documentary filmmaker.
When Israel “DT” Del Toro, Jr. was 12 years old, he made a promise to his ailing father that he would always watch over his younger siblings, and take care of his family. When he was a 30 year-old Staff Sergeant in the Air Force, he made a promise to his wife and young son that he would return safely from Afghanistan. But then everything changed with a flash of light and an explosion that literally shook the ground beneath his feet...
Roughly two decades ago filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt started a ritual with his daughter Ella that he never expected would lead anywhere but the family archives. But the project that unfolded - an annual series of questions he asked Ella on her birthday until she turned 18 - eventually led to an acclaimed portrayal of a father-daughter relationship, and an Academy Award nomination.
On this episode of Paternal, Rosenblatt l...
Alexi Lalas knows all about opportunity. As a professional soccer player and member of the United States national team during the 1990s, Lalas used the global platform of the 1994 FIFA World Cup to introduce the world to his carefully cultivated image of a rebellious red-headed rockstar with a love for the world’s game, and life’s never been the same since.
More than two decades later ...
Longtime rock critic Rob Harvilla has made a lengthy career out of his love for the '90s-era songs that shaped his days as a teenager and college student. He’s the host of the hit podcast “60 Songs That Explain the ‘90s” and he’s built a devoted fan base of equally obsessed music fans while exploring songs from artists like Nirvana, Madonna, REM, and the Wu-Tang Clan. But despite his success, sometimes he just likes to ...
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Shootings are not unusual in Belize. Shootings of cops are. When a wealthy woman – part of one of the most powerful families in Belize – is found on a pier late at night, next to a body, it becomes the country’s biggest news story in a generation. New episodes every Monday!
A straightforward look at the day's top news in 20 minutes. Powered by ABC News. Hosted by Brad Mielke.