Paternal

In one of the tightest presidential elections in U.S. history, is it possible that thousands of disaffected young men might be the ones casting the deciding votes? Donald Trump certainly thinks it’s …

Over the past 10 years, Jason Reynolds has become one of the most prolific and celebrated writers working today. He writes for a young audience that he believes is ready to think about and discuss th…

Gary Vider is the son of a con man. His father Manny ran a series of schemes in and around New York City for years while Gary was growing up, including dozens of times when father and son conned thei…

Once you hear the story of the Black civil liberties group MOVE, it’s almost impossible to believe you had never learned about it before. Dubbed by some as a cult and by others as revolutionaries in …

After a particularly feverish Twitter rant in 2018 landed him an invite to write a guest opinion on boys and violence from The New York Times, Michael Ian Black had to ask one simple question: Are yo…

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 …

Everyone at some point has ridden in the back of an Uber, but how often do we think about the people behind the wheel, or how they got there? Jonathan Rigsby had a master’s degree and a full-time job…

Peter Doocy isn’t the first guest to appear on Paternal as the son of a very famous father, but he’s definitely the only one who can claim to have an “adverserial bromance” with President Joe Biden. …

Paternal celebrates Father’s Day with a special episode paying tribute to all the new dads out there celebrating the holiday for the first time. Three past guests are back on the show to offer their …

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 t…

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 Stoke…

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 air…

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 resilie…

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 o…

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-winni…

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 Evangelic…

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 o…

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…

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 construc…