Paternal Nick Firchau

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 harm than good, and how did Friends and Seinfeld land a fatal blow to the fate of sitcom dads?
Comedy historian and author Saul Austerlitz joins this episode of Paternal to take a deep dive on the history of the family sitcom, tracing the genre’s roots back to the dawn of television. He discusses how fathers were first portrayed in the 1950s and how they have evolved during each decade thereafter, including iconic sitcom dads on Leave it to Beaver, All in the Family, The Cosby Show, Married With Children, Roseanne, and The Simpsons.
Austerlitz is a faculty member at NYU who teaches courses on writing about American comedy and writing about television drama, and he’s the author of six books, including on the history of sitcoms and the success of the hit series Friends. He recently wrote an article in The Atlantic entitled “Dad Culture Has Nothing to Do With Parenting.”
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - 06:56 - Intro
06:56 - 10:33 - The perils of the “dad perjorative” and the connection to sitcoms
10:33 - 15:12 - Sitcom dads in the 1950s and 1960s
15:12 - 21:18 - Discussing Archie Bunker, “All in the Family,” and 70s family sitcoms
23:16 - 28:28 - The success of “The Cosby Show”
28:28 - 32:22 - The rise of the 1980s Superdad
32:22 - 36:12 - “Roseanne” breaks the mold
36:12 - 42:49 - The alternative dads on “Married With Children” and “The Simpsons”
42:49 - 46:25 - The 1990s demise of the family sitcom 
46:25 - 48:42 - “Blackish” and dads on modern-day sitcoms
48:42 - 51:40 - What we lose without family sitcoms
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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.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - 05.30 - Introduction
05:30 - 07:59 - A life-threatening test of resilience
07:59 - 13:27 - Defining resilience and studying trauma victims
13:27 - 18:00 - On facing your fears
18:00 - 19:50 - On the values of optimism
19:50 - 22:15 - On developing social groups and the connection to resilience
22:15 - 24:18 - Discussing the value of role models
24:18 - 28:05 - On identifying your core beliefs, values and family history
28:05 - 29:46 - Discussing the connection between gratitude and resilience
29:46 - 32:15 - On what parents get wrong when they think about teaching kids resilience
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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.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - 05:43 - Introduction
05:43 - 11:54 - A frightening trip to the hospital
11:54 - 18:48 - Intubation and the diagnosis
18:48 - 23:13 - Asking for help and dealing with complex emotions
25:06 - 30:24 - A reawakening and an uncertain future
30:24 - 37:45 - A new reality, and changes in parenting
37:45 - 41:16 - Balancing what is, and what could have been
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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
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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.
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 - 05:56 - Introduction and description of The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism
05:56 - 13:11 - Background on Tim Alberta’s father, senior pastor Richard Alberta
13:11 - 16:56 - On the experience of growing up as a pastor’s kid
16:56 - 19:30 - Discussing his father’s funeral and blowback from members of the church congregation
21:05 - 27:01 - On Evangelicals, idolatry, and fighting for America as if salvation itself hangs in the balance
27:01 - 31:03 - On Evangelicals and fear of a changing society
27:01 - 31:03 - On Evangelicals and fear of a changing society
31:03 - 35:27 - Why Evangelicals have rallied around Trump
35:27 - 38:50 - The challenge of inheriting faith from your father
38:50 - 44:32 - On what kind of faith he wants for his kids
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