Happy Father's Day! For today's episode, a conversation about fatherhood with three dads who have thought a lot about parenthood, masculinity and being a dad in a world stripped of convention. Richard Reeves is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the author of the book Of Boys and Men about why boys and men are falling behind in so many aspects of American life. Ryan Holiday is a writer, bookstore owner, Daily Stoic and Daily Dad podcast host. Ian Rowe is a Senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute where he works on issues surrounding education and upward mobility, family formation, adoption. He’s also Chairman of the board at the Spence-Chapin adoption organization, author of the book, Agency, and cofounder of Vertex Partnership Academies, a new network of character-based International Baccalaureate high schools in the Bronx.
Along with guest host Eli Lake, the four dads talk: fatherhood, marriage and if it matters anymore, what's up with "toxic masculinity," being a role model for boys, adoption, if the rules and traditions of gender are hurting today's dads or if they offer wisdom we need to re-embrace, and much more.
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I finished listening to this yesterday morning while walking my dog. My husband and I just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and we are raising two daughters together. I loved everything about this episode. I was enjoying the after-glow, imagining a rave review I might write, when the episode rolled into the credits and then an ad came on -
"I felt empowered by my abortion", "I talk about my abortion for the women who can't", and on and on about abortion and finally Planned Parenthood took credit for the verbal assault.
I'm pro-choice, but talk about a buzz-kill. Four men just sat around talking about how great being a Dad is. How it's life changing-in a good way. How rewarding-at the heart of happiness. And then a bunch of women close the episode by talking about terminating pregnancies. What a bummer.
I know it was a coincidence (I re-ran the end of the episode and got some religious ad the next time), but yikes, seems like maybe opting to not run that ad with a Father's Day episode would have been a good idea.
Great conversation! The only thing I would critique is the push back Ian received regarding schools implantation of Transgender ideology. It international and very loud! I don’t think we can dismiss the impact it may have until we see the downstream affects play out. They are unknown right now and may be “just a phase” we’re going through but maybe not, so it’s something we need to keep a close eye on.