Saved Seats | The Mental Load of Dads: Nick Firchau on Modern Fatherhood

*This is a replayed episode from earlier in Season 1*

The first man to sit at the Breadwinners table. We're bringing back this conversation with Nick Firchau, host of the Paternal podcast, because the questions it raises haven't gone anywhere.

Nick has interviewed more than 130 men about fatherhood, and this episode gets into what those conversations reveal: men parenting without a model, the friendships they don't know how to build, and the load they carry but rarely name. Alexis and Nick also take on the topics that tend to get avoided, from the respect-versus-love dynamic in marriages to whether lifting up mothers has left fathers out of the conversation.

In this episode:

Why roughly 40% of the fathers Nick has interviewed grew up without a father figure at home, and how that shapes the way they parent now

The sitcom trope that taught a generation of men how to be dads, going all the way back to Father Knows Best

What Nick learned about himself when he examined why he says "be careful" to his kids

The invisible load of fathers, and why men are reluctant to talk about it

"Benefit of the doubt," the two-word operating rule at the center of Nick's marriage

Nick Firchau is a longtime journalist and podcast producer, and the creator and host of Paternal, a show about the brotherhood of fatherhood. Since launching in 2017, Paternal has featured Super Bowl winners, Pulitzer Prize winning journalists, and award-winning authors, and has been named a best podcast for fathers by Apple Podcasts and Lifehacker. Nick lives outside Boulder, Colorado with his wife and two kids.

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