Fatherhood can be unexpectedly lonely: your world shrinks, your friendships go dark, and somehow you convince yourself that this is just … normal.
But what if it wasn’t?
I’m delighted to be bringing The New Fatherhood podcast back to your ears—and, for the first time, you can also watch it on YouTube. In the first episode of this new season, I’m talking with novelist and journalist Sam Graham-Felsen about what happens to male friendship after we become dads. Sam’s essay on male loneliness in The New York Times Magazine struck a chord with thousands of men around the world, and he’s written extensively about fatherhood, friendship, and masculinity, including a recent piece about a father-son road trip to the Badlands inspired by Teddy Roosevelt’s “Strenuous Life.”
In this conversation, we dig into why so many fathers lose touch with their friends after having kids, how childhood experiences shape the fathers we become, and the surprisingly simple ways we can rebuild connection with each other.
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Where to Find Sam Graham-Felsen
Episode References
Sam’s Badlands essay: “I Tried to Toughen Up My Son. Things Didn’t Go as Planned.”
Sam’s essay on male loneliness: “Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?”
Kevin’s essay, “Where’s My Jenny?”
Man of the Year podcast episode on the “TCS method” (Text/Call/See)
Theodore Roosevelt and the Strenuous Life
Dadurdays: IRL meetups in a city near you
Men calling to wish each other goodnight
Ray Charles — “America the Beautiful”
Bruce Springsteen — “Badlands”
Woody Guthrie — “This Land Is Your Land”
Timestamps
0:00 — welcome to the show!
01:13 — fatherhood is like the kitchen junk drawer
04:04 — why it's nice to show your kids leaves
07:25 — roadtripping to the Badlands, Teddy Roosevelt, and the myth of “toughening up your son”
11:59 — being bullied as a kid
14:07 — raising confident kids, not jerks
15:00 — it's human to think a flower is beautiful
20:24 — why Sam wrote publicly about his own loneliness
21:20 — it's ok to be lonely
22:02 — friendship as the most underrated mental health strategy
27:18 — sam regrets not reaching out to friends as a new dad
29:47 — why are dads (sometimes) so bad at friends?
32:49 — TCM method: text weekly, call monthly, see quarterly
35:00 — why phone calls are weirdly hard (and how to make them work)
Credits
Host: Kevin Maguire
Managing Producer: Elizabeth Van Brocklin
Sound Editor: Sam Williams
Theme Music: Sohn
