Keith Gaston is a father, social worker and, just like his dad, a man born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. But the city has changed in the decades since Gaston grew up there, with a climbing unemployment rate, a declining city population and issues with gun violence and drugs that are taking a toll on some of the city’s young men. That’s where Gaston has stepped in, focused on teaching young men the skills of being a father.

Author, father and New York Times co-chief theater critic Jesse Green recently examined works by Arnold Lobell, Margaret Wise Brown, Maurice Sendak and other prominent children’s book authors and illustrators of the past 50-plus years and discovered that a host of writers of a more conservative era created the best works of their lives - and some of the most influential children’s literature of all time - while largely hiding their sexuality from the public.

Craig Scott was a sophomore at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, when two students descended on the school and unleashed what was, at the time, the deadliest high school shooting in American history. And though Scott survived by hiding under a desk in the library, the shooters killed 12 students and a teacher that day, including Scott's friends, classmates, and older sister Rachel.

How many times have mothers and fathers argued about roughhousing with young kids, or why dad is a better disciplinarian than mom? After roughly four decades working in pediatrics and child psychiatry, Dr. Kyle Pruett knows the answer: Moms and dads simply parent differently, and that’s fine for everyone involved. Including the kid.

How would you describe the feeling when you first became a parent? California businessman Mark Eckhardt never seriously thought of starting a family before the birth of his first daughter. And when she finally arrived he was overcome with joy, but also with the feeling that his entire life had been forever disrupted.

Andy Johnson has spent much of his life fixing things. As a 35-year-old farmer growing corn and hay in Colorado, Johnson is a model of resourcefulness, spending the days on his 1,000 acres of farmland as an agronomist, a car mechanic, or a welder. Every year the summer storms come and go, crops thrive and die. But his farmer’s ingenuity has always persisted through the seasons, a trait passed down through five generations of men making their living off the land.

What if you spent the first three decades of your life building a relationship with your father, and then one day, you found out he wasn’t the only father you had?

There are two guests on this episode of Paternal - one is 33-year-old John Vanek, a husband and father of two young girls living in the suburbs of Minneapolis. And the other is his biological father, Dr. Bruce A. Olmscheid, a physician who lives nearly 2,000 miles away in Southern California. Neither man knew the other one existed for about 30 years.

How far would you be willing to go to somehow preserve the memory of someone you lost? When James Vlahos found out his father was dying of lung cancer, he set out to create a chatbot fueled by a treasure trove of interviews with his dad, and artificial intelligence software. The end result is the Dadbot, a program that questions if artificial immortality might actually exist.

Prior to the birth of his first son, the only things Schwan Park knew about autism were gleaned from watching Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. But after he and his wife realized something was different about the development of their son Max, Park reluctantly pushed himself to learn more about the symptoms of autism, and ultimately to accept a new reality for his family.

Jason Hairston was always up for a challenge. And by the time he was 47 years old he had overcome his fair share to become a family man, successful CEO of outdoor apparel giant KUIU, and a guru to thousands of like-minded men all looking for their own personal, primal experience on the hunt.

But to the shock of many who knew and loved him, Hairston took his own life in September. In his final in-depth interview before his death and of Paternal’s most intimate episodes to date, Hairston discusses all the experiences that shaped him as a father and a son.

Veteran explorer Eric Larsen has not only reached both the geographic north and south poles, but also summited Mount Everest. And in 2009 and 2010 he became the first person in the world to reach all three in the span of 365 days, an endeavor that cemented him as one of the most successful American explorers in recent years. But he’s also used to leaving his wife and two young children behind for weeks, which always raises some questions in his mind when he’s alone on the ice.

Joe Andruzzi has always been surrounded by family. And he never valued family more than in 2007, when he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer that nearly took his life. Andruzzi - who won three Super Bowls with the New England Patriots - went on to found the Joe Andruzzi Foundation, which has helped more than 8,000 families and individuals affected by cancer. On this episode of Paternal he discusses his battle with cancer and how his father’s role as a New York City police officer shaped the family’s values.

Seattle author Neal Thompson has profiled a range of intriguing characters during his career as an acclaimed author, but for his fifth book he turned his eye to his sons, two boys fixated on the sport and culture of skateboarding. In the debut episode of Season 3 of Paternal, Thompson discusses his kids' all-encompassing passion for the sport and their embrace of a counter-culture lifestyle that led to drugs, alcohol, vandalism and concerns from their father that he had let his boys go too far. 

Meet Frank. He’s a 62 year-old father of four grown kids, and grandfather to seven beautiful grandchildren. Back in the summer of 2017, Frank decided to leave his home in San Diego and spend a week in Denver with his son Tommy, but it was no ordinary trip. Tommy is a homeless drug addict who lives in and around Civic Center Park in Denver, and he needs help. But can a committed father really change the course of life for his son, who’s caught in the deadliest drug crisis in American history?

What if every teenage boy could tell you what he’s thinking, and what he fears when he leaves the house to walk to go to school? Oakland educator and youth advocate Ashanti Branch has spent more than a decade trying to provide young men with a place to do just that. In 2004 he founded the Ever Forward Club, gathering a small group of young men together in his classroom to offer them a safe space to share their concerns about life and establish a brotherhood with other teenagers from all over the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Alexi Lalas knows all about opportunity. As a professional soccer player and member of the United States national team during the 1990s, Lalas used the global platform of the 1994 FIFA World Cup to introduce the world to his carefully cultivated image of a rebellious red-headed rockstar with a love for the world’s game, and life’s never been the same since. On this episode of Paternal, Lalas discusses how he tries to shield his two young kids from the vitriol he receives on social media and why he teaches his kids to constantly be aware of their surroundings, always open to the next great opportunity in life.

Ten years ago, Jason Smith found himself in a hospital waiting room in Boston, waiting to see is his wife would live through the night after a dangerous allergic reaction to chemotherapy. Smith, a psychotherapist and father of two, endured that agonizing night in the emergency room and then an exhausting year of parenting while his wife recovered. The lessons learned from the experience reaffirmed his love for his wife and his responsibilities as a father, but also helped him make sense of his own father’s trouble dealing with tragedy.

Alex Bogusky spent years atop the advertising world while running one of the hottest ad agencies in the country, Crispin Porter + Bogusky. But he left the business while at the top of his game in 2010, switching his focus to spending more time with his two young children and working with social entrepreneurs. Bogusky discusses his decision to leave the ad industry, the problems with advertising to young children and how he dealt with his father’s depression while running the family ad business.

Long before he became one of the nation’s leading voices on the emotional lives of adolescent boys, psychologist and New York Timesbestselling author Dr. Michael G. Thompson actually focused his studies on the psychological issues of young women. “I got into schools as a consultant,” Thompson says, “and all of a sudden, all of my work was little boys.” On this episode of Paternal, Thompson discusses his acclaimed book Raising Cain, how to protect the emotional complexities of young boys, and why fathers struggle to connect with their sons.

Ryan Harris spent nine years as an offensive lineman in the National Football League, earning a reputation as one of the brightest and most thoughtful players in any locker room in the league. He also won a Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos before retiring from the game in 2017. Harris discusses a range of topics on this episode of Paternal, including honoring his Muslim faith while playing at Notre Dame, getting cut and finding his way with another team, raising African-American kids in Denver and if he’ll let his son play football.