Paternology (FATHERHOOD) with Darby Saxbe
6/10/20261 hr 21 min
DADS. What makes a good one? What if you had a bad one? And how can fatherhood turn the tides on toxic masculinity? Also: diapers. The brilliant USC research psychologist, fatherhood expert, and thus Paternologist Dr. Darby Saxbe covers everything from prehistoric family systems to social media expectations as we chat about male hormones during and after pregnancy, division of labor, dad bods, gorillas, TV dads, seahorses, trans dads, oxytocin, gender reveals, and how it truly takes a community to raise a kid. Her brand new book is “Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How it Shapes Men's Lives,” and it’s great reading for anyone who was the result of a sperm and egg. Including frogs.
Visit Dr. Saxbe’s website and follow her on Instagram, Bluesky, Substack, and YouTube
Buy her book, Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives
A donation went to Homeboy Industries
More episode sources and links
Zach Bogart’s “Oh hey” cataloguer site ohheyitsthe.site
Other episodes you may enjoy: Pride Month: Guests to Know and Love, Genealogy (FAMILY TREES), Matrimoniology (MARRIAGE), Evolutionary Biology (DARWINISM), Trolleyology (MORAL DILEMMAS + THE TROLLEY PROBLEM), Personality Psychology (PERSONALITIES), Molecular Neurobiology (BRAIN CHEMICALS), Neuroendocrinology (SEX & GENDER), Sexology (SEX), Biogerontology (AGING), Mammalogy (MAMMALS), Dasyurology (TASMANIAN DEVILS)
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Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee
Managing Director: Susan Hale
Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth
Transcripts by Aveline Malek
Website by Kelly R. Dwyer
Theme song by Nick Thorburn
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlie Ward· Host0:00
Oh, hey. It's the lady who has a podcast who you call Dad Ward 'cause she doesn't mind embarrassing herself, so now you are mine. Hey, let's talk about dads. Who are they? What do they do? And in the words of many, many patrons who wrote in with questions, why do so many of them suck so bad? How did the good ones get it right? And w- we're gonna find out. Hop in the backseat, let's examine patternology about dads. You horse around back there, I'll turn this podcast around. But first, let's indeed thank those patrons for all the sweet and funny questions you sent. And if you'd like to submit yours before we record an episode, you can join the fam at patreon.com/ologies for one hot dollar a month, which supports us. Also, if you do have little ones, we have Smologies. Those are shorter, kid-friendly, G-rated episodes we've put into their own feed, available to subscribe for free wherever you get podcasts. Just look for Smologies, S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S. Thanks to everyone who leaves reviews for the show, which always melt my heart, and they help others find Ologies, such as this still warm one from Slug Worm, who wrote, "Long time listener, first time reviewer. Fell so in love with science again, my long lost curiosity with nature, that I changed my degree to biology. I graduated with honors this last year, took a class in Costa Rica, went on birding trips, worked on a decades-long research project, made a program for kids, and so on." Slug Worm, if I told you how much that meant to me, this would be a very long episode, so thank you so much. Thanks to everyone