'Fatherhood' traces a history of masculinity, from Aristotle to Sigmund Freud

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4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Historian Augustine Sedgewick became a father in the summer of 2017. At the time, media events like the Bill Cosby trial were publicly challenging ideals of masculinity and fatherhood. Motivated by care for his son, Sedgewick began to research the history of masculinity and the figure of the dad. His new book Fatherhood approaches the topic through historical examples, from figures like Aristotle and Henry VIII to the work of Sigmund Freud. In today's episode, Sedgewick tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that men – like women – face impossible standards as parents, but are less likely to talk about them.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Often when famous people who happen to be moms get interviewed, they get asked, oh, how do you juggle, you know, doing this, like being a famous person in Hollywood or being on tour, doing music or whatever, and being a parent, which honestly, I think, is a fair question.
0:22.7	But what's unfair is that famous people who happen to be fathers aren't, as often
0:28.4	asked about being a parent.
0:30.2	We don't automatically assume fatherhood as part of their identity.
0:34.2	This past Father's Day weekend, NPR Ste Stevenski spoke with a writer trying to change that.
0:39.2	Augustine Sedgwick wrote a book titled Fatherhood, which uses some of the great figures in history, Aristotle, Henry the 8th, Sigmund Freud, to examine the changing shape of fatherhood.
0:49.5	And he says that many of the issues father's face are similar to what mothers face, conflicting demands,
0:54.7	and possible standards. Mothers are just better at talking about it. That's up ahead.
1:01.0	This Father's Day weekend, fathers can reflect on how we do the job. Writer Augustin Sedgwick
1:06.6	studied fathers in history, like England's Henry VIII, who went to extremes to father a male
1:11.5	heir, or founding father Thomas Jefferson, who fathered children both free and enslaved. Sedgwick
1:18.3	says the idea of fathers, as providers, or the men in charge, has changed over time. His book,
1:23.7	his fatherhood, and I asked what got him thinking about it. My father was just so present.
1:31.2	All of my life, he was solid and forthright and a source of really good advice and, you know, crisp 20s when needed.
1:42.6	And right not long before, my own son was born.
1:45.8	My father had a stroke that really changed his personality.
1:49.2	And my son was born in the summer of 2017, which was kind of a tough moment for men and fatherhood.
1:55.9	I mean, when we got to the hospital, Bill Cosby's mistrial was on every TV in the maternity ward.
2:01.3	Wow.
2:01.8	You know, America's dad.
2:04.5	But not long before that, you know, Trump had been inaugurated and he had boasted of never
2:08.7	having changed a diaper, but also how much she loved it when his adult daughter called him
	...

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