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cover of episode 289: Go Ask Your Father

289: Go Ask Your Father

2025/6/15
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This American Life
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People
E
Eric
通过四年的激进储蓄和投资，实现50岁早退并达到“胖FI”状态。
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Eric's dad
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Ira Glass
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Lennard Davis
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Les
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Paul Tough
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Paul Tough's father
Topics
Ira Glass: 作为成年人，我们面临是否与父母沟通童年时期所受伤害的选择。这很难，因为我们不确定是否值得，或者父母会作何反应。我经常会思考，与父母对质是否真的有效，因为他们可能已经变成了完全不同的人。 Eric's dad: 那些录音带唤醒了我生命中最悲伤的时期，让我感到非常痛苦。我承认自己没有力量给儿子回录音带，对此我感到非常抱歉，因为我不知道该如何回答他。我本应该更有力量去做的，但我没有。 Eric: 我对父亲既有童年时期的愤怒，也有成年后的理解。我试图唤起年轻时的父亲形象来表达愤怒，但未能如愿。我意识到，我想要对质的那个年轻的父亲已经不在了，取而代之的是一个慈祥、善良、略带悲伤的老人。我仍然对年轻时的父亲感到愤怒，但他已经不在了。

Deep Dive

Chapters
This chapter explores the challenges of confronting parents about past hurts, highlighting the difficulty in addressing issues when parents have changed and the questions about the past remain unanswered. It sets the stage for the following stories of individuals seeking answers from their parents, despite the odds.
  • Confronting parents is often unsatisfying because they've changed.
  • The people we're mad at from the past may be gone.
  • We still have questions about the past.

Shownotes Transcript

In honor of Father’s Day, stories of sons and daughters finding out the one thing they've always wanted to know about their father. The answers aren't always what they’d hoped for.

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  • Prologue: As a kid, Aric Knuth sent cassette tapes to his dad, a merchant marine gone for months at a time. He’d leave one side blank and ask for a reply—but none ever came. Aric talks to Ira Glass about what it was like to finally ask his dad why. (7 minutes)
  • Act One: Lennard Davis was always told to avoid his no-good Uncle Abie. After his father died, Abie claimed he was actually Lenny’s biological father via artificial insemination. At first, the story seemed possible, then doubtful. It took Lenny more than 20 years to sort out whether it was true, and he finds out the answer—definitively—as tape is rolling. (31 minutes)
  • Act Two: Paul Tough’s father was a mild-mannered professor—until he suddenly left the family to pursue a lifelong quest: making contact with extraterrestrial life. For the first time, Paul joins him and asks the questions he’s long kept to himself about his father’s alien pursuits. (18 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org)

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