Shia LeBeouf wrote Honey Boy during rehab in 2017. The screenplay unearths the damage of a troubled childhood and his riven relationship with an abusive father. Complexifying this quasi-biopic, LeBeouf plays the role of his father, fictionally named James Lort. Lucas Hedges and Noah Jupe split time as his son Otis, the grown and adolescent […]
Love Is Also One of the Things That’s True
Fifteen years ago this winter my dad drove me up to Madison for the third and final surgery on my right collarbone, which I had shattered earlier that year. (I had front-flipped onto blacktop, accomplishing a football injury while playing basketball. It’s a whole sad, dumb story.) We left home early in the morning and […]
Another Year Begins: Masked Mandalorians, New Modes of Time Keeping, Awards Season Hypocrisy, Holding Babies, Hating Your Job, Absolving Your Father, and the Boys Who Wear Shorts All Winter
A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as the Mockingbird world returns to its regular posting schedule. Lots of great articles came out over the holiday and they’re worth highlighting even if they aren’t timely on January 10. Stay tuned for new podcasts, new magazines, and new posts that are on the way! 1. […]
Shooting Blanks: Baby-Making in an Age of Anxiety – Ben Maddison
From our Spring conference in NYC, the following video features Mockingbird contributor Ben Maddison, in a talk about fatherhood and fertility in the 21st century. For more, see his previous work The Weight of Masculinity and Mary Definitely Knew.
Shooting Blanks: Baby-Making in an Age of Anxiety – Ben Maddison from Mockingbird on Vimeo.
“Ad Astra” and Dad
Usually I disdain movies. But aesthetics can seduce, and I am a sucker for dystopia, and, well, last night I was beat. So we went to see “Ad Astra.” I had heard of the sublime art direction and the contrast between the full-on space travel and the intimate subplot of the father/son relationship. You may […]
A Gift on Father’s Day
This Father’s Day, my three children gifted me a bird feeder in the shape of a log cabin. Now, as they joyfully run amok in the playroom, I am reflecting on the gifts of fatherhood itself. Fatherhood has taught me that children are actually verbs. Also, that Legos multiply through their own procreative process. Yesterday […]
Mary Definitely Knew
They brought the baby to our doorstep. Five days old. Directly from the hospital. One outfit. Four pre-made bottles. A handful of diapers. A package of wipes. And a packet of papers that offered no definitive judgment on the proper pronunciation of her name. “I think it’s…” the social worker said. “I’m pretty sure.” A […]
Healing in the Middle
When I say Asa, I sing Asa – Bry Webb, “Asa” Our middle child is named Asa, which means Healer in Hebrew. His biblical namesake was the fifth ruler in the House of David, the third king of Judah. In his two and a half years, our Asa has had more days with a royally […]
Catch Me
A new friend, who is joining the church I serve, offered a Rumi reading to me from his morning devotional: Hold up a mirror to your worst destructive habits, for that is how the real making begins. ~ 1995 was my first year of high school. That spring, my baseball coach announced to the entire […]
The Weight of Masculinity, Toxic or Otherwise
In our house, emotions were embraced. I was never told that “boys don’t cry”; it was never implied that men hide their emotions. When your dad is a professional opera-singing pastor-psychologist, and your mother a high-powered hospital executive, you get different messages than most about gender norms. As if you needed proof: my parents let […]
The World’s Greatest Dad
My wife is pregnant with our first child, which means that soon I will become the World’s Greatest Dad. I know this because I have done all the self-work necessary to understand how my parents failed me in my childhood. Using this self-knowledge, I will not make any of the mistakes my mother and father […]
Let’s Have an Uncomfortable Talk About Infertility and (I Guess) Grace
This moving reflection comes to us from Ben Maddison. Sitting alone in the doctor’s office at a quarter past two on a Wednesday, I held out hope that I was still in control of my life. After a year and a half of trying—of home tests and office tests, and pills and vitamins and online […]
