Tom Junod
American magazine writer known for profiles in GQ and Esquire, author of the memoir "In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man"
Tom Junod (American magazine writer known for profiles in GQ and Esquire, author of the memoir "In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man") has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Fatherhood, Genetic genealogy and unknown siblings, Family secrets.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Fatherhood
Junod argues his father may not have been a good man but was an elemental one whose influence left no room for anger.
“He might not have been a good man, but he was an elemental one”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 44:14
Junod says finding his half-sister settled his long-unresolved feelings and knowledge about his father.
“I felt like I had settled finally what I'd never been able to settle in my life, which is my feelings about my dad and my knowledge about my dad”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 42:49
Junod recounts that his father lost his fortune through gambling and bad stock market investing.
“He was a terrible gambler and he was even worse, he was even a worse investor in the stock market”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 23:36
Junod says his father was in many ways a good, attentive dad even though he terrified him.
“He was actually a really good dad in a lot of different ways. He was attentive. He was prescriptive”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 10:54
Genetic genealogy and unknown siblings
Junod says approaching Lizanne's food truck was the most frightening moment of his journalistic career.
“nothing ever in my entire journalistic career scared me more than walking up to Lizanne's food truck and introducing myself”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 39:11
Junod explains he contacted Lizanne despite her brother's request because he believed the decision to know should be hers.
“And I didn't think ultimately it would be anybody's decision but hers”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 39:36
Junod says he was driven to find his possible half-sibling because he understood the damage his father's secret life had done to both families.
“because I knew what my dad's secret life had done to my family. And I had an idea what my father's secret life had done to the Monaghan family”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 35:09
Family secrets
Junod describes his ethical hesitation about contacting the Monahan family, whose lives his father had disrupted decades earlier.
“40 years ago invaded this family's life. And it had a tragic ending. Do I presume to do that again?”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 33:24
Junod explains he did not tell his mother about his father's secrets because he believed it would have destroyed his parents' marriage.
“But then I knew that it was the nuclear codes to my family. I mean, I don't think my parents' marriage would have survived”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 20:42
My Father's Fashion Tips (GQ article)
Junod says he withheld his father's private revelations from the GQ piece and published only grooming and dressing advice.
“I spared him, and I put in the secrets that he wanted everybody to know. The secrets of grooming, the secrets of hygiene, the secrets of dressing”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 29:53
Junod says he wrote the GQ article as a gift meant to make his father the celebrity he never became.
“The reason I did it was as a gift to him. I wanted to make him the celebrity that he never was”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 23:12
Masculinity
Junod says what distinguished his upbringing from others with macho fathers was that his father was constantly pursuing sex.
“I had a macho dad who was forever on the make. And that was the difference”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 20:40
Junod says his father's ideas about manhood were modeled on the movie stars of the late 1930s rather than on his own father.
“As best as I could tell, it was modeled on the movie stars of the late 1930s”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 7:14
In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man
Junod says he could not have written the book without loving his father and remains ambivalently in love with him.
“That's where it is I am ambivalently still in love with my dad”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 46:22
Infidelity
Junod argues that the word 'philanderer' is accurate but too mild to describe his father.
“And I guess that's the right word. But it seems almost too mild for what he was”
The Daily: Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father? (Jun 21, 2026) · Listen from 15:27
Appearances
Can a Bad Man Be a Good Father?The Daily · Jun 21, 2026 · 47 min
Michael Barbaro talks with writer Tom Junod about his charismatic, philandering father Lou and the secret half-sister Junod uncovered after his father's death.
Often appears with
- Michael Barbaro · 1 shared episode