A necessary guide to raising boys amid the rise of fascism-12 provocative and heartfelt conversations on resisting despair, building resilience, and divesting from toxic masculinity
From hit shows like Adolescence to hand-wringing pieces in The Atlantic, we're being sold the message that today's boys are not all right. Social media algorithms mainline toxic masculinity and alpha mandates right to their smartphones. Far-right radicalization has reached a fever pitch. Boys and young men are trending toward authoritarianism at higher rates than we've ever seen. We have a crisis on our hands. None of this is wrong, but it omits something critical-namely, the truths we miss when we spend all our time talking about boys in 2026 instead of talking to them.
Conspirituality co-host and author Matthew Remski offers a bold, heartfelt exploration of 12 conversations that antifascist dads can-and should-have with their sons. He offers tools for raising kids with empathy, accountability, and resilience, and challenges parents to unpack their own baggage, relate to their children with authenticity and vulnerability, and avoid the traps of false comfort and needing to be "right." He also helps parents break down complex ideas in age-appropriate ways-and elucidates why we should even be talking with our kids about fascism anyway.
Timely, provocative, and urgently necessary, Antifascist Dad taps into the conversations we need to have, and offers frames to do it well: What is fascism? Where does it come from? What are we up against? Why is this a parenting issue? Remski also explores hot-button issues, delving into incel culture; why smartphones and social aren't really the issue; moralities of resistance á la Luigi Mangione; and that the problem extends far beyond the obvious: we need to raise boys who will stand up against the status quo just as much as we need to intervene on the violent lone wolf.
At a time when boys are being radicalized and manosphere influencers are messaging harmful models about what it means to "be a man," Antifascist Dad offers a powerful counterpoint and a call-in to parents-to see their boys for who they are, to own their own shortcomings, and to step bravely into the conversations that matter. Matthew Remski is an author and freelance journalist, with bylines in The Walrus, GEN by Medium, TIME, the Boston Globe, and the Globe and Mail. He's a former yoga teacher whose research is informed by his past experiences as a member of two cults. He's published eight books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including Threads of Yoga: A Remix of Patanjali's Sutras with Commentary and Reverie (2012).Remski has cohosted the Conspirituality podcast since 2020. With colleagues Derek Beres and Julian Walker he has appeared as an expert on COVID-era spirituality and political extremism for dozens of news outlets. In 2023, they published Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat and Remski published Surviving Modern Yoga, a republishing of Practice All is Coming, in 2024. Remski lives in Toronto with his partner and their two sons.
