Father’s Day ‘98

In this part of the show, stories about fathers who haven't gotten quite so close with their children. Two-thirds of all African American children are raised in single parent homes, usually by mothers and/or grandmothers. Sanantonio Brooks is 18 and lives in a big Chicago public housing project. He wanted to interview some of the young fathers in his building, guys his age who he's known since he was a kid — guys who had kids as teenagers. He wanted to talk about whether they are better fathers than their own fathers were. (12 minutes)

This is a story about an odd breach of trust between father and child, done unintentionally, and what happens next. Lawrence Weschler is an author and journalist. He and his 11-year-old daughter Sara tell the tale. She believed that she saw a four-inch tall human being, a little girl, like she read about in the children's books The Borrowers. She began leaving treats and notes for this girl. She was upset when the girl didn't seem to take them, and, finally, her father took them and wrote her a note back, pretending to be the 4-inch-tall girl. (23 minutes)