Fatherhood appears in Season 1 not as a single episode's theme but as a current running beneath almost every conversation. Guests approached it from three directions: as sons reflecting on their fathers, as fathers navigating the role themselves, and — in one case — as a daughter reckoning with a father's absence.
Tariq Elmeri (EP 1) opened the show by naming his father as his model of success. His father raised multiple children through hardship without complaint, supported by Tariq's mother. Tariq framed this as a greater achievement than any career milestone — and said the difficulty of fatherhood only became clear when he became a father himself.
Suleiman al-Tih (EP 7) credited his late father with teaching him how to connect with strangers — the warmth that became his professional asset as a personal trainer. The moment was brief and quiet, the only time the conversation went still.
Nasr Elhadi (EP 2) described fatherhood as a genuine shock that recalibrated everything. He joined an NCT-style group in London, read How to Be a Dad, and studied every physical change a mother goes through during pregnancy — so he could respond with understanding rather than frustration. He described the nine months as preparation time for fathers, not just mothers.
Osama Alfitory (EP 10), expecting his first child at the time of recording, stated simply that he would no longer return to the level of risk he once accepted. He had calculated his daily chance of death while filming landmine clearance at 60–70%. Becoming a father ended that calculus.
Emad Badi (EP 4), the eldest son, described the weight of being a good example for his younger brother — not fatherhood literally, but the adjacent pressure of eldest-son responsibility in a family shaped by displacement.
What the show reveals is that fatherhood, for these Libyan men, is not a role that begins when a child is born. It begins with their own fathers — with what was modelled, what was sacrificed, what was lost. The guests who lost fathers young (Suleiman al-Tih, Nasr Elhadi) all described the absence as a shaping force. Those becoming fathers (Nasr Elhadi, Osama Alfitory) described the role as requiring conscious preparation, not instinct.