A few days ago I did something I haven’t done for <cough> years: I attended a high school graduation. You’re likely thinking that my oldest, A-, is 20 so surely I attended her high school graduation, right? Turns out that though she spent many years at the same private school, she ended up deciding that an online program would serve her best for the last year of high school. The program was very good and…Read More
My 13yo girl is good at math, though she is quick to get discouraged. There’s something about the “hard” sciences that brings that out in a lot of people, students and parents alike. My theory is that it’s to do with the right or wrong nature of the work. History is open to interpretation, composition is strongly influenced by your imagination and writing style and physical education, well, if you can throw a ball… But math…Read More
I’ve spent the last few days at Type-A West in Denver, Colorado, including being part of a panel discussion about Dad Influencers, along with long-time friend Eric Elkins and new friend Bolaji Oyejide. Ably moderated by Don Jackson, we ended up talking a lot more about fatherhood and the nuanced issue of appropriately sharing our experiences as fathers with our followers. Do you reveal all, or do you keep everyone at arm’s length? Bolaji was…Read More
I don’t know that I can ever really be a “bachelor” in the sense of a man who is unmarried and has zero responsibilities, but with my girls in Hawaii for two weeks with their mom, it’s feeling a lot like I have a big house and not a lot of people within. In Hollywood a “bachelor” is someone who lives a decadent lifestyle, is a slob and subsists on pizza and bottles of whiskey….Read More
When your children are little, it’s pretty typical for parents — mostly Mums, but we’ll get back to that — to give them valentine’s day cards or sweets. As they grow up, however, is there an age when it becomes inappropriate or just a tad weird? Some might think so but I don’t. In fact, I gave Valentine’s Day cards to both of my girls this morning and they’re 13 and 20. Better yet, Ashley,…Read More
All three of my children have been into sports, far more than I ever was as a child. Heck, I joined marching band in high school so that I could take that instead of PE. My sports experience as a youth ended when I was about eight when my parents got sick of the way the other parents treated their children and harassed the coaches on my local Little League team. I actually have no memories at…Read More
My daughter celebrated her 13th birthday over the weekend with a gala party that included almost every single person in her class at our house for cake, dancing and a game of truth or dare, the latter held in a dark room only lit by our laser disco light. Truth or dare? Um… I had some reservations about the game, for sure, particularly since 13 is the age at which girls start to get very…Read More
I married a woman from a different religious background than my own, which meant our ceremony was Unitarian. I was raised Jewish, she was raised Baptist, though neither of us had a particularly strong religious family. When we were married, we took that common route of celebrating all possible holidays, whether Jewish or Christian. I mean, why not celebrate as many events as possible? Since it always fell on very different days, we also opted…Read More
As a so-called influencer, I get all sorts of interesting things in the mail, products, gear, gadgets and other things that are interesting to open but ultimately end up in the box of unwanted toys. Think Toy Story 3, perhaps. Still, sometimes things show up that surprise me and prove to be far cooler than I realized when I first popped open the box. And so it was with the Babbleboxx that I received in…Read More
I get letters, often from other divorced men who are either full-time single fathers or part-time dads. All of them have one thing in common: they love their child or children and are trying to do the best they can while also trying to have a life of their own. The latest guy to write to me had this question: My question to you is about parenting first and secondly personal wishes. Two years ago,…Read More
A few weeks ago I had a chance to spend some time talking with psychologist and family therapist Robbin Rockett, who hosts the terrific Solo Parent Life podcast. Our conversation ranged all over the place but also included a history of this blog, Go Fatherhood, including how my divorce was — and wasn’t — reflected here on the site. We also talked at length about how judgmental other parents can be (and how hard that…Read More
I don’t feel like I’m an overly patriotic person, but I do feel quite strongly that it’s the right and responsibility of every American who can vote to do so, whether it’s for the next President, a statewide ballot issues or just a local issues of taxation. Does each vote matter? In some huge ballot initiatives, perhaps not. When something wins by significant percentage points, 70% to 30%, an individual vote might not be a big deal….Read More
I was reading an article in the Denver Post about current demographic trends that startled me. The article cites data from the latest US Census American Community Survey that indicates “34.1 percent of all 18- to 34-year-olds in the U.S. lived in their parents’ home in 2015.” Thirty-four percent. Now it’s possible that the 18yo and 19yo gap year students are skewing the data, but it’s still a bit mind-boggling that fully one-third of all young adults are…Read More
I’ve been reading about so-called trigger warnings for a year or two now, but have been in denial about their existence on college campuses and throughout academia. Unfortunately, they’re real. Before most professors now talk about anything graphic or potentially upsetting to a student, they warn the students that the topic will include certain “trigger” topics and then let the students have a moment or two to opt out and leave the lecture hall rather than participate…Read More
There’s a sense in our culture that if someone’s going it alone as a parent without the other partner involved at all, it’s the Mom and the Dad just split or was pushed away. And the reality is that’s true in far too many cases. According to that unimpeachable source Wikipedia, there are 13.6 million single parents in the United States [see also the graph below, from The Atlantic], 80% of them are mothers, and 45% of those…Read More
