Ten days ago today I was in Southern California, along with my sister, and we held my Dad’s hands as he slipped away and shed his mortal coil. He was 84 and his health had been gradually declining in the last few years, particularly his ever-decreasing heart strength. Ultimately, it was a deadly cocktail of congestive heart failure, leukemia, a blood clot and kidney failure that finally closed the last chapter of his life. He…Read More
There’s a certain point in the journey of being a father when you look around at other dads and realize that however hard you try, you really just cannot offer all possible experiences to your children. Like everyone, I’m good at some things, really excellent at some things, and pretty poor at others. And there are still other experiences that I just have zero interest in doing, like skydiving. Living on a 16-acre farm part…Read More
This post is just for you, guys. You know who you are, you’re like me. You give your all to your kids and to everyone — and everything else — in your life. I know that I do just that, staying up late to find a few minutes free from kids, with whom I am constantly interacting when they’re awake, then I wake up early to get them to school, the gym, sporting events or…Read More
Over on my DaveOnFilm film blog, I posted a review of the new film Dracula Untold. You might go read it, as the film was definitely better than I expected, and better than most critics would lead you to be believe. Just as Batman Begins is a retelling of the mythic Dark Knight origin story and Wicked is a retelling of the Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, so is Dracula Untold a different…Read More
Spend any time in the self-help section at the bookstore (well, alright, the self-help section at Amazon.com), watch TV or movies, and you’ll keep bumping into this mythological character, one that causes a huge amount of grief and unhappiness in our culture: the perfect parent. Whether it’s the perfect selfless Mom who has no life outside of her children but keeps the house squeaky clean, scrapbooks every week of the family’s adventures, all while also…Read More
Last year I spent an afternoon at the At-Home Dads Convention and enjoyed the chance to meet a number of passionate dads who had opted to stay home and raise their children while their wives focused on careers and bringing home the proverbial bacon. A role reversal from the traditional male/female roles in a family, for sure. This year when the 19th Annual At-Home Dads Convention was again going to be in Denver, I proposed a…Read More
One nice thing about my children going to a private school is that the teachers have the leeway to do a lot of things that would be frowned upon, logistically impossible or a violation of policy in a public school. Heck, we’ve been at the school for so long that we’re are now used to celebrating offbeat saints and holidays too, including Santa Lucia, Saint George and Michaelmas, with special guest Saint Michael (of course!). You’ll…Read More
8:45am on a sunny September morning in New York City, a group of terrorists changed the face of our world in a way that it’s still hard to fathom. First it was an American Airlines 767 that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, then 18 minutes later, United Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. An hour later American flight 77 smashed into the west side of the Pentagon building. Finally, a…Read More
The problem with sharing your personal life online is that people read what you write. People who might know other players in the great drama of your life. People who might then point out to those other actors on the stage how they’ve been characterized. When I review a movie, I don’t particularly worry about ruffling the feathers of an actor, director or cinematographer, but when I’m here on my dad blog writing about my…Read More
I watch my children and it’s fascinating to see how as they get older that they become more and more rooted in reality. It’s like vines that creep up from the ground and slowly, over time, root them to the Earth, taking away their ability to fly, to float off and live in a dreamworld that only they can really touch. My 17yo is still on week one of driving and her fantastical vision is…Read More
I started this habit when I was going through my divorce years ago, and it’s just stuck: I go to the gym just about every day and spend at least 30min doing cardio exercise and various weights — and then using a long-lasting deodorant! — to try and keep healthy and stave off the inevitable consequences of those sands of time falling through the hourglass of my life. Not to mention that since I don’t…Read More
I was reading the culled news on Google News this morning and bumped into an editorial from The Christian Post that’s left me aghast. Written by Kenny Luck, the line that got me was this: Today, virtually every societal problem, social injustice and behavioral abnormality can be traced back to absent, delinquent, misbehaving, drunk, or sexually immoral dads… When I first read this piece, I figured that it was some male-bashing woman who has had…Read More
Ah Father’s Day. A day that should be fun, easy, light and enjoyable, with kids showering Dad with love and tokens of their affection. I see it on Facebook and on TV, so it must be true, right? I mean, I love my kids and I know that they love me too, so we’re good to go in that department. Except for that pesky thing called reality. This year my two younger ones are in…Read More
As Father’s Day gets closer, I keep thinking about how I used to suspect my Dad was a spy, a “shadow recruit” and probably worked for MI6 alongside Bond, James Bond and the crew. Heck, he probably had the secret phone number for “M” so he could check in as needed. I mean, think about it: We’re English, he was born in London, he had that sophisticated Brit accent, served in the RAF and looks almost exactly…Read More
Father’s Day. Suddenly a wave of “guy gifts” shows up in my inbox, companies hoping that they’ll have the one product that either speaks to my children, making them think “oh yeah, Dad would love this!” or speaks to me, making me think that my own Dad would enjoy that particular product or service. Classic things seem to involve beer, bbq and sports, but that’s not really the relationship I have with my Dad, so…Read More
I participated in a Blogger Activation on behalf of Dad Central Consulting for Coastal Dog. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and to thank me for participating. I know, it’s a weird headline for this piece, but I just got a terrific new swimsuit from Coastal Dog Apparel and I can’t really talk about the benefit of this particular suit design unless I talk about chafing. Now I may be making some…Read More
It’s Mother’s Day and my own Mum is no longer with us, while my children are celebrating with their own mother, so I’m flying solo. No worries, have a busy day, but it is giving me a chance to think about the holiday itself. To start, here’s the email I sent to my ex: We’ve been on quite a journey but I am thankful every day that together we brought three amazing children into this…Read More
One of the greatest challenges with being a single parent to multiple children is finding the time to have solo, one on one time with each child. As they get older it’s possible that their own schedules enable some solo time by dint of the siblings being at other people’s houses, but it’s tricky with my three because while my youngest loves having friends over for sleepovers, at 10yo she still only sleeps if she’s with me or her…Read More
There are a lot of people who shrug off media portrayals of dads as incompetent, stupid, child-like and generally unable to cope with their tasks as a parent. Heck, there are those that seem to believe it, or believe that it’s generally true, even if their husband or brother is quite a competent father. I understand the pervasive danger of media stereotypes, heck, of cultural stereotypes, so I try not to shrug things off quite…Read More
Fellow stay-at-home Dad Brent Brookhouse over at The Good Men Project site shared his upset over a Facebook at-home dad community and how it’s left him with a perception that SAHD’s are chauvinistic pigs and need to aim for a higher level of consciousness. Your best place to start is to go read what he wrote: What led me to abandon my stay-at-home dad community, sloppy and overgeneralized quotes like “a group of fathers who…Read More
Today’s viral noise is brought to you by two chowderheaded sports commentators out of New York, Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason, who on their WFAN radio program accused Mets baseball player Daniel Murphy of having incorrect priorities when he used the paternity leave option to take a few days off from the team to be present for the birth and first few days of his new baby. When I heard about this story I just…Read More