While it might be difficult for most to believe, let alone accept, few marriages last forever. And conjecture this is not; it is a reality substantiated by multiple studies. One of those studies was not too long ago published by Forbes, an international media company focusing on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and lifestyle. In that study, researchers revealed that nearly 690,000 marriages ended in divorce in 2021. While this might cause some people to…Read More
I received an email survey from a college student at Ohio University asking about life as a single parent and, more specifically, as a single father. Instead of just answering it back in email, I thought it would be fun and interesting to turn it onto – ta daaa! – a blog post. So here we are. If you’re a single parent, I invite you to answer the questions in a comment below too so…Read More
Let’s face it, this fatherhood thing isn’t easy. And sometimes it can feel impossible, with obstinate kids, a judgmental partner or ex and a boss that couldn’t care less about your home life and won’t cut you any slack. That’s why I support every Dad taking care of your own mental health, not just focusing on your children. Nowadays we have some really cool options for this too, notably online therapy and counseling. From the…Read More
Hey Dave! I just read your article about newly becoming a single father and I really wanted to know how you handled your ex-wife when she started dating again, knowing that person was going to be around your kids more than you. My daughter is only 18 months, me and my ex-wife divorced back in June and I believe she is already seeing someone. I know that it was bound to happen but I feel more…Read More
I know, the very first question you have is “dude, what are the first six skills I need to know to do well at the co-parenting thing?” but my answer is, like a Zen master, they will reveal themselves when you need them. Which is to say, I dunno. 🙂 One of the most challenging things about parenting, whether you’re divorced, married or even flying pretty much solo, is triangulation. You know it’s happening when your…Read More
As someone who has spent a fair amount of time writing about divorce, single parenting and the effects of both on children, I am often asked for advice in private. Friends I thought were happy reveal their pain and challenges, and others share with me the journey that someone else in their family or social circle is experiencing, asking for advice and whatever wisdom and perspective I can offer. I am not, of course, an…Read More
I wouldn’t have predicted this in a thousand years, but as I write this, I’m on holiday at the Lake of the Ozarks smack dab in the middle of Missouri with my 13yo daughter and her best friend. What makes this remarkable is that it’s Linda’s vacation house we’re staying in here. visual f/x: wavy line dissolve to… Every summer almost from the beginning of our relationship we came out here to her family’s lake…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
Fellow single parents, ya know how you and your ex figure out some sort of parenting schedule with the kids and then hope you can rely on it and plan your life based on that? And how life itself always has a curve-ball ready to pitch? Yeah, that. In fact, there are times I think that the most important criterion for success in life as a single parent isn’t being reliable, but being flexible. Reliable…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
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
My youngest has basically lived her entire life switching houses between her Mom and myself. We’ve been in separate houses for just about a decade now and she’s 12yo. In fact, she’s told me that she has no memories of when we co-habitated before the separation and divorce. Which by itself is a bit staggering to contemplate, that she has no memories of her Mom and Dad that don’t involve tension, upset, emotions and, sometimes,…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
I was perusing Google News for the keyword “parenting” and had to laugh at the resultant articles being shown from a wide variety of sources. Apparently, people can’t write about parenting without coining a name for the particular approach that they are either lauding or criticizing. There are articles in today’s news about harsh parenting (which apparently causes obesity), helicopter versus submarine parenting (overprotective, or underprotective?), toxic Christian parenting (yes, it’s a thing), free range…Read More
I’ve been a divorced, single parent for almost a decade now, something that’s a bit hard to wrap my head around, but when I review our divorce papers and parenting plan, my 12yo daughter is listed as being 3 years old. Three! It’s hard to imagine that much time has passed and that my oldest is now 19 and on a trek through New Zealand, while my youngest is a vivacious tween in middle school. Time is definitely…Read More
Saw this post from a buddy of mine on Facebook and it just made my heart break for him and, mostly, for his girl: I wish I could say that I remember my ex and I having that conversation with our children, where we sat down and together told them the new state of the world, but that’s not quite how it transpired. We talked about how we’d break it to the kids and we…Read More
Something I bumped into this afternoon made me curious, so I dug up some statistics on marriage rates in the last decade and the data’s quite interesting, actually. According to the Centers for Disease Control even as the population of the United States has steadily grown, both the marriage rate and divorce rate have declined. In 2000, there were 281.4 million people in the United States, and 2.3 million marriages. That converts to a rate…Read More
Relationships are hard. I keep telling myself this, but having gone through my divorce almost 7 years ago, it’s easy to forget just how rocky and painful those first few years were. But to ensure that it’s not all glossed over in the mists of time, three of my buddies are going through their own very fresh divorce trauma and it’s bringing up unpleasant memories of my own. One of my friends had to call…Read More
I was reading through a review of the film Sex Tape by my friend Christian when I was startled by the research he cites from NBC’s The Today Show and Melissa Lavigne-Delville about couples and the incidence of (self-reported) cheating on their spouse based on whether they had children or not. Knowing that having children puts an extraordinary stress on relationships, it’s no surprise that married couples with children are twice as likely to cheat on…Read More
I’m not the target audience for Bravo and while I respect its heritage as an “artsy” channel, it’s clear that the daft trend of increasingly unlikely reality shows has hit the channel big time. In fact, the latest reality show that’s poised to be introduced is called Untying the Knot and it looks absolutely awful. The show is hosted by divorce attorney, nope, sorry, “Celebrity Divorce Attorney” Vikki Ziegler, it’s about helping divorcing couples divvy…Read More