I’m working on an article for Parents.com about being a single father and have to admit, I’ve been doing this for so many years I kind of forget the initial panic and struggles of those first few months, realizing that I couldn’t tag-team someone else into play if I felt overwhelmed or exhausted or just had no energy. It’s a jarring transition for both parents, I think, though obviously the parent who spends less time…Read More
I last wrote about Kiwi the cat (aka “Keyword” or whatever name we come up with him for a given day) back in mid-November when I talked about him being our timesharing cat. At the time, we’d just gotten into a groove where he travelled from home to home with the kids, bouncing between my house and Linda’s house. It worked pretty well, actually, except for one stymying issue: Linda has three dogs and one…Read More
It’s been an eventful 36 hours, as people northeast of Boulder, Colorado know. If you’re in Gunbarrel, Niwot or even Longmont, you got a triple-whammy: sub-zero temperatures, a gas line failure that caused over 7,000 homes to be without heat for 24-hours or longer, and an electrical outage to boot. We got all three, and the kids and I kept our sense of humor – in fact, it was rather a grand adventure – but…Read More
When Linda was first pregnant with A-, our now 17yo (seventeen? Where the deuce did the time go??) one of the books I can recall us talking about was one of the bibles of pregnancy: What To Expect When You’re Expecting. I don’t think we bought it, though, as I remember thinking that it was very mainstream and by half-way through the pregnancy we’d decided on a home birth and were taking birth classes from…Read More
As I have written about before, I had a wicked cool cat for many years called Newton. He was a one in a million cat who loved people, never destroyed anything, didn’t sleep on my head and was fine if I vanished for a day or two and then resurfaced without prior notice. He was great company the first few years of my renewed singledom, though I swear he spent most of his life laying…Read More
Much of yesterday was taken up with helping a friend move from her flood-damaged house to a new place. Hundreds of hastily packed boxes locked in a semi-sized storage unit unceremoniously dumped on the street in front of her house with as much salvaged as possible. Her house, three weeks after the flood, is still clearly a disaster and where there used to be walls you can now see through the back of garage and…Read More
It’s been a rough few weeks, no question. The big flood didn’t help anything, but even before that, we have all sorts of things going on in our little family unit, including us deciding to pull A-, my 11th grader, out of the private school she’s been attending since kindergarten. We’ve switched her to an online high school, Laurel Springs, with the hope that she can focus on academics and really jump head first into…Read More
One thing I find fascinating about parenting — when I have the time reflect on my life — is how often I vacillate between thinking I’m doing a good job as a parent and being convinced that I suck at the job and am really messing up these poor young souls who have to deal with my “stuff” on a daily basis. You know what I mean. You just counseled your child on a tough…Read More
One of the smartest retailers in the world, Amazon.com doesn’t miss a trick. Whether it’s recommendation engines, group selling, auctions, or sending you notifications of new works by artists and authors you like, there’s not much that the Seattle-based powerhouse doesn’t get right. Except for one thing. For reasons that escape me, the corporate team at Amazon seems to be unable to grasp that Dads are parents too. Their membership club for parents in the…Read More
As a father’s rights advocate and someone who has been through divorce and now is flying solo raising my kids as a single dad, I end up talking with a lot of men who are going through similar experiences, suddenly finding themselves not just being the father but without the benefit of an often more experienced mom in the picture to help. It’s daunting. We live in a culture that, like most cultures before us,…Read More
I was talking with a gal earlier this afternoon about single parenting and the involvement of both parents after a divorce. In my case, my ex and I are both quite involved in our children’s lives and regularly communicate about medical, sports, school and many other issues. For me, that’s the norm. Other single parents I know have a different arrangement, however, where one parent is the decision maker, while the other parent occasionally adds…Read More
I was sad to learn about the passing of my ex father-in-law last week. He was a kind, generous man and we had a very good relationship for the duration of my marriage to his daughter. But time waits for no man and in his early 90s he’d had a rich and full life and when he did go through the last phases, it was quick and he was apparently pretty unaware of what was…Read More
Like just about every other adult in the United States, I’ve been watching the US Supreme Court consider the constitutionality of both the California Marriage Protection Act (also known as Prop 8) and the Defense of Marriage Act, both attempts to codify into law that only a man and a woman can legally be married. Honestly, it’s hard for me to understand why so many people are worried about what someone else is doing, whether…Read More
We’ve taken a few days off to come out to Southern California and visit with my Dad. My sister’s flown in from the far north and instead of being jammed into a hotel room or two, we used the great resource that is Vacation Rent by Owner and rented a very nice three-bedroom condo just across from the beach and only about 20min from my Dad’s place inland. When we got here it turned out…Read More
I don’t really know how it happened, but in the last year or so I have gained about 13 pounds. That’s me in the blue shirt: you can see I’m well on my way to becoming the Buddha. Here’s the rub: I eat reasonably healthy and I hit the gym 2-3 times weekly, often more. Yeah, I’m fairly sedentary otherwise but I don’t feel like I have any horrible habits. Well, except I know my…Read More
A college student working on a research paper contacted me with an interesting set of questions and I finally had a chance this morning to respond. Since my response explains some of my parenting philosophy, I thought it would be interesting to post it here on GoFatherhood too, inviting you to read and response. So… have at it! Here’s her set of questions, which I kinda respond to: I was hoping to know how has…Read More
I attended my daughter’s cello recital last week and it was delightful. It’s wonderful to see all of these children have the courage to go in front of a room and play solo pieces, whether they were 45 seconds long or complicated five minute pieces (depending on their experience level). The piano was accompanying most of them, but there was a duet and even a quartet piece for cello. Lovely, and the little ones of…Read More
Sorry, but I’ve decided to remove this article upon the request of one of the parties mentioned in the original entry. Not generally my first choice, but as a blogger I seek to honor individual privacy and the needs of the community in addition to my own desires to share my experiences and musings about children and parenting. There’s lots else to read here, however, so please do browse a few more recent pieces before…Read More
I feel kind of bad for my teen daughter this afternoon. She was with me Thurs-Monday this week and today being Wednesday she’s at her Mom’s place. Problem is, she wants to go to the gym for a workout — which is great! — but her gym bag is here at my place. No worries, her Mom can bring her over and she can pick up the bag, right? On the phone, she assured me…Read More
Like most divorced parents, my kids have become rather like human ping-pong balls. Every 3-4 days they switch between their Mom’s house and my house, then back. Kind of like the modern version of If It’s Tuesday, This Must be Belgium. Usually it runs pretty smooth and the kids are good at knowing where they’ll end up on a given day. Sometimes there are complications, however, and that’s what I want to talk about here….Read More
It’s something I’ve done since my oldest was first in school: volunteer to be a driver / chaperone for school field trips. Whether it’s to the pumpkin patch in October or a farm further afield, or even a museum in far-distant Denver, I really enjoy the experience and find it’s great fun to see my child “in their natural element” interacting with their peers. The fact that the field trips are often fun too —…Read More