Earn Your Place at the Table
A few months back, I was on a podcast and they asked me to define my view of success in terms of fatherhood. Here’s what I said, “Success as a father would look like my kids wanting their kids to be around me.” The dad’s role in a family is unique. We’re the masculine expression of love, teaching, discipline, physical affection, play, work ethic, social responsibility, sharing feelings, and conflict resolution. The way children relate to men as they grow up will be defined by our example of masculinity (which may also explain why a generation of absent fathers has created another generation of men don’t know how to relate to other men). At some point in their lives, our kids will choose whether or not…
Read MoreDistant Men, Regrets, and Weird Goodbyes
The National is a self-proclaimed ‘dad rock’ band known for its creative musical arrangements, the lead singer’s smooth baritone voice, and cryptic (sometimes comedic) songwriting. Their song Weird Goodbyes came out in 2022 and the first time I heard it I couldn’t help but filter it through a lens of fatherhood, marriage, and family. You can listen to it here. The lyrics from the song are important to us as dads because they share an emotion we typically can’t not be able to feel until it’s too late: regret. This song planted a seed of sadness in me…showed me a future I’d do anything to avoid. I hope, in a weird way, Weird Goodbyes does the same for you. “Memorize the bathwater, memorize the airThere’ll come…
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From Quiet Desperation to Authentic Process
Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” (Walden, 1854) And he’s right. There’s a weight that men carry that we don’t often talk about. We don’t talk about it because it’s not manly. We don’t talk about it because we don’t want to freak out our wives. We don’t talk about it because we’re afraid vulnerability will isolate us even further. We don’t talk about it because we may think we’re the only ones who feel pressure to… • be great providers • pay all of our bills • be perfect dads • be model husbands • do work around the house • make more money at work • go on more vacations…
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Just Send the Text
Do you believe in intuition? Or that there is an energy out there that prompts us to do stuff? I do. A few years ago, we were living in Barcelona and things with work weren’t going great (financially speaking). There were weeks we were barely scraping by…hoping to find a Euro in the couch to buy a baguette to go with lentil soup. One day we were walking to meet a friend in our local spot. We always walked the same way to the cafe, but on this day I felt this inkling to walk a different way. As we were walking down a street that we never walked down I noticed a stack of books out in the trash. When I got close enough, I…
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The Biggest Reason You Get Triggered By Your Kids
[Video Transcript] Have you ever wondered why your kids trigger you the way that they do? I know that I do. One of my kids rode their bike into my neighbor’s car, cost me $800 to have their car fixed. That was upsetting. But you know, that just comes and goes; stuff like that happens. But there are times when my kids do stuff that especially irritates me, and I think that I know why. It’s not something that I really like to admit, but the reason that my kids frustrate me more sometimes than they do at other times is when I see them doing stuff that I don’t like about myself reflected back to me from my kids. Man, one…
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