“Being a great father is like shaving. No matter how good you shaved today, you have to do it again tomorrow.”
–Reed Markham
I have no idea who this Reed Markham is but this quote hits home for me. There are many difficult aspects of being a dad, but I think the hardest is showing up every… single… day…
It can get exhausting, right? But I have this theory, as tiring and draining as being a consistently present and good dad can be there are far worse alternatives. And my theory is that one of the worst alternatives is we just start going through the motions but aren’t really present with our kids. We’re stuck in automatic mode which means engagement goes down, screen times increase and bonding is really limited. And before we know it the kids are adults and our time with them is up. Which leads me to another quote I love:
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men {or women}.” –Frederick Douglass
I added the last part to that quote but you get the idea. We have a limited amount of time with our kids and we have to make it count. And that does mean sacrifice, re-prioritization and lots of exhaustion.
I doubt I’m telling you anything you don’t already know and but this is where Dad Man Talking comes in. If there is one thing I have, it’s a brain that never stops thinking of ideas to have fun. I guess it’s my super power? We call them ‘dadtivities’ in my house and I’m going to share all of them here. I also think many men, including dads, can use encouragement so this will also be a place where you are just encouraged to keep at it. We’ll see what this little experiment turns into but I’m excited to get it started and really look forward to hearing from any of you that get value out of this.