When they’re young, how do our children see us? When I look at my kids, I am in awe of the love that I feel emanating back from them. When you think about it, we are their world. They look at us for guidance and leadership. They trust that we will never let them down or hurt them in [...]

As a father of two girls there is a perceived notion that you must raise your daughters in a certain way (or at least I sometimes get this impression form the people that I interact with). At the same time, when I talk to fathers of boys, I hear differing things about their impressions and the ways in which they feel that they can and should raise their boys as well.

For girls, there is the impression that society expects that they will be introduced to dolls, dress up and the like and that fathers will support this feminine societal view. While boys are given toy guns, legos, cars or trucks to solidify their manhood. Who says though that it has to be this way? Who says that a girl can’t love playing with cars or trucks? Who says that a boy cannot like playing with a Cabbage Patch Kid doll?

For me, I have always encouraged my girls to do what they want to do. Whether this is playing baseball or dolls, dress up or cars, I am encouraging them to be the person that they want to be while at the same time encouraging them to explore areas outside of the normal societal mores.

Let’s focus on being more involved, loving and nurturing dads. We will be happier. Our partners will be happier. Our kids will be happier. By doing all of that we organically change the way others think.

So today, I raise a glass, and my fist, and celebrate the 2st century dad. I celebrate the community and writers here at DadRevolution. I celebrate the dads I have been blessed to connect with online and elsewhere who share the same strong passion. And I raise my glass to James. Thank you for the anthem that simply just celebrates what we come together online for in the first place. We are dads. We are 21st century dads. And we are proud of that!

It’s an afternoon in the Divadom and my wife is working, that means that I am the head honcho, the one and only guy in charge, or am I? Living in a home full of glitz and sequins I find that there are days when I think I am in control and in fact I find myself stuck somewhere in between, or in a place that sometimes feels like Dad purgatory. Have you ever been in this same place? Where you make rules and they are tested, you make punsihments, but they don’t seems to make a difference? Yes, this is the land I call Dad purgatory.

I had a rough day at work this week. It was one of those days that when my wife asked me if I wanted to talk about it, my response was, “Not in front of the kids.” In the grand scheme of things, it was nothing major, but it upset me nonetheless. I also rode [...]

This fatherhood thing is hard. It’s mostly trial and error, and it tends to be more error than trial. You do your best, stay up all night thinking about it, and then try it again the next day. You work hard to do the right thing and raise your kids to be good people. You [...]

Sometimes, in order to be a good parent, you have to step outside your comfort zone. What works best for you may not actually be the best solution for the little ones, and in the grand scheme of things, their needs trump yours. You have to adapt and overcome. Mealtimes in our house are a good [...]

I have to be love, relationships, understanding, sacrifice, support, mutuality, trying, forgiveness, failure, and success and I have to be the example of those things as well. If I am setting the wrong example, I am probably being the wrong husband. If I am being the wrong husband, I am probably being the wrong example. So the see-saw tips back and forth, but with a little more ease. I’m never going to be the perfect of either, but I can keep the rocking to a minimum. Those relationships are too important to let slip, and too intertwined to let go.

There are times when I honestly can’t figure out why my kids like me. Sometimes, when I reflect back on the day, it seems like all I did was tell them what to do and then punish them if it wasn’t done. When I try to look at myself through their eyes, all I see [...]

With good, there is bad. With greatness, there is weakness. And where there is winning, there is failure. So where do I go from here? I head to the medicine cabinet, take some ibuprophen, take a deep breath, and I get my head out of my rear and get back in the game. This is what I signed up for. This is where I wanted to be. And now, this is where I am. I’ll learn more about taking the bad with a grain of salt and taking the good as memories to treasure. I will put my family ahead of me just as much now as I did as a full-time working parent. I will praise the blessings I am given, and learn to live as the luckiest man on Earth.

My biggest shortcoming as a Naval officer is definitely my ability (or lack thereof) to delegate. I would much rather just do the job myself and make sure it’s done correctly than take the time to train someone else and then check their work afterwards. This is something that I try to work on, but [...]

It is my hope that this logic becomes infectious this year. That the definition of what a real man is will change in the minds of those who are most influential, most heard, most revered by popular culture. It’s just my thought that they could just fuel the revolution in ways that we cannot. But the fight does begin with us. And it is time to do something about it.

Being a parent is exhausting whether you’re a single, stay-at-home/work-at-home, or working parent. As one of the latter, I’m usually tired before I get home. I’m normally awake around 5:15 and out the door by 6:00. I’m currently on shore duty, and while my current job isn’t necessarily difficult, it is still taxing in it’s own [...]

I hate disciplining our kids. I absolutely despise having to yell at them, and it normally ruins my entire night. I’ll kick myself for letting the situation get that far, and I’ll lie awake at night questioning my methods. If you ever heard your parents say, “This is hurting me more than it’s hurting you,” [...]

I’m Military Dad, and I have officially joined the Revolution. I have written guest posts here before, and I have now been asked to become a full contributor on this incredibly valuable site. It’s an amazing honor and quite humbling for a blogger as small time as myself to digitally work alongside such huge names in [...]

This family is bigger than just me, and my desires have to be prioritized against everything else. When the scales tip away from me, it’s time to make sacrifices. There will be other days to do what I want. The books aren’t going anywhere and our DVD collection will stay put. I might be able to lie on the floor with the kids tomorrow, but tonight calls for me to sit on the couch with the wife instead. To me, that’s what doing the right thing means.

He is green and furry, after all, and he lives in a cave. Sigh. Maybe the memories that we want them to have are just not the memories they are going to take with them.

We are all Mr. Gru in that we are all human. We are all fathers. We are all human fathers. Part of the human experience for us is to raise a child from birth until they are adults. Even then, it never really stops. It’s just all part of the experience. And what a great one it is.

I recently had a guys’ night out. I went to a sports bar with a good friend and watched college football while our wives hung out with the kids. I had a very good time, and while I was sitting there drinking a beer, I tried to remember the last time that I just hung [...]