Father’s Day

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The “Disconnect to Reconnect” Father’s Day Challenge

June 9, 2011 at 10:54 pm , by 

Six months.

baby and TV remote

As much as I fantasize about being a full time writer, the truth is, I work from 8 AM to 4:30 PM every weekday at “my real job” in a sales office. Writing for Parents.com isn’t all I do for a living, in other words; it’s my part time job.  So it’s only natural for intuitive readers to wonder the question, “How do you have time to write six new posts each week for The Dadabase without neglecting your wife and son?”

It’s easy: I sleep less than most people (usually not more than six hours a night). And I only write when my wife and son are asleep.  From roughly 10 PM to 11:30 PM, then again from 6:00 AM to 7:10 AM everyday, I am always writing.

The Dadabase

That means that when I am at home with Jack and Jill, I literally am at home with Jack and Jill.  My policy is that I don’t turn my laptop on while they are awake. That way, I’m not distracted by the blogosphere where I am an active citizen.  As for me and my house, that’s the only way it could work.

I disconnect (from electronic social media distractions) to reconnect with my family while they are awake.

So when I received a challenge from author and media consultant Phil Cooke, asking dads everywhere to disconnect from technology – phones, Facebook, Twitter, email, TV – and spend quality time with their kids for 24 hours this Father’s Day, I knew I could handle it.

My wife and I worship the concept of quality time and giving each other our undivided attention, to the best of our abilities.  We are constantly aware of our need as a married couple with a child to make the most of the little bit of time we have together each day, balancing both family time and time alone as a couple.

So when we do watch TV together, the rule is that it has to be something we both want to watch, like American Idol or The Office.  Or a TV series through Netflix, like Mad Men; which is our current show.  And for the times our son is asleep and we both have a lot of stuff to get caught up on in the Internet world, we do what we have to do but label that time as “personal time.” We fully recognize that time as necessary for us as individuals, but we know full well it is not quality time together; even if we’re sitting next to each other.

This challenge is inspired by Phil Cooke’s new book Jolt! Get the Jump on a World That’s Constantly Changing (April 2011, Thomas Nelson), which lays out 25 “jolts” to help us set the “reset” button on our priorities and boundaries.  I am interested to see how his book fills in all the blanks and connects the dots regarding the importance of “unplugging” in the name of quality time with family.

So here’s the deal for my male readers.  (Do I actually have any?  As long as I’ve been a daddy blogger, I’ve just always assumed at least 97% of my readers are female.) For the first three men who agree to take the challenge with me to unplug for 24 hours on Father’s Day, I will arrange for a free copy of the book mailed to your house.  Just let me know your name and mailing address by leaving a comment on this post. And as long as you are one of the first three to agree to take the challenge, you get a free book.

I will leave my phone and computer alone on Father’s Day! Will you?

The Dadabase
*Thanks and congrats to the first 3 dads who jumped on board and will now be receiving the free book: Mike Mitchell, Marc Theriault, and Mario Sollecchio!
 
Leave a comment Posted on Uncategorized, Writing

My First “Feature Story” on Parents.com; A Father’s Day Special, Separate from The Dadabase

Father’s Day is a week from today, you know.

Becoming the daddy blogger for Parents.com has opened up another opportunity: the invitation to write a couple of slideshow features for them. Talk about being at the right place in life and the right time… The first story, which is now up on their site, is “Seven Ways to Be an Awesome New Dad.” Perhaps by default, I ended up becoming the “go to” guy for this story, having just been hired as their daddy blogger and this being my first Father’s Day. Seriously, what an honor!

Not to mention, it’s kind of funny that I was given the authority to decide what the seven ways to be an awesome new dad should be.  They actually left it up to me!  I could have said, “Dress up in a giant chicken costume as you rock your infant to sleep every night in an effort to truly take them under your wing.”  Or “Eat baby formula with your infant to lead by example.” But I guess Parents.com trusts me enough not to do something outrageous like that.

When writing the piece, I tried to be as creative as possible.  I never like pointing out the obvious when I write.  This story isn’t “Seven Ways to Be a Decent New Dad.”  My assignment was to write about being an “awesome” new dad.

With no further ado, here is “Seven Ways to Be an Awesome New Dad.”

(Click the title in the sentence above in blue letters to read the story on Parents.com.)

Partially Unnecessary Explanation of the Link:

It is a link to the story I’ve been talking about this whole time.  That’s the whole reason I wrote this post you’re reading right now; simply to promote it. Seriously, at the end of the day when I read my blog’s statistics, if it says there are 57 people who read this post, it should also show that 57 people clicked the link. Yes, I can and do keep up with that stuff. It’s sort of my job/obsession.

When I wrote the final “dad from day one” post which ended with a link to the first “Dadabase” post, only 1/3 of the people who read the post actually clicked the link at the end.  That means that 2/3’s of the people who read it, missed the whole point! I want to prevent another similar disaster from happening.  Come on team; let’s go for a 100% this time.  I believe in all of you, my friends.

Just in case you missed it the first time, here’s another opportunity to click the link; this time in a giant font so that there’s no possible way to have missed it:

Seven Ways to Be an Awesome New Dad

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, People, Spirituality, Uncategorized

Good Men Still Exist; They Just Don’t Make the Headlines as Easily

“The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard has been set so pitifully low.” -Michael Chabon, Manhood for Amateurs

Yes, everyone is well aware that despite all the good men in history who have left a good name for themselves (along with plenty of quotable quotes, with many of them being strong military leaders or respected writers), there are enough deadbeats, scoundrels, and cads to cast a negative connotation on the word “man”.  Women are expected to be saints and givers; sadly, men are expected to be… well, not a lot is expected of men anymore.  But not all good men are long gone.

In the aftermath of Father’s Day last week, the Internet was full of freshly published articles about the modern man, father, and husband.  Two in particular really got my attention.  The first one reviewed the history of TV dads from Leave It to Beaver, to Married with Children, to Parenthood.  It brought out the fact that in the 1950’s, dads were too perfect, in the 1990’s they were often portrayed as bumbling idiots, and now in the 2010’s, TV dads have finally began to look more like real dads.  See http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37758834/ns/today-entertainment/.  (Though I would argue that the 1980’s were good to TV dads…)

The other article that really got me thinking was one I found on Stuff Christians Like, http://stuffchristianslike.net/2010/06/the-wild-difference-between-a-mothers-day-sermon-and-a-fathers-day-sermon/, which explained how many fathers in Christian churches feel miserable on Father’s Day Sunday because the sermon is about how men need to step up to the plate and be better fathers, while the Mother’s Day sermon provides nothing but praise for women.

I definitely see how good men often don’t get the praise they deserve.  Like Zack Morris once said on Saved by the Bell when Jessie declared that all men are jerks, “Hey, don’t judge us by our worst specimens.”  What can we do to enhance the minority of men who are truly good fathers, husbands, and hard-working citizens?

My guess is to call them out on their goodness when you see it.  It seems that if we as a culture began to celebrate the men who are doing right, it would be more of an incentive for those who are just half-way doing it, seeing there is praise and appreciation for being a “good man”.  But when the goal is simply to be better than Charlie Sheen (both the actual person and his fictionalized character on the totally lame yet successful sitcom Three and Half Men), there’s a certain lack of motivation to become a better man.

In an age where stereotypes of men who are drug to church by their wives end up jumping in a 15 passenger van for a weekend trip to their nearest major sports arena to learn from a former NFL player at a Promise Keepers conference that they should spend more time with their kids instead of watching sports games and that they should share the household responsibilities with their wives and stop looking at pornography on their home computers, then they go back home a changed man for a month, then repeat the process each following year, there are still plenty of men in America who actually already are indulging themselves in being the husbands and fathers they need to be.  There are actually good men in America who don’t have to be reminded to be good.  Because they are already aware of the reward in being a respected man who lives for his family, not himself.

Celebrate the good men in your life.  They may instantly brush aside your compliments or seem embarrassed when you do, but inside it means the world to them.  Of course with good men being the coveted gem in a parking lot full of gravels, my guess is, you already do.