Allow Myself to Introduce…Myself

Where to begin, where to begin… Recently, I was approached by a friend of mine with a not-so-random notion.  It was like he was reading my mind, at that very moment!  I don’t know how many thousand man-hours I have spent scrolling through the depths and dark corners of social media (and I mean deeeeeeeep down the rabbit hole) creating a manifesto in order to fix the current state of parenting that is deemed socially acceptable.  My wife has surely grown sick of hearing about how pathetic I think the modern American man is, and how I could just freak out on the next hipster dad that I see that can’t change a lightbulb, let alone his tire…. But before we get into my plans for Fatherly domination, allow myself to introduce… myself. (That’s an Austin Powers reference, for those of you not spun up on late 90’s pop culture.)

I have had a super opportunity to get into the trenches with my 5 awesome kids spanning from diapers to early high school, and I have what I feel are pretty good resume bullets on what it takes to successfully make babies into young adults that don’t suck.  Lucky for me, I also have a great security net of a wife of 14 years, who has been there to fill in the gaps on all the stuff that I have missed while out fighting the Global War on Terror since just after we invaded Iraq.  Now some of you may have your own political leanings that make you think to yourself, “But what kind of Father abandons his kids for months at a time and still thinks he is a successful father??!”  Stay with me here… this isn’t your soapbox.  Maybe over the dozens of articles I have racked and stacked in my head we can create some common ground, or maybe not.  If not, then there is always a vegan-friendly, gender-neutral dad blog somewhere out there… and if that’s what you are looking for in the first place, trust me, this isn’t one of them.

So, back to the original theme of this literary masterpiece… When my buddy hit me up on Facebook Messenger, it was like he was inside my head!  “Look at this crap,” he wrote, as the link came in to some limp-wristed guide on making your kids feel just as special as everyone else, even if they aren’t as good.  “We should do something about this.   There is literally nowhere out there that encourages dads to raise their kids like we were raised.”  And so it started.

What you can expect: an oft-opinionated view of the world through man-colored glasses.  For a lack of a better term, we will henceforth and forever more refer to these as “Dad Pro Tips.” This will be a place where Dads treat their kids like kids, hold pressure on the inevitable bleeding knees and elbows, and sometimes build awesome stuff that explodes.  We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll make a few punctuation errors. Beat me up for it. I totally have done it to people, myself, and really deserve it.

What I owe you: A pregnant pause before I hit submit to make sure that what I am writing isn’t just salty and cruel. That doesn’t mean I won’t hit submit, however, because in a world filled with a near hourly pathetic display of how I feel America wants men to raise their kids, there are a lot of things that I feel need to be stated, then repeated, then rephrased and repeated again!  So, if you feel like the shoe fits, stretch out, put in your mouthpiece and take your punches like a grownup.

What this isn’t: A mom blog.  A money-making venture. An argument.  If you want witty banter, meet me outside at high noon.  I barely have time to write these as it is.  I am not a keyboard warrior.  I don’t really have a plan on a lot of back and forth… unless you’re asking for it.

I love my Country. I love my family.  I support gun ownership and the Constitution.  I feel like evil can and should be destroyed.  I make no apologies for my beliefs.  Let’s change the world together.

-Dad of 5