This week on the Dads with Daughters podcast, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Efrem Martin, a dedicated father of four daughters and a passionate advocate for intentional fatherhood. In this engaging discussion, Efrem shared his personal journey, the unique challenges he faced, and his inspiration behind writing his book, "Daddy's Girl's: A Father's How-to in Building Lifelong Relationships with our Daughter's," and starting the Girl Dad YouTube channel. Here are some profound insights from their conversation.

One of the key moments in Efrem's life was discovering that he would become a father to a daughter for the first time. Reflecting on that time, Efrem admitted to feeling a mix of nervousness and excitement. As a young man of 23 and a Marine transitioning into civilian life, he was embarking on a monumental chapter in his life.

Despite some initial fears, Efrem expressed a unique perspective: he always wanted daughters because he believed they would make him a better man. He credited his upbringing, particularly being raised by a nurturing mother in a single-parent household after the tragic loss of his father, with preparing him for this role. He drew strength and inspiration from his mother’s unwavering support and the exemplary male figures—his uncles, cousins, and coaches—who stepped in to mentor him.

Efrem's father was murdered when Efrem was only two years old, fundamentally shaping his upbringing. Though he grew up without a father, Efrem found guidance in other male role models, like his coaches, who treated him like their own son. These experiences instilled in him the importance of having strong, positive male influences and reinforced his commitment to being an involved and supportive dad.

Having worked for 20 years in the criminal justice system and 10 years in K-12 education, Efrem witnessed firsthand the detrimental effects of the criminal justice system on children and families. This professional backdrop fueled his determination to ensure his daughters stayed out of the system and thrived in a safe, nurturing environment.

Efrem's approach to fatherhood extends beyond mere presence; it is about fostering independence and critical thinking in his daughters. He emphasized the importance of raising his girls to be free thinkers rather than focusing solely on independence. By encouraging them to challenge the world around them and question everything, Efrem prepared his daughters to navigate life with self-awareness and confidence.

This philosophy is encapsulated in his self-published book, "Daddy's Girls," where he outlines the stages of development from birth to adulthood. Additionally, his Grow Dat YouTube channel serves as a platform to further elaborate on these concepts, providing fathers with data-driven insights, visual aids, and practical guidance on raising daughters.

Launched in July 2023, Efrem's Grow Dat YouTube channel is a treasure trove of wisdom and support for fathers. With over 55 livestreams covering diverse topics, Efrem draws from his extensive experience and professional background to offer valuable content. His goal is not to amass a large following but to attract the right audience—fathers genuinely seeking to improve their parenting skills.

Unlike other platforms, Efrem’s channel delves into deeper, more complex issues of fatherhood, leveraging his knowledge in criminal justice and education to provide context and solutions. His dedication to building this community organically reflects his commitment to authenticity and meaningful engagement.

Efrem has ambitious plans for the future of Grow Dat. Starting in 2025, he aims to transform the channel into a more interactive space, featuring one-on-one engagements with fathers. He believes that real-time conversations and shared experiences can enrich the learning process for everyone involved. By fostering a supportive network of dads, Efrem hopes to create a space where fathers can share their struggles, triumphs, and insights in raising daughters.

Towards the end of the podcast, Efrem shared his core advice for fathers: be consistent. Consistency, he believes, is the foundation of effective parenting. It provides daughters with a sense of security, allowing them to grow into confident, independent, and thoughtful individuals.

Efrem Martin’s journey and insights remind us that fatherhood is a profound and ongoing adventure. Through his book, his YouTube channel, and his unwavering dedication, Efrem continues to inspire fathers to embrace their roles with commitment, compassion, and a desire for continuous growth.

For more about Efrem Martin, his book "Daddy's Girls," and the Grow Dat YouTube channel, visit his channels and social media as outlined in the podcast episode. Remember, as fathers, we have the power to shape the next generation, one loving, consistent day at a time.

TRANSCRIPT (Unedited transcript created with CASTMAGIC_

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome to dads with daughters. In this show, we spotlight dads, resources, and more to help you be the best dad you can be. 

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:16]:
Welcome back to the Dads with Daughters podcast where we bring you guests to help you be active participants in your daughters' lives, raising them to be strong, independent women. Really excited to have you back again this week. As always, every week, I love being able to be on this journey with you, an opportunity to be able to talk every week and be able to work through what it means to be a dad to a daughter. And the biggest thing that I keep telling you over and over again is that being a father to a daughter is not always going to be the easiest, but you don't have to do this alone. And that's the thing that is most important is that you show up every week. You show up not only for your daughters, but show up for this. And you and you can hear from other dads, other people that have resources and things that you can do day in, day out to be that engaged dad that you wanna be. That's why this podcast exists.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:09]:
It exists to help you to be able to be the dad you wanna be and help you raise those strong, independent women that you want your daughters to be. This week, we got another great guest with us today. Efrem Martin is with us today, and Efrem is a father of 4 girls and owner of the Girl Dad YouTube Channel. And we're going to talk about his own journey in being a dad, but also some things that he's doing to be able to help dads just like you to be those girl dads that they want to be as well. So I'm really excited to have him with us today. Efrem, thanks so much for being here today.

Efrem Martin [00:01:41]:
Thank you for having me, sir. Appreciate you. Appreciate you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:44]:
Well, I really appreciate you being here today. And the first and and and first and foremost, one of the things that I love doing is turning the clock back in time. I wanna go all the way back. I know your oldest is 36, so I wanna go all the way back. It might be 36 years, might be 35 years, but we're gonna go all the way back to that first moment that you found out that you were going to be a father to a daughter. What was going through your head?

Efrem Martin [00:02:05]:
It was crazy. Nervous, excited, just all the above. And baby girls, they change your world. They change your life. So it was, I was young, 23. So very excited, though. Very excited.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:17]:
Now I talk to a lot of dads, and a lot of dads step into fatherhood and they're a little scared. Not only being scared of being a father, but when you put on that extra layer of being a father to a daughter, there's some additional fear. What would you say was your biggest fear in raising daughters?

Efrem Martin [00:02:35]:
I think for me, just getting out of the marine corps, I was, you know, I was in the United States Marine Corps and, transitioning out and just being young, just getting my life in order, just planning and trying to understand exactly the direction I was gonna go, getting into school, making sure I got my bachelor's degree, and just planning out my life more than anything else. So that in itself was nervous for me, but I knew I was gonna be a good dad. I wasn't so much worried about that. It was just, it was exciting more than anything else. And, just looking forward to the, challenge because I actually if you believe me or not, I actually wanted daughters because I knew that they would make me a better man.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:16]:
So when you say that you knew that being a father to a daughter would make you a better man, talk to me about that. What was it about being a father to a daughter that made you feel that way?

Efrem Martin [00:03:27]:
Being raised, I came from a single parent household because my father was murdered when I was 2. Okay? So being raised without a father myself and having this incredible mother, My mother was the most nurturing, incredible woman. So getting everything from her, she couldn't teach me how to be a man, but she was just such a nurturer, and she was very attentive. So I got a lot of great qualities from her. And like I said, I didn't have my my father, but I always had my uncles. I had my first cousins. I had my brothers. So I always had good men in my life.

Efrem Martin [00:04:00]:
I've never been taken advantage of as I was never taken advantage of as a child, as a kid, and my community embraced me as a as a child. So I always had good men in my life. And all the men in my life, even though I didn't have a father, they were all married. So they had their own children. And that was my experience. I wasn't exposed to a lot of single parents in my life. So not having a father, I didn't really know what to expect because I didn't have a man to guide me, but I knew that I had it in me to be this good father to a baby girl. And like I said, having my mother, I've been around my aunts my whole life, my sisters.

Efrem Martin [00:04:37]:
I I'm the youngest of of of 5. So being the baby, my sisters will tell you I got over, but I don't think so. I just think I was smarter because my mom was tired by the time she got to me. But I was a good kid, so I never gave my mom any any problems. I was an athlete my entire life. And so I don't think you're ever ready, but coming out of the marine corps, I had a lot more focus. I was very well disciplined, and I wasn't really, really concerned. I was I was looking forward to the journey more than anything else.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:05]:
So talk to me about the fact that you just mentioned with your father getting murdered at such an young age for you and not having a father in that way in your life. You had other male role models, other people in your life. How did that impact you as you grew up and moved into fatherhood to be able to be the dad that you wanted to be even though you didn't have that father figure per se in your life?

Efrem Martin [00:05:32]:
Okay. So for me, because I was an athlete, I played sports year round. So all my coaches, they were married, and they had their own children. So I had good men in my life that I was able to watch how they interacted with their children. And that was major for me. It was, it impacted my life because I was just one of very few boys that didn't have a father. Everyone else around me had their dads. People ask me, do you think you lost out on anything? Absolutely.

Efrem Martin [00:05:58]:
I think I lost out on a lot, but I never focused on that because I was so busy. And like I said, the men that I had access to, a Latino man in my life, a white man in my life, and I had these men in my life. I didn't have a lot of well, the black men I had in my life, they were my uncles. I grew up in a community back in the seventies. It was the Chicano community, so they were all Latin men, Latinos. So all my coaches, they were either Latino or white men, but they were good men. So as a kid, that's what I focused on, and they were just good to me. And they treated me like their own.

Efrem Martin [00:06:31]:
So I think what I came to understand as I got older was that you need good men in your life. And as long as you have good men in your life, you're pretty much capable of everything.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:42]:
Now raising kids is not always easy. There are definite positive times and hard times as well. As you look back at the years of raising your daughters into the women that they've become today, what was the hardest part in being a father to a daughter?

Efrem Martin [00:06:59]:
You know, I have a totally different skill set because I worked in the criminal justice system for 20 years, and then I worked in k 12 education for 10 years. So I worked with children for 30 years. So my difficulty was making sure that they didn't end up in the criminal justice system, and I had examples on what not to do. So I was able to maneuver a lot differently. I didn't have a lot of the challenges, I believe, that a lot of fathers were going to experience because being a state juvenile probation officer and working with these these children that were adjudicated and just seeing families get messed over by the criminal justice system, I just knew this was not gonna be my children. So I learned early in my career that I have to have hope and I have to believe that if something was to happen to me, that there's going to be good adults out there that would step in and make sure that my daughters were taken care of like I was taking care of these children. So I wasn't really I just had a different sense of urgency, and the criminal justice system just it's not good for kids. So that kept me that kept me focused because what I was dealing with every day as a state juvenile probation officer and just seeing how kids got messed over, not my daughters.

Efrem Martin [00:08:14]:
There's no way. And I wasn't going to invite the government into my life. I was not ever going to allow the government to have a say in the rearing of my children because when you do that, the more the government gets involved, the more say they have, the more adults that are involved. Your voice isn't heard as a parent. So my YouTube channel, Grow Dat YouTube channel, what I do is with my live streams and my videos is is I go a lot deeper, and I'm able to explain, I believe, all the stages of development. My book Daddy's Girls, I cover 3 stages of development, birth to 10 years of age, 11 to 13, and 14 to 18. And I explain in my book the sense of urgency that fathers need to have in order to build long term sustainable relationships with their daughters, with their baby girls. So this is my way of giving back.

Efrem Martin [00:09:04]:
All my daughters are adults. They're out of the house, and I just wanna see all fathers do well with their children regardless of their ethnic group background and or culture. So this is why I decided to launch my YouTube channel.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:19]:
So let's talk about what you are creating, what you have created, the book that you've put out there. As an author myself, I know there's a lot of passion that has to go into being able to get through the writing of a book. And you mentioned the self published book that you put out there, Daddy's Girls, that's now available on Amazon that that you've written. Talk to me about the inception of that and what made you decide that you wanted to put the time, the effort, the passion into writing it, but also trying to get it out into the world for others to read and to learn from and grow from.

Efrem Martin [00:09:50]:
So I already knew when when my youngest daughter, Cheyenne, got to high school in 2014, it was just her I had her and my daughter, Zuri. They were the last 2. And Zuri was gonna be graduating in 2016. Cheyenne was going to be graduating in 2018. I decided in 2014, once Cheyenne graduates, I was going to write my book. I wanted to get them through all the stages so I could have a little bit more substance in my explanation. Having the background that I have working in the criminal justice system in K-twelve education, I was a teacher, restorative justice coordinator, and dean of students. So having the background of working on the back end of the criminal justice system and the front end of k 12 education, I just believe I could I would be able to explain to fathers what's coming.

Efrem Martin [00:10:35]:
I don't tell fathers how to raise their children, their baby girls. What I explain to fathers is this is what's coming. And I believe that I could lay a framework of understanding so they have a better understanding of what's coming with their daughters. Daughters are very, very complex, as you know. You have a daughter. You have daughters. Daughters are very complex because they're going to have emotional highs and emotional lows. And understanding the different stages of development, I wish I had somebody like me when I was raising my daughters because it would have helped explain a lot of different things.

Efrem Martin [00:11:08]:
YouTube was it came to the forefront around 2,005. So by 2010, my girls were pretty much they were not grown girls, but they were well on their way. The book itself is very complimentary of my YouTube channel, of my live streams, and my videos. And like I said, I just believe that I'm able to go a lot deeper. There are other YouTube channels that are out there that are that are dealing with fathers of daughters. Most of them are normally dealing with daughters under 10 years of age, and they're amazing. I get to go a lot deeper, I believe, because of my professional experience as well as my experience as a father and living it every day. And all my girls are grown, and they're amazing women.

Efrem Martin [00:11:55]:
So I'm able to explain, I believe, a lot of things for fathers and save them a lot of steps. And I just look forward to the engagement because I'm very interested where fathers are at at the different stages and how I can help them.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:07]:
So you went from having this book to, as you were talking about, creating this YouTube page to, again, try to get some of your messaging out. What kind of response have you been getting to not only the book, but the YouTube channel and trying to and what are you trying to mostly share, and what are you hoping that people are gonna take away from reading the book or watching your videos that you're putting out into the world?

Efrem Martin [00:12:29]:
Well, I'm big on engagement, and the purpose of my YouTube channel is to get engagement because I know fathers are busy. I believe that my engagement has been well. I the book is doing well, and the YouTube channel, I'm building it organically. Now I could go a whole different direction with my YouTube channel and have 10,000 subscribers or 20,000 subscribers. I'm not interested in having a lot of subscribers. I'm interested in having the right subscribers. And YouTube is very YouTube I'm learning a lot from YouTube. It's very interesting, the dynamics of YouTube, the space of YouTube.

Efrem Martin [00:13:05]:
So I'm learning a lot from YouTube. And my overall goal, like I said, is to help fathers understand our sense of urgency. So I believe the engagement has been amazing. I don't get a lot of comments because I think fathers there's a lot of fathers. I just think they're nervous. And we're men. Right? And a lot of men, we're just not sure. And so this great content I'm putting out, it's in the hands of fathers.

Efrem Martin [00:13:28]:
I'm going to eventually get my audience. It's coming. And I just I'm ready. To date, I've done 55 livestreams since, July of 2023, so I'm I'm consistent. And in 2025, I'm gonna change things up a little bit. I wanna have more of an engagement type channel. So it's going in stages, but I'm happy that I'm able to do a livestream every week, use data statistics, use visual aids videos, and share. So the fathers that come across my YouTube channel, I can help them, and they'll eventually we're we're gonna eventually connect.

Efrem Martin [00:14:02]:
Right now, I have about 802 subscribers. So like I said, building organically, I won't do it any other way. Oh, so as a author, self published. I self published my book in February of 2020, and then the pandemic happened in March. So for 2 years, there wasn't anything I could do. And I I really even though my book was out there, I really just wanted to take this opportunity and just wait until the pandemic was over because the pandemic just it changed the world. And although my book was brand new, I didn't really wanna bother fathers because the world was just dealing with too much. So I figured, you know what? Let me wait.

Efrem Martin [00:14:43]:
It took a couple years, so I figured, hey, July of 2023, let me start this YouTube channel. My book's already self published. It's out there. It's time. So I was excited about that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:53]:
So you said that you're changing things up in 2025 and or 2024, 2025. Talk to me about what's next. What's changing? You know, where are you going from here?

Efrem Martin [00:15:04]:
So when you look at my videos now, what I typically do is I give commentary on my experience, and I connect videos with the topics. I have 55 livestreams, 55 different topics, which is very difficult to do, very difficult to do. So I rely a lot on my experience as a as a state juvenile probation officer and working in k twelve education. That's where I draw a lot of my topics as far as being able to go deeper. And visual aids, I know fathers, they have a lot of questions. They have a lot of concerns. But I believe that the visual aids will help them. And YouTube has everything.

Efrem Martin [00:15:40]:
If you can't find it on YouTube, you can't find it. So that's where I'm currently at. And and what I wanna transition into in 2025 is having more of a 1 on 1 like you and I are having right now. That's what I'm interested in. I want more engagement from from different fathers. I I wanna I wanna hear their feedback. I wanna I wanna hear their how they're thinking, how they're feeling. Because there's a lot of fathers out there that have a lot of great ideas, and and I think that they could bring a lot to the table as as far as their own personal experiences of of fathers because we're all at different stages in our lives.

Efrem Martin [00:16:11]:
Like I said, all my daughters are adults, so I no longer have them at home. So I'm at a totally different stage, and I just believe that that type of engagement on screen, I just think that it it it'll take it to a whole different level. And that's what I'm excited about that. But like I said, I've been building my capacity, and I think I'm doing well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:29]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our fatherhood 5, where I ask you 5 more questions to delve deeper into you as a dad. Are you ready? Sure. Absolutely. In one word, what is fatherhood? Consistency. When was the time that you felt like you finally succeeded at being a father to a daughter?

Efrem Martin [00:16:44]:
Once they all graduated from high school.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:46]:
Now if I were to talk to your girls, how would they describe you as a dad?

Efrem Martin [00:16:50]:
My girls, what how would they describe me? Totally laid back. They'll tell you I'm the best father in the world. Great listener, consistent, understanding, passionate, attentive, just a great human being.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:02]:
Now who inspires you to be a better dad?

Efrem Martin [00:17:04]:
My inspiration comes from other fathers, actually, and just seeing how they're doing things with their baby girls. Because like I said, my experience is my experience. So I'm always looking at other fathers and how how they're moving and how they're maneuvering in the world and getting it done. That that excites me because it I'm gen x. Right? So millennials and and Gen z, they do things totally different. So that excites me. I'm interested in that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:29]:
Now you've given a number of pieces of advice today. You've talked about some of the experiences that you had in raising your daughters. As you think about all dads that are out there and as we finish up today, what's one piece of advice you'd wanna give to every dad?

Efrem Martin [00:17:43]:
One piece of advice I would give to fathers, this is my first statement that you ask me, consistency. As long as you're consistent, your baby girls are gonna be fine. It's the consistency that I believe that allows us to provide that protection and safety and allows our daughters to grow. When we talk about the independence of our daughters, I didn't raise my daughters to be independent. I raised my daughters to be free thinkers. And the reason I did that was because I wanted them to challenge the world and have an open enough mind to be able to question everything. So I took a different path. I raised them to be free thinkers.

Efrem Martin [00:18:20]:
They are definitely free thinkers, just like their father, which I believe allows them to embrace all of humanity.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:26]:
Now, if people want to find out more about you, your book, your where's the best place for them to go to be able to find out more?

Efrem Martin [00:18:33]:
Definitely. You can find my YouTube channel at Girl Dad YouTube channel. It's on YouTube. I'm also on rubo.rumbo.com.martineframb, that's myrumbo.com. My book is available at amazon.com. You can get that directly through Amazon dotcom. Also, it's, available through my YouTube channel. It's always in it's in the description on of each of my, live streams and my videos.

Efrem Martin [00:19:00]:
So that's the best way to get a hold of me. I'm on Facebook. I'm on TikTok. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Twitter. So I use technology to my advantage. I've always been on the forefront of technology. I love technology.

Efrem Martin [00:19:14]:
I love young people and and seeing how they move with technology. So I'm on the forefront of technology. So that's how you can find me. But my YouTube channel, I'm very proud of it. Grow Dad YouTube channel.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:27]:
Well, I just wanna say thank you so much for being here today, for sharing your story, for work that you're doing to help other dads, and I truly wish you all the best.

Efrem Martin [00:19:36]:
No. I appreciate you. And eventually, I'm going to bring you on to my YouTube channel because I think it would be good. And like I said, I appreciate connecting with you. So thank you for your time, sir. Appreciate you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:50]:
If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads with Daughters podcast, we invite you to check out the fatherhood insider. The fatherhood insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most dads are figuring it out as they go along, and the fatherhood insider is full of resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step by step roadmaps, and more, you will engage and learn with experts, but more importantly, dads like you. So check it out at fathering together dot org. If you are a father of a daughter and have not yet joined the dads with daughters Facebook community, there's a link in the notes today. Dads with daughters is a program of fathering together. We look forward to having you back for another great guest next week all geared to helping you raise strong and powered daughters and be the best dad that you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:48]:
We're all in the same boat, And it's full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time. We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your a game. Because those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Blast calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters, and musclemen.

Get out and be the world to them. Be the best dad you can be. Be the best dad you can be.

In this week's episode of the Dads with Daughters podcast, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Ryan Senters, a dedicated father of two biological children and nine adopted kids, who also runs a nonprofit, called Ohana, providing housing and support for foster children. We discussed the joys and fears of fatherhood, the challenges of raising daughters, and the importance of being intentional in parenting.

Recalling the moment he found out he was going to be a father to his first daughter, Brooklyn, Ryan Senters felt a wave of excitement and a profound sense of responsibility. He and his wife had been trying to conceive for two years, making the news even more special. Ryan described feeling the urgency to "get this right," a sentiment many new fathers can relate to.

"When we found out that I was gonna have our daughter, Brooklyn, just yeah. Sure excitement and a sense of, like, probably responsibility of, like, oh, jeez. I gotta take this serious here. I gotta make sure that I do this right." — Dr. Ryan Senters

Many fathers admit to feeling a unique set of fears when they learn they're expecting a daughter. Ryan was no different, expressing anxiety about being present and doing everything "right," especially since he lacked a paternal role model growing up. He noted the irrationality of some of these fears but acknowledged how they shaped his approach to fatherhood.

"I was just worried that I needed to make sure that I know it's not a right way, but in my head, I was very thick. I had this fixed mindset. I would needed to get this right." — Dr. Ryan Senters

One of Ryan's significant concerns was modeling the kind of man he wanted his daughters to value in their future. He emphasized the importance of being intentionally present, not just for his daughters but also for his wife, to set a positive example. His daughters, one biological and one adopted, keep looking to him for wisdom and guidance.

"They deserve to be independent and helping them develop self-confidence. They need to have a dad in their corner that's cheering them on and an example to what it means to have a man in their life." — Dr. Ryan Senters

As a busy professional and father of many, Ryan discussed the concept of balance. He highlighted the seasonality of responsibilities and stressed the importance of mental reset techniques, like the photo in his garage that reminds him of his primary job when entering his home. Ryan advocates for being an "intentional father" rather than just a "present" one, incorporating activities like tech-free Sundays to foster family bonds.

Ryan and his wife always felt a calling towards fostering and adopting children. They opened their home to numerous children over 15 years, offering them a loving and stable environment. Ryan shared touching stories about his adopted children, like his daughter Pima, who struggled with her past but found strength and identity within their family.

"We have this mantra in our family: you are strong, you are brave, and you are kind. And so when she gets that, you are so strong... That's a big moment for us." — Dr. Ryan Senters

The decision to adopt more children came with challenges. Ryan recalled selling their home to move into a larger space that could accommodate five more children, a testament to their dedication and love. Their nonprofit, Ohana, named after a meaningful family quote, strives to find forever families for kids in need, embodying the belief that every child deserves a family.

"Ohana means family and family means no one's left behind or forgotten. And it was so significant for our family." — Dr. Ryan Senters

Ryan also spoke about his nonprofit organization, Ohana, which provides crucial support, housing, and family connections for foster children. His work not only benefits his family but extends to helping other families navigate the complexities of fostering and adoption.

"Our belief is that every child deserves a family. Our belief is that a kid's past story doesn't define them. And what we have learned is that if a family is consistent and present, any child's past hurts can be healed." — Dr. Ryan Senters

Ryan Senters' journey is a testament to the power of intentional fatherhood and the impact a loving, supportive family can have on a child's life. His story encourages all dads to step up, be present, and be intentional in their parenting, whether with biological or adopted children. For more insights and stories like Ryan's, check out the Dads with Daughters podcast and consider diving into additional resources available at fatheringtogether.org.

TRANSCRIPT (Unedited transcript created with CASTMAGIC)

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome to dads with daughters. In this show, we spotlight dads, resources, and more to help you be the best dad you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:16]:
Welcome back to the dads with daughters podcast where we bring you guests to be active participants in your daughters' lives, raising them to be strong, independent women. Really excited to have you back again this week. And as always, every week, I love being able to be on this journey with you because you and I are on a journey together. I've got 2 daughters, you've got daughters. We are working through this trying to figure it out as we go along. None of us have all the answers. So it's important to be able to learn from other people and be open to learning from other people. And that's why this show is here.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:49]:
This show is here to be able to provide you resources, provide you opportunities to, to hear from other dads, other people with different experiences that can help you to be the dad that you wanna be and help you to raise your daughters to be those strong independent women that you want them to be as well. Today, we got another great guest with us today. Doctor Ryan Centers is with us today, and Ryan is a father of 2 biological kids, 9 adopted kids, but he also runs a nonprofit that has been able to provide housing and support for more than 500 foster children. He's a busy guy, And I am really excited to have him here to learn more from him and his journey and to introduce him to you. Ryan, thanks so much for being here today.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:01:35]:
Yeah. Thanks for having me on.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:36]:
It is my pleasure. And I love being able to learn from other dads. And, one of the things that I love doing first and foremost is turning the clock back in time. So I wanna go all the way back to your first biological daughter, that daughter that that made you a father. But I wanna go back to that first moment that you found out you were going to be a father to a daughter. What was going through your head?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:01:56]:
My wife and I were trying to get pregnant for a lot probably 2 years. So probably it was just more excitement than anything else. We really didn't have any expectation, boy or girl, but when we found out that I was gonna have our daughter, Brooklyn, just yeah. Sure excitement and a sense of, like, probably responsibility of, like, oh, jeez. I gotta take this serious here. I gotta make sure that I do this right.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:15]:
Oh, and I don't know that there is one right way to do it. There isn't one right way to do it. So a lot of dads say, I've got to get this right. I got to do it right. There's got to be a right way to do it. And I keep saying, no, there's not. There's not one right way. There's lots of ways.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:29]:
So thinking back to those first days of being a dad, and I I talk to a lot of dads with daughters and a lot of dads are there's fear going into being a father, but there's also a fear of being a father to a daughter. What was your biggest fear in being a father to a daughter?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:02:47]:
Yeah. I guess when I was as I think back, I think generally when we when I had my little girl in my in my arms, I was just like, one, just never have done this before and kinda felt a little bit useless. My wife did a great job and was very patient very patient with me. And obviously, I wanted to be involved, but I guess my fear being with my, daughter is that I needed to, I don't know, just being present. I was just worried that I needed to make sure that I know it's not a right way, but in my head I was very thick. I had this fixed mindset. I would needed to get this right. So it was a little bit irrational and a little bit probably not correct, but I was 28 years old and trying to figure this out.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:03:27]:
And I was like, oh, shoot. I need to make sure that this like, my dad, Nessa, wasn't active in my life, so I didn't really have a picture of that. So I didn't have a compass to kinda help direct that. So for me, I it produced a little bit of anxiety in the beginning stages because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't doing it wrong. And I think my past story and, like, my my family of origin really kinda impacted and shaped how I viewed and my fears kind of were a little bit irrational starting off.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:56]:
Now, as I mentioned, you've got a few daughters and a number of sons that you've adapted as well. And I guess as you think about your daughters and raising your daughters into the women that they have become, what's been the hardest part of being a father to a daughter?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:04:11]:
I think for me, probably the hardest part of being a father to daughter is just making sure I'm modeling to them what they want for their future spouse is I have to be intentional and present with my kids, but also intentionally and present with my wife and kind of model that. I know they're watching, especially now my daughter's 14, My adopted daughter's 25, and she's now married. So they're coming to us for wisdom and guidance, and I wanna make sure that I'm helping model what they're a princess and, like, they deserve the best and they deserve to be independent. They're gonna be independent and helping them develop self confidence. They need to have a dad in their corner that's cheering them on and an example to what it means to have a man in their life.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:00]:
I mentioned that you're a busy guy. You're running a nonprofit. You work in a community college and working with students there. You are doing a lot of different things. You've got a large family as well where you're balancing all of that. Talk to me about balance and what you've had to do to be able to balance your professional life, your personal life, to be that dad that you wanted to be.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:05:21]:
I guess when I think of the word balance, I don't necessarily know about if you're ever gonna balance it all out, but there is gonna be seasonality of certain things. So as I'm growing a business and then also building out a nonprofit, there is seasons where I have to be super intentional with that. And then there are seasons when like this summer, I'm just fully present with my kids. And one of the things that I've always tried to do is actually, as I go into my garage at home, there's a picture on the front and the driveway, as I go to park and it is a mental reset in my head that says, all right, this is my first ministry. This is my most important thing. This is my number one job is I don't get to just go home and just veg out. Even if I had a stressful conversation, stressful workday, have a bunch of deals undone, or I've had hard conversations. Like I have to get the reserve out of the tank and I have to reset my mind and say like, alright.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:06:14]:
So it's like a visual representation as I'm walking into my house that I'm like, alright. First ministry engaged with my kids. And what I've learned is that, like, there are certain moments with kids that are more, like, are more critical than others. So like early in the morning when they're waking up 5 minutes of attentional time, 1 on 1 eating breakfast together around the dinner table, there's no tech. There is time to like, and in the evening, going to saying prayers or going to bed at night. That's a really critical moment for our family. And then we've also built into our schedule. Like we have tech free Sundays, so it's kind of unique.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:06:49]:
We got 9 kids at home and they like technology just matches any other kid, but that's like a family day of like intentionality. I think there's been a shift with parenthood and fatherhood that it used to be like, Hey, in the old days, if you could just like make sure they're taken care of, that's great. Then it's the last probably 2 decades been like be a present father. But I think now I think that's halfway right. But I think now it needs to be like, now you need to be an intentional father, intentional to how you want them to develop. So for us, intentionality is critical. So for us, we do tech free Sundays. We have like a family breakfast.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:07:25]:
We'll go to play ball or play basketball, and we'll do some kind of activity together and laugh. Have fun play together when parents and dads play with their kids, play with their daughters, that's like releases so much stress and brings bond and it develops like oxytocin in the brain. And it's very important for kids to feel bonded and safe.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:48]:
So I mentioned that you have your 2 biological kids, you have 9 adopted kids. Tell me the story of moving into being a adoptive father and what that journey was like for you that made you and your wife decide that you wanted to move down that path?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:08:06]:
So we had a one biological daughter, Brooklyn. She's 14 now. And then we always felt called. I worked in a shelter in graduate school, working with kids in coming out of jail or had didn't have families. And I just fell in love with that work and knew that that was part of our path. It's crazy. Even at, you're not really twenties, my wife and I knew like, Hey, we're going to be a foster parent someday, which is pretty abnormal. So when we started, after we had our first daughter, we opened up our license.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:08:31]:
We've been foster grand for 15 years, have taken in, I would say about 15 kids and we had 4 for a little over 12 years ago, we had 4 kids under 4, which is a lot. And we had 2 biological kids and then 2 adopted kids and our life felt pretty good. I was working in a foster care group homes and there is a girl there though, she's 14 years old and she's was one of like very quiet and reserved and she was available for adoption. And I just kind of developed a bond with her. And my wife actually saw her on these websites that were talking about adoption and she kept pointing her out to me. And long story short, we just kind of felt called to take a leap. And we, we took her in as a 14 year old and she was the most shy reserved girl. She never played any sports in her life.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:09:16]:
I remember her senior year, she, we finally convinced her to go on some kind of sports team and she did badminton. I was like, oh, sweet badminton. And if you've ever went to a badminton game or a, a match, it's quiet. And I didn't know the rules and she's hitting the birdie and hitting it over. And I'm just, we're just cheering her and all of our siblings just cheering her on like crazy. And we didn't know the etiquette of the of the sport at all. But what I was so proud is that her senior year, she's been quiet and reserved her whole life. We go to do the banquet and she got player of the year and we were so proud of her.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:09:53]:
We have this mantra in our family and we, we say it over our kids. We think identity and language is really important for kids. So we say Pima, our daughter, you are strong, you are brave and you are kind, you are strong, you are brave, and you are kind. We say that's three things over and over again. In our business, we have them that says, you are strong, you are brave, you are kind. And so when she gets that payment, you are so strong. And like, or when she was nervous to go get her go to the community for the first time and go, Hey, I'm going to drive you up there, but you got to walk in. So dad, I can't do it.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:10:22]:
Dad, I can't do it. No. Pima, you are strong. You are brave. Let's go. And she stepped out and did that. And I remember so vividly her freshman year, she was finishing up her community college test and she went across the street to go get something to eat. And she looks over and she sees this guy panhandling on the street and are panhandling it.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:10:41]:
And she looks over and does a double take. And she realized she recognizes this guy, but he looks at her and he doesn't recognize her. She looks again, her heart starts to race and she says, dad, and it's her biological dad who's been an addict most of his life, is homeless on the street. And he said, do I know you? And he didn't even recognize her. And it just threw her in a spin. And that evening she comes home. We don't hear about this. She comes home and we're putting our younger four to bed and she's there with us.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:11:07]:
And she tells my wife and I this story. And she's shaking and she's sitting to us and then just starts to cry. And we say, Pima, you are strong, you are brave, and you are kind. You are loved. You are a center. You are so important in trying to speak that over her where someone feels so insecure and feels like nothing. And for girls, that's very, very common. And I think a dad's role is to speak truth and treat, speak that identity over her.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:11:32]:
And minutes later, she says, I want to put the kids to bed and she's never puts our kids to bed. So she runs upstairs, passes me by up the stairs and she runs up to my youngest son who's now 4 years old and she says, Maddox, she says, you are strong, you are brave and you are kind and you are going to college. And for me, she is now living into her identity and living into it and developing confidence because she's able to, to spur that onto other people. And for me, that's the role of a dad. It's the role of a foster parent. And that's a big moment for us. We have group homes and there was 5 kids that didn't have a family and our family was full. And long story short, we just kind of felt called to it.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:12:13]:
And it was a 2 year old to a 13 year old. We sold our house 2 years ago, found a place that could fit everybody, reopen our foster license, and took in these 5 kids and adopted them all this summer. So that's been a whirlwind as well. So I feel like I've lived enough for 3 decades for sure in 20 years.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:30]:
So you also run a nonprofit that helps to connect kids with families. And not only are you taking these kids into your own family and creating these opportunities for but you're also creating opportunities for other families as well. So talk to me about that and what drove you to create this nonprofit called Ohana that that is providing that, but also connecting these kids with other families.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:13:03]:
One of our adopted sons, we always called him Stitch, like from the movie, Lilo and Stitch. She's like this wild terror alien baby thing. And we always called him Stitch to life. He's a lover and a terror. And there's a quote in the movie. It says, Ohana means family and family means no one's left behind or forgotten. And it was so significant for our family. That's why we started our nonprofit called Ohana.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:13:23]:
And our belief is that every child deserves a family. Our belief is that a kid's past story doesn't define them. And what we have learned is that if a family is consistent and present, like any child's past hurts can be healed. So, we have kids who are available for adoption that we are trying to find forever families for. So we've adopted kids through that program, but we have about 90 kids that we serve and we have about 10 kids that get adopted every year, which is some of the biggest joy and awesome parts of the journey. And we try to equip parents that parents are like, oh, like when I was a young parent, I was like, I gotta be perfect and do this right. Even more so when you work as a foster parent. Oh, I gotta do this right.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:14:07]:
Yeah. Throw that out the window. Show up, be present, love them well, and they'll be alright.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:12]:
Well, and that's what I was gonna ask you was when you look at your whole family and how you parent your biological kids, your adoptive kids, I would guess I have 2 biological kids. I do not have adopted kids, but and I have not been a foster parent. But in my perspective, I would guess that you have to parent them the same way and you have to love them the same way.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:14:31]:
Absolutely. Yeah. So I, you, and it's interesting that like kids that we have adopted, like they are part of our family, the love that we have, people like, how could you do that? How could you love, like, I don't know your heart just kind of grows. Like, it's like part of the calling of like the adoption and foster care. But yes, you have to, I think you have to adjust your expectations when you're having a foster adopted child. Some of my kids, my son was in 7th grade and he was reading at a 2nd grade level. Okay. I can't have the same expectations for him.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:15:00]:
And some parents would be like, Hey, he needs to just focus on school. No sports. But I knew my kid had needed an outlet and he needed to move his body and needed to have something where he could have some wins and success. And for him it was soccer. So I made sure that he played soccer where my other kid says, Hey, if you have missing assignment, dude, you're not going to practice. But this kid needed to make sure that, so there is some, you have to adjust kind of your expectations and sometimes bonding takes more time, but they need love. Like my 25 year old daughter, she just still like, it took her forever to be able to hug and I didn't want to ever force it hug. But now she's like, first thing she does, she comes into my house and wants to give us the biggest hug and for an adopted child, that's a big deal.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:15:41]:
Especially for a 14 year old black girl who doesn't know, and I was a 35 year old white guy. It felt off. It didn't feel comfortable for her. And I respected that. But now it's time it's like, no, we're family. Like we're love. Like the love is deeper than any thing that makes us different.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:59]:
So if people are interested in being potential foster parents in the future, sometimes people think that this is a process that is really difficult and something that they don't wanna move down or they're scared because of some of the the things that kids may bring with them and what they have to be able to struggle with as a family, as they're bringing them into their family. What do you say to those people and how to get in or to work through some of the challenges that they may encounter in bringing foster kids into your family?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:16:35]:
A couple things. 1, you have to, 1, adjust your expectations. 1, it's not about you. It's about the child. So that has to be reorient yourself. I work with a lot of families that wanna complete their family. And that's great. I respect that.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:16:46]:
It can, that can be part of it. But also the primary thing is, like, I see this child and I want to make sure that they have hope and healing. That's gotta be foundation. But then there's also, like, just some people have been through it before. So I always reached out to people who have been in this before. Like, when we were struggling with our son and having behaviors, my god, what the what the crap do I do here? I asked people that knew. So there's, like, general words of wisdom is like, a, take younger than your kids that you have in your home. Take younger.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:17:15]:
Because why? Because they will help guide the culture of what to expect for them. I wouldn't get a kid that's older than your biological children. And making sure that you know their history and are prepared for that is an important aspect as well. And then having other people in your corner. So for me, it's like, I always gotta have family. I gotta have family, friends. We have a family of friends that will take their kid for a night and just give us a moment to reset. Because you're like, oh, this is a lot, occasionally.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:17:43]:
And having family to kinda help. Hey. Can you take the kids for a night so my wife and I so we can just have a chance to reset ourselves. And that was a big, big important thing.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:52]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our fatherhood 5, where I ask you 5 more questions to delve deeper into you as a dad. Are you ready?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:18:00]:
Yep. Gotcha. is fatherhood?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:00]:
In one word, what

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:18:02]:
Intentional.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:03]:
When was the time that you finally felt like you succeeded at being a father to a daughter?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:18:08]:
My 14 year old daughter, we went to a dad daughter dance, and she loved being the dad's princess and being with me all the time. And we have the 4 year old little girl and she's like, we need to make sure she comes too. And she taught her how to dance and do all this other stuff. So that was a really big win. And we also just had my wife's 40th birthday and my daughter did a toast to her and talked so many great things. And my son, like, prayed over and blessing over the whole night. So that was super humbling and great.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:36]:
Now if I was to talk to your kids, how would they describe you as a dad?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:18:40]:
I think they would say I'm fun. Love to play sport with the kids. I'm strict. They know that. And I'm a big believer that centers do hard things. So they know we do hard things together.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:51]:
Now who inspires you to be a better dad?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:18:52]:
My father-in-law for sure didn't have a dad, but he is a great picture of a dad for me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:57]:
Now you've given a lot of piece of advice. You've shared your story and talked about what you've gone through as a father yourself, or at least part of what you've gone through as a father yourself. As we finish up today, what's one piece of advice you'd wanna give to every dad?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:19:09]:
Kinda go back. Fatherhood is more than just being present. Present is good. Present is is showing up to the game. It's maybe coaching once in a while. Maybe it's making sure you're not on your phone when your kids are talking to you present. That's awesome. But I think the next step of fatherhood is intentionality.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:19:26]:
Intentionality is having a picture of what you want your family to be about. A picture of what you want your kids' lives to be about. I want my kids to be more generous. I want them to serve others. I want them to learn to do hard things. So what's the picture? And then intentionality is, like, creating opportunities and moments to do those things and naming those. So for us, it's like we have an intentional like, we wanna we're creating a ranch for kids with special needs. So for us, like, we do hard things.

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:19:53]:
So we're building our chicken coop, and we're all doing that together. My daughter, she's in a power of tools and making it happen. Why? Because I am teaching us, one, we do hard things and that we serve others. And I'm always pointing towards that So my kids can be reinforced that that is what we do. That's who we are more than just present. It's intentionality.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:12]:
If people want to find out more about Ohana or about you, where should they go?

Dr. Ryan Senters [00:20:17]:
Yeah. So I have a podcast and I'm actually releasing one on fatherhood and parenthood, foster adoption, season this this fall. It's called Unleash Your Purpose, and you can look me up orioncenters.com, and ohanaaz.org is our organization.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:33]:
Well, Ryan, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for sharing your story today. Thank you for all that you're doing to be able to help connect kids with their forever families. And I truly wish you all the best.

Ryan Senters [00:20:45]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:46]:
If you've enjoyed today's episode of the dads with daughters podcast, we invite you to check out the fatherhood insider. The fatherhood insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most dads are figuring it out as they go along, And the fatherhood insider is full of resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step by step roadmaps, and more, you will engage and learn with experts, but more importantly, dads like you. So check it out at fathering together dot org. If you are a father of a daughter and have not yet joined the dads with daughters Facebook community, there's a link in the notes today. Dads with daughters is a program of fathering together. We look forward to having you back for another great guest next week, all geared to helping you raise strong and empowered daughters and be the best dad that you can be.

We're all in the same boat and it's full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time, We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your a game. Because those kids are growing fast, the time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters, and muscle men, get out and beat the world to them. Be the best dad you can be.

Discovering the Path to Better Father-Daughter Relationships

In a recent episode of the "Dads with Daughters" podcast, host Dr. Christopher Lewis sat down with Madeline Anderson, author of Girl Dad: Stories, Lessons, and Advice from Girl Dads and Their Daughters. Madeline shared insights and stories from her book and personal life, shedding light on the unique and impactful father-daughter relationship. Below, we delve into the highlights of their conversation and explore how her insights can help fathers strengthen their bonds with their daughters.

The Genesis of "Girl Dad"

Madeline Anderson, inspired by the unique and nurturing relationship with her father, set out to write *Girl Dad*. She recognized that her bond with her dad was rare and wanted to share the principles that made their relationship special. The book is a culmination of her personal experiences and interviews with various fathers and daughters. The key lesson: making life fun and enjoyable for daughters from a young age can build strong, lasting relationships.

Understanding the Importance of Small Moments

A recurring theme in Madeline’s book is the impact of small, consistent gestures over grandiose acts. During the podcast, she shared touching stories from daughters who cherished simple, heartfelt actions from their fathers. For instance, one father left a note in his daughter's freezer that she found after he moved her into college. Such acts of love and thoughtfulness resonate deeply, often becoming treasured memories.

Building Lifelong Friendships

Madeline emphasized the importance of fathers not only as authority figures but as friends. By making activities enjoyable and relating to their daughters' interests, fathers can cultivate friendship and trust. She shared an anecdote about her father building a playhouse in their attic, complete with a rock wall entry. This creative and fun project strengthened their bond, underpinning the larger message of her book—having fun together can transform the father-daughter relationship.

Embracing Your Authentic Self

Madeline also discussed the importance of fathers remaining true to themselves. Instead of sacrificing their interests, fathers should incorporate their daughters into their world. If a father enjoys hiking, for instance, taking his daughter along can create shared experiences and memories. When daughters feel included in their father's life, they are more likely to share their own worlds in return.

The Power of Understanding

Madeline urged fathers to prioritize understanding their daughters at an individual level. Simple practices like sharing "roses and thorns" of the day can open channels of communication and provide insights into their daughters’ lives. By knowing her highs and lows, fathers can support their daughters more effectively and build deeper connections.

Balancing Work and Family

Madeline spoke about her father's ability to balance a demanding work schedule while maintaining a close relationship with his daughters. She admired his ability to integrate his work world with his family life, showcasing that with some creativity and effort, work commitments need not overshadow family time. This approach can provide daughters with positive role models and inspire them in their own professional pursuits.

The Birth of Girl Dad Network

Expanding on her book’s mission, Madeline is launching the Girl Dad Network, an online community offering resources, mentorship, and a platform for fathers to connect and learn from one another. This network will feature monthly meetings, courses tailored by age group, gift guides, and resources for both fathers and daughters—intending to be a comprehensive support system for "girl dads" everywhere.

The conversation between Dr. Christopher Lewis and Madeline Anderson illuminated the profound impact of conscious and loving fatherhood on daughters. Madeline's work serves as a reminder that it’s the little things that often matter the most. By being genuine, involving daughters in their passions, understanding their needs, and balancing work and family life, fathers can build meaningful and lasting relationships with their daughters.

For more resources, fathers can visit the Girl Dad Network at girldadnetwork.com or explore Madeline’s book, *Girl Dad*, available through Amazon. As underscored by Dr. Lewis, dads don’t need to be perfect; they just need to be present, engaged, and open to the journey of fatherhood.

Remember, every small gesture counts, and every day is an opportunity to build a stronger bond with your daughter.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome to dads with daughters. In this show, we spotlight dads, resources, and more to help you be the best dad you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:16]:
Welcome back to the Dads with Daughters podcast where we bring you guests to be active participants in your daughters' lives, raising them to be strong, independent women. Really excited to have you back again this week. Every week, I love being able to sit down and talk to you. I say this every week, but it's so true because I learn from you as much as I'm hoping that you're learning from the people that we have on, the resources that we're sharing to help you be that dad that you wanna be to your daughters. And every week, I love being able to bring you different people, different guests, different people with different experiences. Last week, you had an opportunity to meet Kekoa and Madeline Anderson. They both were on. I love having fathers and daughters on.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:58]:
And I introduced you to the fact that Madeline is the author of a book called Girl Dad, Stories, Lessons and Advice from Girl Dads and Their Daughters. And we didn't really talk a lot about that book. But let me give you a little more context. So Madeline is an author and entrepreneur. She's got a passion for neuroscience, psychology, writing, and speaking. She's the daughter of a girl dad. We met him last week. And he's a father of 3 daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:25]:
So he's got a lot of experience in that. And over a number of years, she spent over a number of years, she had the opportunity to interview a wide array of fathers and daughters to write this book about how you can be the best dad that you can be to your daughters. It really fits in well with the podcast and what we do in fathering together. So I'm really excited to have her back again this week to talk more about this journey that she's been on to be able to help dance and to learn a little bit more about what she learned in that process as well. Madeleine, thanks so much for being back again this week.

Madeline Anderson [00:02:02]:
Thank you so much for having me, Christopher. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:05]:
Well, I am excited to have you back. And it was so fun having your dad on last week and learning about the journey that the both that both of you were on. And I love some of the stories that he was sharing and some of the stories you were sharing about golfing and being able to, be that multi sport, fed into this book. But I I guess I wanna go back to the genesis because you're not a mother. You're not a father. You're writing a book, though, about being a great dad to daughters, and I think that has to have come from what we heard last week in the relationship that you have with your own father. But give me some of the genesis of what made you decide that you wanted to spend the time, the effort to interview all these people, to gain all this insight, and then put this book out into the world.

Madeline Anderson [00:02:54]:
So I wrote this book because I have an incredible relationship with my dad. And, obviously, y'all heard that on the last podcast, but I had no idea how rare our relationship is. And I really want to change that. So that's the genesis of the book. And it started out with me writing stories with my dad and how he raised me and my 2 younger sisters. But then it turned into so much more than that as I started interviewing both dads and daughters from all over, like you mentioned. And I think it's really a culmination of their stories, lessons, and advice that really shine throughout the book. And the actual moment that I realized I wanted to write the book was actually an interesting one.

Madeline Anderson [00:03:37]:
I was driving in Santa Monica. I could tell you exactly what street I was on and where I was going, but I I just had a thought pop into my head that said, you should write a book called Girl Dad. And like I said, I had always known I had a great relationship with my dad, but this thought just kind of came out of left field. And I've recently read Rick Rubin's book, The Creative Act, A Way of Being. And there was something in it that really stood out to me as relevant to this conversation. And he talked a lot about artists being the vessels for bringing the art or the idea to life and how sometimes ideas just come to you. And you're meant to basically take that idea and put it out into the world. And I really feel that that was the case for girl dad.

Madeline Anderson [00:04:18]:
It felt like a calling that's bigger than me, bigger than my stories, and it was something that I almost had to do because it was so important. And I think that having that daughter perspective is hopefully really helpful for dads because I'm trying to shed light on what we care about, what we want from our dads, and how to have a great relationship with us. So that's kind of the the genesis of Girl Dad, and it's evolving every day. I'm so excited. I'm launching Girl Dad Network very, very soon here, and that'll be an online platform for dads with all kinds of different things, like community and monthly live meetings with me, resources for the dads, resource for the daughters. Just kind of a full, all encompassing girl dad takes me takes me and how many people this message reaches.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:11]:
You know, one of the things that you said in the past podcast was that and and you reflected that just a moment ago where you talked about how rare it was for you to realize the relationship between you and your dad was not the norm. And you realized that in college when you interacted with other women that didn't have that same relationship. Talk to me about that and what you were hearing from some of these other women about the relationships they did not have. And what were those women telling you about what they wished that relationship was and what was missing in that relationship?

Madeline Anderson [00:05:49]:
Yeah. It started the day that I moved in, and I lived in a dorm with I think it was there's 8 of us. So it was a 2 bedroom dorm with I know, I guess it was 6 of us. There was 2 bedrooms, 3 people in each bedroom, 1 bathroom, kind of a tough situation, but my dad helped me move in and he was there. He was so supportive. We grabbed dinner afterwards, the way he was helping me set up and everything. And then all 5 of the other girls were just there in awe. They didn't have a dad who was helping them move in.

Madeline Anderson [00:06:19]:
And I definitely took it for granted. It was like, you know, move in day course he's coming. That's what he does. Like, you know, he's just always there for me. And so it was, that was the first moment. And then after he left, they had told me a lot about that. Like, wow, I can't believe your dad did that. That was so nice of him.

Madeline Anderson [00:06:34]:
And I I really wish my dad would care for me like that. And and then obviously throughout college, I met ton of other girls who also had either no relationship with their dad or a very negative relationship. And they would say, you know, they hate their dad. You know, just really things that make my skin crawl a little bit and it and it hurts my heart, but it basically, it became very obvious to me that I had something very special And I always knew he was amazing, but I didn't realize how rare our relationship was.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:01]:
So you spent all this time, and you started kinda deconstructing the relationship that you had with your own father. And as you were looking at that, what were some of the big points, some of the things that really stood out to you that were unique in your relationship that you weren't seeing in some of the other relationships around you?

Madeline Anderson [00:07:21]:
I think it probably tends to start from a young age. And looking back to when me and my sisters were young, one thing he did consistently was make life fun. So he would just put himself in our shoes and try to make every situation fun for us. And by having fun with him, we became more than, you know, just a father daughter dynamic. We became friends. And so we've kind of built that friendship over the years. We're still great friends and he's also my dad and I'm also his daughter, you know, that you can be both. And I think that's one thing that really became clear throughout my adulthood and reflecting on these stories and talking with my younger sisters and trying to think back, okay, What was that thing dad did with us? You know? It's like the common theme is we had so much fun, and nothing was, like, too crazy or such a rare idea.

Madeline Anderson [00:08:12]:
It was all just, like, being silly or just hanging out with us and making us feel special. And one thing that comes to mind is he built us this playhouse, and it was just the coolest thing ever. He we had an attic, and so he transformed that attic into our playhouse. And he's super handy. So he did all the insulation and put in wood floors in the attic. And then what he did is he cut a hole in the top of our closet, and then he built a rock wall. And we were helping him throughout the process. So I have photos of me with little mask on up in the attic, and we went to REI and got the rock wall pieces and helped decide, okay, this one should go here.

Madeline Anderson [00:08:48]:
This is here. And then it became this epic playhouse where you had to crawl up a rock wall in the closet to get to this playhouse. And we called it Club Wahini because he was born in Hawaii and we would draw on the walls. And every time our friends would come over, they would sign the wall And we would be up there for hours and hours, like, every day, every weekend, we had sleepovers up there. And it was just such a fun thing that he did. And he just he thought of it because he's creative, and he's always thinking about, oh, how can we make this fun? He's he's just really good at turning any situation into something that you wanna be a part of.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:24]:
So beyond what you were learning specifically about the relationship between you and your dad because by taking a clinical approach to taking a look at the relationship, it's a it it kinda sets makes you have to step back and look from a macro view versus the micro view that you grew up in. But then you went beyond that, and you started to talk to other fathers, daughters about their relationships. What did you learn what did you start learning from those conversations that was eye opening for you as you were preparing and collecting all this data that would eventually be written in your book?

Madeline Anderson [00:10:03]:
The first thing that comes to mind is when I interviewed all the daughters, the same theme kind of kept coming up, which is it's all the little things that matter. Like, no daughter said, oh, you know, my dad is really special because on my birthday, he got me this, like, nice purse or, you know, something like big. It's all these little micro moments that add up over time. And funny enough, I had 2 daughters talk a long time, and it was like their favorite story about handwritten notes. One of them was a daughter who her dad helped her move into college as well. And their thing growing up was they would eat ice cream together on the couch. And so when he was moving in, he wrote on a little piece of paper, I wish I was eating. I was here eating ice cream with you and he put it in her freezer.

Madeline Anderson [00:10:50]:
And then that night when he left, she was feeling all sad and she went to go get some ice cream and she saw that note there. And she said she started crying, and it was so special. And she's moved multiple times since then. And she told me she's brought the note with her every time and puts it in her freezer. And it's so funny how it's just this simple note. That was only a few words. Right? But it meant the world to her. And then the second example was one of the daughters that I interviewed, she when she was going off to college, she was having a lot of anxiety.

Madeline Anderson [00:11:19]:
She has always kind of had a lot of anxiety, struggled with that. And she's grown up really close to home, doesn't like to leave home. And her college was in a different state. It was a flight away. And she was ultimately deciding that she didn't wanna go anymore because she couldn't handle it. And so her dad wrote her the kindest note just outlining how he's so proud of her, how she can do this, he'll be with her every step of the way, and just made her feel like she was capable. And so she ended up going to college at this school that was far away. She brought the note with her.

Madeline Anderson [00:11:50]:
She put it in her backpack. She said she took it to every single class, and she felt a sense of comfort just knowing that that note was in her backpack. It was almost as if her dad was there in her presence. And she also told me that she has that note still today even though she's past graduation and everything. And she said it's all kind of crumpled up and, like, it looks old, but she said she'll keep it forever. So I think those are two powerful stories that just go to show you that it's just these little micro moments that means so much to us daughters. And at the end of the day, we just wanna feel loved. We wanna feel seen and heard and special.

Madeline Anderson [00:12:25]:
And there's lots of ways to do that, but it could be as simple as a really genuine smile just like every day or a handwritten note or a big hug. Like, there's just these things that matter so much to us, and it's it's not rocket science necessarily, but it takes getting to understand us as individuals and what we need from our dads, to feel supported and loved.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:49]:
So you collect all this data. And as someone that went through a doctorate program and wrote a dissertation, I know what that's like, and especially qualitative data when you're pulling all kinds of stories together, and you're trying to figure out some type of semblance of order to all of this and putting it into thematic areas that make sense. Talk to me about some of the high level learning pieces that people are going to find as they go through this book and some of the main points that you are trying to put out there into the world. Not that you have to give away every secret because we want people to read the book, but what are some of the high level areas and things that you really are delving deeper into into in the book itself?

Madeline Anderson [00:13:32]:
Yeah. I think the first thing that I I would say is that it's a very positive book. I want dads to read this and to close it and be like, let's go. I'm so happy that I have a daughter. I'm so excited depending on what age level she's at. I'm so excited for her journey to raise her, but I really want people to have fun with it. And I think that plays into one of the first themes and takeaways, which is to don't stop being you. And I think it's an important one because I want you to be the happiest version of yourself because when you're happy, you're usually a better father, a better husband.

Madeline Anderson [00:14:06]:
It all starts with not taking away the things that you love. But this book, a lot of my, the, the stories and the themes throughout it talk about not giving those things up, but then in finding ways to include your daughter in them. And I think, you know, when you include her in your world, she will let you into hers. It might happen over time, especially as she gets older, but it pays dividends by making her feel like she's a part of your life and your passions. So I would say that's a that's a big one. Another takeaway would be getting to know your daughter and the importance of that and figuring out how to know your daughter. And there's some great tips in there like plain roses and thorns, which is basically asking her her rose of the day and her thorn of the day. So like a highlight of the day and something that maybe issue wish went differently and how powerful those conversations can be because she might be holding on to something and not going to speak up about it.

Madeline Anderson [00:15:05]:
But if you give her the floor and you say, what was your thorn of the day? Then maybe something will come up. Something's going on at school or she's having an argument with a friend and it's really weighing on her. And she might not say anything. But when you give her the microphone and you show her that you're there to support her, you might learn a lot. And same thing goes with the positive side too. You might learn some of her passions that you didn't recognize. So that's another big one. And then I talk a lot about work and life.

Madeline Anderson [00:15:32]:
And I think that's a big talking point for me, especially with my dad. He did such a good job of including me in his world with work. And so I never felt like my dad was spending too much time on work and not enough time with the family, even though he spends a ton of time on work. But I look at it as, wow. He's so amazing, so inspired by him. I hope to be as hardworking as him, and I don't look at as look at it as, you know, a negative or something that's taken away from me and my time. So I think there's a lot of tips on all three of those. There's plenty of, you know, tips on other things as well, but I would say those are some of the highlights.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:09]:
Now you talked about some of the things that you're planning to do. And as I'm sure going through college, moving into your career, this probably was not on your on your entrepreneurial journey of thinking that this was what you were going to hang your hat on and to put out into the world and to engage fathers in this way. So talk to me about where you are today, where you're going. You talked a little bit about that at the beginning, but let's talk about it again. I'd like to go a little deeper on that and what your hope is for what people are gonna take out of this book and to either take their own relationship to the next level or what that means, but share that with me as well.

Madeline Anderson [00:16:49]:
So got a lot of exciting things in the works. I think my biggest focus right now is Girl Dad Network, building that out. So there's going to be some programs which are like courses depending on age level of the daughters. There's going to be monthly calls with me where it'll be a live call with me and like anyone in the community who wants to join. And I think that will be a really powerful piece because we'll be able to dive into things that are going on in in the relationship and how to amend things or how to prepare for, you know, certain stages of life. And I'll go over different topics as well and really excited for that piece. And then you've got the community side, being able to communicate with other fathers who are in similar situations or have daughters of the same age. There'll be events live and virtual.

Madeline Anderson [00:17:35]:
Let's see. There's resources for the dads. I'm really excited about the gift guide actually because I'm building that with other daughters. So they can just go on there, add to cart, make it super easy for them. And it's all from the daughter's perspective once again. So they know, okay, if this is something that the daughters would want, then it's probably, very relevant. And then there's also resources for the daughter. So I'm building out, like, a mentorship program for the daughter, job board, and a college prep program as well.

Madeline Anderson [00:18:03]:
So just wanted to be a one stop shop for the dads, everything girl dad related. How can they have a great relationship with their daughter? How can they set their daughter up for success? It's an online community. So it's, yeah, that's my main focus right now. Super excited about that. And then I would say the second part of it is speaking. I'm doing a lot more speaking events and been really, really loving that. I think my main focus is just getting out in front of as many dads as possible, whether that be through the book, through the speaking, through the community, and just being able to make an impact on fathers and daughters and future generations. So that's my passion.

Madeline Anderson [00:18:39]:
And, yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing where it takes me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:41]:
So if people are interested in finding out more about the network, about the book, where should they go?

Madeline Anderson [00:18:47]:
Yeah. So for the network, girldadnetwork.com. And for the book, girl dad the book dot com. It's also on Amazon, but there's a link through the website as well if that's easier.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:57]:
And we'll put links in the notes today for all of you to be able to find this, to be able to go out, grab the book, and be able to learn from the book, from the father and daughter relationships that are in the book. You're definitely not going to wanna miss this, and you're going to want to learn from this journey that not only that Madeleine has been on with her own dad, but also the journeys of all these fathers and daughters because it's really important to be able to take in all of this, like we talk about every week on the show, and be able to be open to learning, to be open to the journey, and know that you don't have to be a perfect dad. But there are things that you can do to be able to set up some building blocks that will help you to be the dad that you want to be. So I just want to say thank you, Madeleine, for making this a passion area for yourself, for working with fathers in so many different ways, for putting this out into the world. And I wish you all the best.

Madeline Anderson [00:19:48]:
Thank you, Christopher. It's an honor to be here, and I appreciate everything that you're doing for all the dads out there as well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:54]:
If you've enjoyed today's episode of the dads with daughters podcast, we invite you to check out the fatherhood insider. The fatherhood insider is the resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most dads are figuring it out as they go along, and the fatherhood insider is full of resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step by step roadmaps and more, you will engage and learn with experts, but more importantly dads like you. So check it out atfatheringtogether.org. If you are a father of a daughter and have not yet joined the dads with daughters Facebook community, there's a link in the notes today. Dads with daughters is a program of fathering together. We look forward to having you back for another great guest next week, all geared to helping you raise strong empowered daughters and be the best dad that you can be.

We're all in the same boat, And it's full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time. We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your a game. Because those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters, and musclemen.

Get out and be the world to them. Be the best that you can be.

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast we bring you Jaime Hansen, founder of alley-oop, a brand new company working to leverage the unique connection between dads and daughters to help fuel girls' power and influence. I talk to Jamie Hansen about the vision for alley-oop and some of the unique things that dads can do to be able to create these strong bonds with their daughters.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast we bring back Jim Young to talk about his new book, Expansive Intimacy: How "Tough Guys" Defeat Burnout. In our conversation we talk frankly about burnout and what dads can do to combat this and become stronger in the end.

In Expansive Intimacy: How “Tough Guys” Defeat Burnout, Jim Young explores the rules of masculinity that force men into a false choice: either face shame by embracing their inner desires for meaningful connection, or invite burnout by following the harsh rules that require men to shun emotions and emphasize achievement. With both levity and gravity, Jim walks us through his years-long journey through burnout, along with stories and lessons of how other men have boldly escaped burnout by embracing a new way to be tough—through Expansive Intimacy.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with Reena Friedman Watts and her father Wayne from the Better Call Daddy Podcast. We not only talk about the podcast they are doing together, but also, I talk to Wayne about being a father of two daughters.

Better Call Daddy is for people who love stories. Hosted by the talented Reena Friedman Watts, everyone from influential players to phone sex workers are featured on the show. Nothing is censored here. Each episode, Reena will interview a person of interest, and her father will chime in with his advice afterwards.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast, I talk with Dr. Michael King, author of Dad Spelled Backwards: A Journey Through the Maze of Love, Marriage, and Adoption. Mike had never thought much about getting married and becoming a father, but all that changed when, in his fifties, he met Gabriella, his lovely (and much younger) French wife. Together they decide to try to become parents, and they do all they can to make a baby—to the point where Mike wonders if one can die from too much sex.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with Levar Robinson founder of the nonprofit Fathers on a Mission (F.O.A.M), an organization promoting responsible committed fatherhood through education, strong relationships, holistic health, and socioeconomic improvement opportunities. We talk about Fathers on a Mission and about being a dad of daughters.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with Gary Freeman, founder of Major League Dad, an organization that is promoting holistic fatherhood and creating a society where men are equipped with the needed tools to own their self-worth, be intentional and available for their families, and be phenomenal Fathers. We take time to talk about his own experience of being a father of two daughters, but also take time to talk about the nonprofit that he started called Major League Dad.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with Christopher Brown, President at National Fatherhood Initiative® where the organization is equipping communities and human service organizations with the father-engagement training, programs, and resources to be father-inclusive. We talk about his own experience as a father of two daughters as well as the great work that the National Fatherhood Initiative®has been doing for many years!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with Narcippa Teague about being a father to three girls but also about his new book, Daddy I'm Scared. This is a book he told his daughters when they were young and then decided to write this book down to help other parents too.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with a father and a daughter, Derek and Hannah Malerman. Derek and Hannah talk not only about their own journey together as a father and a daughter but also they explore the health journey that Hannah is on and the impact on their relationship. This is a powerful episode that reinforces the power of being an advocate and support for your daughter no matter what!  

Hannah suffers from IBD with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and is working with ImproveCareNow to be an advocate for other kids and helping kids and parents better understand the disease and push for transparency and wellness for all kids with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I bring you former NFL quarterback, Jeff Kemp. Jeff Kemp has teamed up with Fatherhood CoMission as an ambassador to help inspire leaders and influencers to champion Fatherhood and to help dads be difference makers in their families and the world. Jeff talks about his own journey as a dad of sons but also as a grandad of daughters. He also talks about the importance of community and creating a "huddle" of trusted friends. He has even created a Men Huddle Quickstart Playbook to do just that!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Fatherhood is a multifaceted journey laden with challenges, joys, fears, and triumphs. On the latest episode of the Dads with Daughters podcast, we welcome a special duo—Kekoa Anderson and his daughter, Madeline Anderson author of Girl Dad: Stories, Lessons, and Advice from Girl Dads & Their Daughters. Their insightful conversation unveils the essence of father-daughter relationships, the intricacies of raising daughters, and the profound impact of intentional parenting.

The Initial Excitement and Overwhelming Responsibility

When asked about the first moment he realized he was going to be a father to a daughter, Kekoa Anderson recalled it as an overwhelmingly positive time. He highlighted the sudden surge of responsibility that came with the birth of his daughter. This initial moment of excitement quickly paved the way for a lifelong journey of learning and adaptation.

Kekoa described fatherhood as a process of evolving fears and challenges. From protecting an innocent little girl to dealing with the complexities of adolescence, each stage brought new hurdles. However, the underlying theme remained the same: the importance of being present and proactive in his daughters' lives.

Developing Unique Relationships

One of the key points discussed in the podcast was the necessity of building unique relationships with each child. Kekoa emphasized the importance of recognizing each daughter’s individuality. He talked about creating bonds through shared interests like work and golf, which allowed him to engage with each daughter uniquely. Madeline fondly recounted her memories of being included in her father's work and the significant role golf played in their relationship.

Guiding Through Challenges and Building Confidence

Madeline also shared an insightful story that illustrated how her father's confidence in her abilities played a crucial role in shaping her self-esteem. At just 16, Kekoa entrusted her with attending a pre-proposal meeting, a task that seemed daunting at first but ultimately empowering. This experience, among many others, instilled in Madeline a sense of confidence and independence that she carries with her into adulthood.

Kekoa explained his approach to parenting as one that focuses on guiding his daughters to the answers rather than giving them directly. This method built their confidence and equipped them with problem-solving skills essential for their future endeavors.

Cherishing the Journey

One of the most compelling parts of the conversation was the mutual respect and admiration between Kekoa and Madeline. Madeline expressed her awe at her father's thoughtful and supportive nature. She highlighted how the realization of her unique father-daughter relationship dawned on her during college when she noticed the absence of such bonds in her peers' lives.

Kekoa, in turn, shared how reading Madeline's book “Girl Dad: Stories, Lessons, and Advice from Girl Dads and Their Daughters” was a reflective experience for him, reminding him of the many special moments they shared and the lessons they both learned.

Advice for Fathers

The episode concluded with the "Fatherhood 5," where both guests shared their insights and advice. Madeline stressed the importance of showing up and understanding your daughter. Knowing her passions, love language, and personality can significantly enhance the father-daughter relationship. Kekoa added the wisdom of enjoying the journey and not rushing through the moments. He likened it to the gentle pace necessary in a game of golf, emphasizing the importance of taking your time and appreciating each step of the way.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome to dads with daughters. In this show, we spotlight dads, resources, and more to help you be the best dad you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:16]:
Welcome back to the Dads with Daughters podcast where we bring you guests to be active participants in your daughters' lives, raising them to be strong independent women. Really excited to have you back again this week. As always, I love being on this journey with you. We have an opportunity every week to be able to to to work through this journey that you're on with your daughter. And every week, I love being able to be on this journey. You know, I've got 2 daughters myself. I have the opportunity to be able to learn and grow just like you are from the guests that we have on the show because it is a constant journey that we are all on. No matter if you have infants or if you have college age or if you have kids that are grown and flown out of the house and living their own life.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:54]:
No matter what it is, you're still gonna be growing as a father, And your relationship with your daughters are going to change over that time. So it's important. It's important to keep learning, important to stay open to learning. And that's why every week I bring you different guests, different people that have gone through this journey in different ways. We have dads, we have daughters, we have lots of people with lots of different resources. And this week we got 2 great guests with us. I am always excited when I get to have a father and a daughter on. And this week, we do have that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:23]:
We have father Kekoa Anderson, and daughter, Madeline Anderson, with us today. And Madeline and I got introduced because Madeline recently wrote a book called Girl Dad, Stories, Lessons, and Advice from Girl Dads and Their Daughters. And we'll talk a little bit about that and this. And I think we may even have this into a 2 parter. So we'll talk more in-depth about the book as well as what she learned. But today, we're gonna be talking a lot about their relationship and what led Madeleine to writing this book as well. So I'm really excited to have them on. Kikoa, Madeleine, thanks so much for being here today.

Kekoa Anderson [00:01:56]:
Thank you very much.

Madeline Anderson [00:01:57]:
Thank you for having us.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:58]:
It is my pleasure having you here today. And first and foremost, I wanna turn the clock back in time, Kikoa, and I'm gonna have you start here today. So I wanna go back to that first moment, that first moment that you found out that you were going to be a father to a daughter, what was going through your head?

Kekoa Anderson [00:02:11]:
Exciting times years ago. So, you know, going back to the time in my life, it was a great time in life. Just having been married for a number of years and dating my wife for some time. You know, that was the height of everything where life was all in front of me. So when that came, that was just kind of the first step of having a child. And my wife and I both wanted to be surprised, so we didn't know the sex of Madeleine at the time. So it was, you know, one of those things. And that day was just kind of life changing when all of a sudden this responsibility little package popped out and it was like really overwhelming, extremely positive way.

Kekoa Anderson [00:02:47]:
Reflecting back on that time was interest growing up and being a civil engineer and structural engineer and all the mechanics that are associated with that and testing everything, this was something where you could have a baby and walk out of the hospital and they just basically say, like, good luck. And there's no test, there's no form. It was an interesting time at that birth. So being ready for it, it's like, no, I was not ready for it. Nobody is. You just hear the stories from everybody. And so leaving that out, that was certainly a very exciting time. And then all of a sudden you realize, oh, I got a lot of work to do.

Kekoa Anderson [00:03:20]:
What's my plan and what's my path forward?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:22]:
You know, I talk to a lot of dads that talk about that moment when you're walking out of the hospital and they're they're especially if it's a first child, but also a your first daughter of this sense of heaviness that sets on you and the weight of being a father, but also of being a father to a daughter. And that there's some fear that goes along with that too. What would you say is was your biggest fear in raising a daughter?

Kekoa Anderson [00:03:45]:
It's almost like the from the little age, the fragileness and safety issue and kind of being there for him and, and the responsibility of like, of taking care of that life at that little time. It was, you know, that was the frightening part where, you know, it wasn't necessarily frightening, but it was just something that kind of came up on top. And then as you go through that, then those things change from protecting a helpless innocent little girl to then seeing her interact with certain situations, everything from preschool to kindergarten, where they had little discuss and there's little issues, which are easy solves at that time to when, you know, you move up into the junior high, high school range, and, you know, they start dating different guys, you know, then it becomes there's another kind of sense of where's the manual for this? And how do I interact with them and protect them guide them at the same time, give them the freedom to learn and choose and not be overwhelming. So you know, that very dynamic and changing all the way through it. So So now that you're interviewing me with an older daughter having gone through that, maybe I didn't answer the specific area. But, you know, that's kind of the from the start to where we were today, maybe in the summary.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:50]:
And, Madeline, when you hear that, what goes through

Madeline Anderson [00:04:52]:
your head? I'm just sitting here in awe. I mean, I know we've talked so much about our relationship and I interviewed him throughout the whole girl dad process, but I feel like every time I hear how he thinks and what's going through his head, it just reminds me of how many thoughts there are, how thoughtful he is, and just how incredible of a dad he is. But I think, yeah, as far as the fears and everything, I'm sitting here kind of imagining myself going through that with my own kids one day as well. And recognizing that, yeah, there's not just one big fear. I think you answered that really well, dad. It's it really evolves throughout time and changes depending on the age and the time of life and what's kinda going around them at the time. So I'm sure a lot of dads out there can relate to that as well.

Kekoa Anderson [00:05:37]:
Yeah. And it's it wasn't really so much fear. It was probably kind of the wrong word. It was just kind of a when I reflect back on it, it wasn't the number of fearful steps. It was just the situations came up. You weren't in fear waiting for it to happen. It just happened and you had to react. So it's like, how do you react when reactions are necessary?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:55]:
And I'll say it. I mean, and fear doesn't end. There are going to be things in life even when your child is out of the house and they are living their own life, that you can still be fearful or you can still have concerns. And but you have to temper those concerns and understand that your child is an adult. And how do you deal with that now, Kikoa, as you see Certainly

Kekoa Anderson [00:06:17]:
Certainly no fear of that, but there's, like, the worries and stuff. As I know, I feel very confident in her abilities to manage and take care of herself even from the safety issues to the work related elements to the financial side. Those, you know, at this level, it's nice. It's that's certainly a comfortable area where you can kinda boost control with that element instead of have to worry about it. But when challenges come up, certainly, you're there to go through those fears collectively and communicate them throughout. I still, as she's taken a trip to some area, I'm giving her extra fatherly advice on don't go to these parts and stay away from this or avoid that. And she probably doesn't wanna hear that. And she already knows anyway.

Kekoa Anderson [00:07:01]:
But it's also it's good just to throw those things out there. So those little bullet points are in her head. Head. I always do that, maybe overdo that too, which maybe is a negative, but, you know, it's my role. I have to do it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:12]:
You're always gonna be a dad. That does not stop. No matter what and how old your child is, you'll still be a father and you're still gonna be engaged in many different ways. Now, every parent and then child are able to develop unique relationships, and there's things that really define that for themselves. Especially if you have multiple kids, you have to have those unique relationships with multiple kids. But when you have that relationship with your daughter, you're going to be developing it in your own way. Madeleine, for you, as you think about the relationship that you have with your dad and how that's evolved over the years, what's been some of the favorite things that you and your dad share together that you've appreciated most as you have gone through this relationship?

Madeline Anderson [00:07:51]:
Yeah. I would say to come to mind first. There's plenty of similarities and things that we bond over, but I would say the first one would be work. I was brought to my dad's work on the weekends when I was a kid, really enjoyed those moments. And he's always made me feel really included in his role and his job. And so I always understood when he was working, what he was doing, and it never felt like he was taking time away from me and my sisters. It felt like, oh, he's working. He's motivated.

Madeline Anderson [00:08:21]:
He's someone who we should be inspired by. So I always looked up to him in that sense. And then as I grew, I would always call him for work advice or business advice and we love bouncing ideas off one another or brainstorming things for work. So it's something that could be dry, but it's actually really fun for both of us, I think. And we have really great conversations around work and drive and what's next and game planning and goal setting and all of those kinds of things. And then number 2 would be golf. And that was something that my dad introduced to me as a young girl by just taking me to the course with him when he played with his friends. And at the time I didn't play, I just would sit there and count the bunnies and watch the wildlife and just enjoy myself in the cart.

Madeline Anderson [00:09:06]:
And finally, when I was old enough to maybe swing a club, I got a little snoopy set. It was a driver and a putter and one iron. And that was really fun for me because I felt included in the sport. And now, you know, he could take me with his friends and I could hit every now and then, and it made me feel like I was a part of the team. And then fast forward to high school, I tried out for the high school team and made that. And so I played throughout high school and he was always there guiding me. He would show up to my matches and had some fun little like one liners like roll it and hold it. And I'm forgetting some of the others, but there was some good life lessons.

Kekoa Anderson [00:09:39]:
From another.

Madeline Anderson [00:09:40]:
Yeah. Well, there's just some good life lessons in golf because it takes a lot of patience and we have to think about every stroke matters. Drive for show, putt for dough. That was another one you said. And it's just every stroke matters. You can't take what just happened in the past and apply it to the future. You have to take every single hit individually. And so having him there throughout that chapter was amazing.

Madeline Anderson [00:10:03]:
And now as an adult, I love going home and playing golf with my dad or trying to find a new course to play out with him. So that's been a really fun bonding experience that we still get to enjoy as adults and both work and golf, I suppose, that started when I was a young girl.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:20]:
And what about you, Kikoa? What were some of the things that you appreciated most in that building of the relationship and the things that you shared together?

Kekoa Anderson [00:10:27]:
That really makes my life takes me to that extra level. Like, if I didn't have a daughter or didn't have that area, like, how my life would be different. And definitely with 3 daughters, there was a lot of different uniqueness with each one and what we did. But specifically, I think some of the successes that really made my life more expanding was to include her in those things. With the work like one she talked about, you know, we've done a lot of different projects together. We kind of create the projects to work together on. And, you know, at a little age for her visiting the office and coming in and coloring and drawing on plan sets, you know, as an engineer and like developing bridges, we had all kinds of big sheets of paper. So that was a canvas to colour on, which was fun.

Kekoa Anderson [00:11:10]:
But at the same time, she got to kind of see, you know, what was all engaged. And there was a lot of neat things from the computers to the printers to even the old drafting elements that was kind of unique, you know, from the work and I think that helped guide her in some of the areas that she liked. But, you know, golf outside activity is an excellent sport to play with all 3 of my daughters and even my wife. It's just being out in nature and walking. Like I said, in the early age, it wasn't about her trying to outdrive her sister, that type of thing. It was like riding in the cart. You know, they wanted to drive the car, play with the bunnies, go to the lake and fish out golf balls or things more so. But then over time, it kind of grew.

Kekoa Anderson [00:11:49]:
So that walk together was really, you have time for conversation, Your daughter actually beats you on poles. So then you have the competition that's, I might drive longer, but she can putt better. So all of a sudden there's these equalizers that so having the competition and you're both trying your hardest is unique, you know, compared to some other sports. So, you know, I think we all enjoyed that time together. But even just the trips and things that we took and having the conversations is really what to understand who everybody is and how they're different and being able to engage in that. You just gotta make time to do that. So the more we did it, the better. And when there's times when we got caught up with other things, it's kind of rebalancing yourself so that you have time for those activities.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:32]:
You know, one of the questions that I guess that I would ask as a father of multiple daughters, as I said, you have to build those unique relationships. How did you find yourself parenting, fathering each of your daughters in unique ways to be able to build those unique relationships with each of them, as they were all growing?

Kekoa Anderson [00:12:49]:
Yeah. That's a tough one. I mean, that kind of first had a lot of activity. So it was like, here's kind of the spread. So as an engineer, I'm looking at economy of scale. So I want the golf clubs to pass down. So either one's gonna play golf. You know, the ski boots, it's like, hey, Malins went to Meredith, Meredith went to Ella.

Kekoa Anderson [00:13:04]:
And they I kept having 3 girls was awesome from a standpoint of once you kind of have all those upfront costs on the first, you can spread it down. But I think what we did was we were kind of well rounded and did a lot of different activities. So whether it was surfing, skiing, golfing, tennis, soccer, softball, pickleball, there was enough where we did a lot of sports, weren't necessarily experts in 1, but enjoyed the time together. So everybody kind of fell into their place and got to be themselves, you know, through that portfolio of a lot of different activities. Instead, you know, some fathers, maybe it's all soft ball and they only do softball and others might just be soccer and there's club and hockey now. And, you know, so everything's so focused and those coaches want you just to be like all this one sport. And they're always pushing for that for their team and their success. But again, watching the 3, maybe we wanted to make sure that they could go on the ski trip together.

Kekoa Anderson [00:13:58]:
And just because there was, you know, some club soccer team event that they would get in trouble for missing, it was kinda like we had to take that sacrifice so that our family could be together. So we didn't let, you know, one thing dominate, and we kept the portfolio open for the 3 to kinda fall into what worked

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:16]:
best for them. Now, Madeleine, people can easily hear from you that you have been able you've been bothered in a good way in in regards to helping you to become a independent individual person that is out there living your life, doing good things, and really making a life for yourself ahead of you. And I'll say your parents had a say in that. They helped you in that journey, and you helped yourself in somewhat in that journey too. But I guess as you think back to the things that your father did, the things that he did to be able to help you to become the person that you are today, what were some of the things that really stand out to you that he did for you that really allowed for you to become the woman that you are today?

Madeline Anderson [00:14:58]:
The influence is certainly there. I think there's a couple of stories that come to mind, but I really liked what he said about the multiple sports. And I think that kind of mentality of, like, you can do whatever, find your passions, you know, it wasn't forced upon us, but we ended up like, I really enjoyed soccer and golf and my little sister, the littlest one, she found her passion in art. And I think throughout all of us kind of finding our own lane, obviously both my parents, my dad specifically has been so supportive and once once we kind of define what that lane is, he's really good about offering support and advice and kind of guiding us through that journey. But I think another thing is just that belief in me and my sisters and our capabilities. And one story that comes to mind is when I was 16, I just got my driver's license and my dad woke me up and he was like, Madeline, I'm double booked for a meeting. I'm I'm gonna need you to fill in for me. I was like, What do you mean? And he said, it's a pre proposal meeting. It's no big deal. You're gonna go there. You've got this. You just need to meet with everyone, give them your business cards, But first you need to understand if they're a landscape architect or an engineer. If they're an engineer politely, and the conversation move on, go to the next person, hopefully they're a landscape architect, then you give them your business card. And so I went to this pre proposal meeting. I was the youngest person by probably 30 years and one of the only women.

Madeline Anderson [00:16:20]:
And I had enough call, like probably too much confidence. And I just walked around and I was like, hi, would chat with somebody, found out they're a landscape architect, and then I would give them my business card. And then afterwards when I came home, even I was like, great job. Okay. Now follow-up with them. And I was like, what? So he taught me, he guided me through that whole process, but in doing so he gave me so much confidence in my abilities and put me in an uncomfortable situation, but told me that I was going to be great and could do it. And I think throughout that process, I learned how to be confident in my work and I'm sure that's just one example, but there's been so many throughout, especially high school and college where he's really just been there for me and, has guided me to feel confident about what I'm doing. So I I think that that's really translated into my adulthood and kind of how I do what I do.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:09]:
Thank you, Coop. Were there any other things that you intentionally tried to do with your daughters to be able to instill that in them, whether they accepted it or not?

Kekoa Anderson [00:17:19]:
Well, definitely, yeah. I mean, the whole point of challenging them to build their confidence is not giving them the answer to the question, but a number of questions to get to the answer. And through that path of finding those was part of that success of building the confidence. I think that was one area. You know, always look at a way to bait them into thinking through the process. And for example, if you go into that pre proposal meeting, I'm an engineer. We do the bridges. So we were looking we didn't need to meet them.

Kekoa Anderson [00:17:47]:
They're our competitors. We wanted to look at the ones that we could partner with. So her, you know, and it was low hanging fruit. If she messed up, it wasn't gonna change our outcome, but it was just a benefit. There wasn't the pressure of her having her having to fail. It was just giving her a chance to succeed. I mean, that step of kind of seeing if she could figure out a way to figure out who's the engineer, who's a landscape architect, because we wanted those landscape architects on our team. And if she messed up and actually got an engineer, we could've worked through that issue.

Kekoa Anderson [00:18:14]:
So, again, it was setting them up with a challenge and let them get their hands dirty and figure it out.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:19]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our fatherhood 5, where we ask you 5 more questions to delve deeper into typically, it's the dad, but today, we're gonna be doing both of you. And so first and foremost, Madeline, in one word, what is fatherhood?

Madeline Anderson [00:18:34]:
I wanna say either guidance or support.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:36]:
Kekoa.?

Kekoa Anderson [00:18:37]:
Yeah. One word. That's a tough one. It's just kinda like it's life for me. It's like, hey. That's I'm a father. So that's a tough one. But it's definitely that walk.

Kekoa Anderson [00:18:45]:
It makes everything fatherhood is who I am. It's awesome. Love it. I can't imagine not being it and not having that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:51]:
Now, Madeleine, when was the time that you felt that your dad finally succeeded at being a father to a daughter?

Madeline Anderson [00:18:57]:
I feel like the the finally is throwing me off because I think I grew up just with the understanding that he's a great dad to daughters. I don't know that there was ever a moment that it hit me. Oh, well, you know what? Actually, I will say when I went to college, that's when I really realized how amazing my dad is because I realized how rare that relationship is. And I might've taken it for granted, to be honest. And when I realized that a lot of the women around me did not have great relationships with their dads and they couldn't believe how close me and my dad are, that really shook me. And so, yeah, that would be probably the moment that I realized he has always been a great dad.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:34]:
and Kekoa?

Kekoa Anderson [00:19:35]:
Yeah. I mean, I think the success of being a father is is it's never over. It's, like, endless. So it's you're only as good as your last success. But some of the things where you know, I saw, you know, pivotal points and like, certainly like graduation and leaving the house. And interesting enough, like Malin writing this book, it was like because a lot of people don't get to talk about it. So then when I first was reading the drafts of that, it was like, you know, goodness, obviously, the things that I had forgotten about a number of things that we had done when she was young and those type of things and really getting her perspective. So if, I mean, if daughters made a list of things that they really appreciated and the dads got to see that, that's awesome.

Kekoa Anderson [00:20:14]:
And, you know, so that was kind of, you know, success by her writing that and me getting to reflect on it. You know, that was, you know, great job, Mandy.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:23]:
Thank you. And, Kikoa, as you think about fatherhood, who inspires you to be a better dad?

Kekoa Anderson [00:20:27]:
Yeah. I mean, that's a tough one too. I I think that my style is I watch and listen a number of people, and whenever I see a good idea or lesson learned, I I take that for myself. So, you know, certainly my father and my wife's father, they were great examples and a lot of family friends. So I kinda used that whole portfolio and sold all the great ideas for myself and step myself up based on what I saw and learned from them. So, but definitely, you know, my own father and my father-in-law were a big inspiration throughout the whole time as they were active with Madeline and the other daughters as well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:03]:
Now, both of you have given a number of pieces of advice today, things that any dad could think about. As we finish up today, Madeline, what's one piece of advice you'd wanna give to every dad?

Madeline Anderson [00:21:15]:
I would say show up for her. And I think the best way to do that is by knowing who she is. So take the time to really understand your daughter, her passions, the way that she thinks, maybe her love language, and then use that information to show up for her the way that she needs because that's gonna look different for every daughter.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:33]:
Thank you, Koa.

Kekoa Anderson [00:21:34]:
Yeah. I think make the most of it and kind of, you get to reap all the benefits of it. I think that using golf is kind of one of the discussion items. There was a gentleman told me once, he said, you know, swing slow and accept the extra distance, which I always love that one, but that that's the same type of thing here with the advice for the dad. It's like there's a whole bunch of different moments and don't race to get to one end. Just enjoy the different parts of it and and kinda use that and take that time to engage.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:02]:
Well, I truly appreciate both of you sharing this today. And and I know, Madeleine, we're gonna have you on another episode to talk more about the book. We didn't go go really into the book today. We're gonna tease that out for the next episode that we're going to have with you to be able to delve even deeper into this learning of talking to all of these different fathers and not only kind of taking the the experience that you had with your own dad, but but going even deeper than that and talking to many other fathers about their own experiences. So I really appreciate you both sharing your journey and for sharing that with other dads, and I wish you both the best.

Kekoa Anderson [00:22:40]:
Thank you very much.

Madeline Anderson [00:22:41]:
Thank you, Christopher. Really appreciate you having us on today.

Kekoa Anderson [00:22:44]:
Indeed. Thank you so much.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:46]:
If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads with Daughters podcast, we invite you to check out the fatherhood insider. The fatherhood insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most dads are figuring it out as they go along, and the fatherhood insider is full of resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step by step road maps, and more. You will engage and learn with experts, but more importantly dads like you. So check it out atfatheringtogether.org. If you are a father of a daughter and have not yet joined the dads with daughters Facebook community, there's a link in the notes today. Dads with daughters is a program of fathering together.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:35]:
We look forward to having you back for another great guest next week, all geared to helping you raise strong empowered daughters and be the best dad that you can be.

We're all in the same boat, And it's full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time. We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your a game. Because those kids are growing fast, The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters, and musclemen get out and be the world to them. Be the best dad you can be.

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I bring back the co-founder of Fathering Together, Brian Anderson as he talks about his new book: Fathering Together: Living a Connected Dad Life. We talk about the journey that he has been on over the last 18 months cultivating stories from other dads to help dads live an amazing connected life.  

In Fathering Together: Living a Connected Dad Life, author Brian Anderson captures the stories of dozens of dads who are striving for healthier and stronger relationships. Their stories highlight a new narrative for fatherhood, one based in servant-leadership that goes beyond the stereotypical role of “breadwinner.”

Challenging yourself to step beyond the traditional narratives of fatherhood can be frightening, but there is comfort in knowing there is a large community of dads with the same goals. Read Fathering Together and join the community at www.fatheringtogether.org.

Find Out More About The Book!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with Bruce Hanson to talk about how every child can be successful when it comes to taking standardized tests like the ACT or SAT (among others). As students look at their future, Bruce shares some great advice with all fathers about what they can do to help students to find success.   

Bruce Hanson is a former teacher, UCLA Test Prep Instructor, and Wharton MBA graduate. He created First Choice Admissions to help all students through an innovative, highly affordable approach to online and in-person test prep that helps students unlock the secrets behind the SAT and ACT standardized exams. 

For just $50, Bruce Hanson offers a course that features materials written by Hanson himself and is designed to effectively boost skills, confidence, and scores. 

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with a father-daughter duo! Gene Rice & Courtney Bejgrowicz. They have co-authored a book entitled  “Grad to Grown-up: 68 Tips to Excel in Your Personal and Professional Life." They share more about the book and how each of us can find success in all that we do. The five sections of the book —life, job search, career, personal finance, and health and relationships offer real-world insights that are often overlooked in formal education and their perspectives are from two dramatically different generations!  

More about the authors 

Gene is a leading executive retained recruiter, chairman of Rice Cohen International, and co-founder of the Plant a Seed Inspire a Dream Foundation, which helps children pursue their passions. His strategies helped Courtney have the courage to follow her dream and become a High-School Teacher!

Courtney takes her personal struggles and uses them to mentor others. Her openness makes her approachable, understanding, and incredibly motivating to others who find themselves unhappy in life and work. Her focus is on helping others find work/life balance.

Find Out More About The Book!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with Jon Finkel. Jon Finkel is the award-winning author of Hoops Heist, The Life of Dad, Jocks In Chief, The Athlete, Heart Over Height, “Mean” Joe Greene and more. Jon talked to us not only about fatherhood but also about fitness and things that you can do to take steps to incorporate fitness into your life.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast I talk with Nellie Harden about the things that we can do as dads to help build up our daughters' self esteem throughout their lives. This is an important episode that all dads need to hear! 

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast we bring back Amy Lang of Birds & Bees & Kids for her second visit to the show. In her first visit we talked about the Birds and the Bees and how to talk to your daughters about it. This week we talk to her about connecting with your daughter throughout puberty and truly being there and engaged throughout the process.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters Podcast we bring back Kimberly Wolf for her second visit to the show. In her first visit we talked about  Girlmentum but she also mentioned that she had a new book coming out. In this episode we explore her new book: A Dad's Essential Guide to Raising Healthy, Confident, and Capable Daughters. We explore her research and her experiences with her own father which has led her her to creating an amazing resource to help all dads!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast we talk with Keegan Albaugh, father of two and founder of Dad Guild, a fatherhood support network in the Burlington, Vermont area that ​supports and empowers fathers by offering opportunities for connection, education, and community engagement. 

If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast we talk with Jill Petersen, co-founder of Girls Mentorship, an organization that has created workshops and coaching services to create a space where your daughter will be able to:​

• develop strategies for becoming a strong communicator and a leader by understanding her emotions and actions.​

• recognize "people pleasing" tendencies and develop long-term and short-term methods for taking care of her mental health.

• avoid spending thousands of dollars in the future by letting her learn the necessary skills now so that she will be ready for the "real world" later.

• think BIG and imagine the possibilities that are available for her - ready to take risks and face challenges.​​

• understand the limiting beliefs that keep her back and implement solutions that propel her forward.

We talk about Girls Mentorship and things that all dads can do to best support their own daughters as they get older.

If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast we talk with Jake Edling, father of seven and author of “The New Daddy Experience” We talk about his own experiences in fatherhood but also how is is helping expecting dads to become exceptional new dads for their newborn. 

If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Exploring Values-Driven Fatherhood

In a recent episode of the Dads with Daughters podcast we sat down with Dr. Jason Frishman of JourneyMen to delve into vital conversations surrounding fatherhood, societal equity, and the evolving role of dads in modern families. From building equitable homes to redefining traditional masculinity, this episode offered profound insights and practical advice for every father aiming to be more present and effective in their children's lives. Below, we unpack the most compelling segments from their conversation.

The Roots of Social Justice in Family Life

Dr. Jason Frishman shared how his upbringing, influenced by deeply rooted values of equality and social justice, shaped his perspectives on parenting. The lessons he learned from his grandparents and parents about fairness and understanding have become the foundation of how he raises his own children. Jason emphasized that fostering an equitable home environment isn't only a moral obligation; it's essential for nurturing well-rounded, empathetic individuals.

Concerns Over Societal Pressures

One of Jason’s primary concerns lies in the societal pressures that could impact his children's values and character as they grow. He pointed out that while more men are spending time at home, the growth in fatherhood roles hasn't kept pace with these changes. This lag can lead to challenges as men navigate roles they may not be fully prepared for, often under the weight of traditional societal expectations.

Transitioning from Children to Fathers: A Professional and Personal Journey

Jason's professional journey has taken him from working with children to specializing in counseling men and fathers. This shift was driven by his passion for creating positive societal change and challenging the traditional narratives of masculinity. He introduced the concept of "foundational adventures," a counternarrative designed to redefine what it means to be a man and a father in today’s world.

Embracing New Masculinity Narratives

Journeymen, the organization Jason is involved with, seeks to redefine masculinity and fatherhood. By promoting more inclusive partnerships at home, Journeymen encourages fathers to be active, engaged, and supportive partners, paving the way for healthier family dynamics. Jason's personal realization of embedded patriarchal thoughts highlighted the need for continuous growth and change, both individually and collectively.

Values Work as a Beacon for Personal Growth

A crucial part of Jason's message is the role of values in guiding personal growth. He stressed that challenges and conflicts shouldn't be seen as roadblocks but as opportunities for learning and development. For fathers seeking to make meaningful changes, Jason advises starting with a clear vision of what they want their household and relationships to look like, then identifying and overcoming the barriers that stand in their way.

The Universal Chaos of Parenting

Dr. Christopher Lewis underscored that parenting is a shared experience, often chaotic and busy but profoundly rewarding. Likening it to managing a boat full of "tiny screaming passengers," Dr. Lewis emphasized the importance of being actively involved in all aspects of children's lives—from spending quality time, imparting lessons, and preparing meals, to celebrating special moments. This hands-on approach is essential for building strong father-daughter relationships.

A Call to Action for Fathers

Both Dr. Lewis and Dr. Jason Frishman called on fathers to be intentional and present in their children's lives. Jason suggested that being a better father and partner involves becoming a stronger, more grounded individual. Overcoming obstacles requires a clear understanding of one's values and the dedication to addressing what hinders their achievement.

Intentional Parenting: Building Connections and Having Fun

Jason also highlighted the significance of intentionality in parenting. This involves using language consciously, allowing children to have a voice in their upbringing, and ensuring that parenting decisions align with core values. Moreover, he stressed the importance of having fun and enjoying time with family, as these moments create lasting bonds and cherished memories.

The Fatherhood Five: Embracing Connections and Small Gestures

In the 'Fatherhood Five' segment, Jason shared his personal reflections on fatherhood, describing it as fundamentally about connections. He prides himself on the close relationship his sons share and hopes they would describe him as silly, optimistic, and caring. Jason finds inspiration from his sons, wife, parents, and a close group of male friends, and he holds steadfast to the advice of consistently showing love through small, intentional actions.

Dr. Jason Frishman was a part of Sarah Maconachie's book of stories about fathers called Working Dads and Balancing Acts. 

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome to dads with daughters. In this show, we spotlight dads, resources, and more to help you be the best dad you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:16]:
Welcome back to the Dads with Daughters podcast where we bring you guests to be active participants in your daughters' lives, raising them to be strong, independent women. Really excited to have you back again this week. Love being able to be on this journey with you, knowing that you know that I've got 2 daughters. I know that you have daughters. And it is a great opportunity for us to walk on this path together because the journey that I am on is not going to be the same journey that you're on, but we have similarities. There are things that we go through that are similar, and we can learn and grow from each other, and we can learn and grow from other fathers that are doing fatherhood in a little bit different way. We can push ourselves to be able to get out of our comfort zone. We can push ourselves to do something different, to be that engaged father, that more present father that we want to be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:10]:
And that's why the show exists. The show exists so that every week, you have an opportunity to take what you're learning and put it into action, to be able to hear from others that have gone before you that are doing fatherhood in a little bit different way, that have different resources that are available to you and can help you in that journey that you're on. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being back every week. And I love being able to bring you different guests that are going to be able to help you in different ways. And this week, we got another great guest with us. Doctor.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:42]:
Jason Frischman is with us today. And Doctor. Frischman is a father of 2 sons, but he also works with men that are struggling to balance work and family and that are working to become more confident, connected, and fully alive. And we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about the journey that he's been on as a father, and I'm really looking forward to talking to him today. Jason, thanks so much for being here today.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:02:06]:
Excellent. Thank you so much. I'm really glad and looking forward to our conversation.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:10]:
Well, I'm excited to have you here today as well. And first and foremost, I wanna turn the clock back. I know you've got some teenagers in the house right now, and I would love to turn the clock back. I said I did say you had sons. So I wanna go back to that first moment that you found out that you were gonna be a father to a son. What was going through your head?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:02:29]:
It's a powerful and important question. We didn't find out that the baby was gonna be a son until he was born. And actually his birth story was a really hard one. And so because of everything that was going on, we were planning a home birth and it was all picture perfect and beautiful until it wasn't. And then we wound up in the emergency room at the hospital. And frankly, when I found out he was a boy, that I was having a son, it was the least of my concerns. And we were just so very happy that he was healthy, that my wife was healthy. He fortunately didn't need to spend time in the NICU.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:03:03]:
And so the first and foremost was we have a healthy baby. And the next piece was once it hit that we you know, I had a son. And at that time in my life, working as a psychologist, I worked even then primarily with males, male identifying clients. And so I think when Micah was born, I think I was nonplussed in terms of gender, but I also was like, well, I'm kind of an expert in that, so maybe it'll be easier. Flash forward, it it hasn't been, but that's besides the plight. But the other piece is and this happened more when we had our second son because I think we knew we were only gonna have 2, but having 2 sons, we knew that we have a big responsibility in terms of raising good boys. That is something that I've spent my entire career helping others to do, and it sort of became our turn. And so I think both my wife and I have felt like we were meant to raise good men, and that's why we have 2 sons.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:03:57]:
But we also feel in our risk this responsibility that boys and young men in this culture, they have a lot of work to do. And so we our values and who we are as both humans and parents and friends and etcetera, we wanted our children to be raised a little bit differently. Part of your introduction about, like, parents who do it a little differently. That was a big part of the intention that we have in every developmental stage of our kids' lives.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:23]:
So talk to me about parenting a little differently. How do you define that, and what have you tried to do in your sons' lives to parent differently and to allow for them that that difference to be in their life in that regard?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:04:36]:
Well, I think the first piece, which sounds very simple and yet has always been very challenging and something that we stay aware of is a lot of what we do, we want to be intentional. Intentionality and transparency are 2 of our common values as parents. And so I'll give a good example. Both my wife and I are trained as narrative therapists. And so in the narrative therapy world, language is very important. We believe that language and stories help derive and and drive reality. Right? And so the language that we use, even when our kids were pre verbal, was very intentional. So for example, at the time, when my first born son was was was born, we made the decision that I would continue working and seeing clients and my wife would stay home.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:05:19]:
Now, on the one hand, that is a very typical traditional gender split, but because we are intentional about it, it changed the way we had to talk about what that was like. And so a great example is even when my son was preverbal as an infant, we never used the language of papa's going to work, and we corrected others when they said that. Right? Papa's going to the office. Right? Because saying that I'm going to work, what does that say about my wife who's staying home? Right? And so we were very intentional about the fact that, you know, she was doing more, you know, work if not, you know, as much if not more work than I am. And so we never wanted that language to to build a, a sort of a schema for for our kids where father goes to work, mama stays home. Right? And so intentionality around the language we use, intentionality around, the the products, the the things that we do with our kids, that was always very important. Another another good example is that, you know, I'm big at both of us are big in the food world. I I've been a cook and a chef and I've taught I've used it.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:06:36]:
We've had small businesses with food and, you know, food values are very important to us. And so my wife who has been a a vegetarian since 14, she said, most vegetarians choose to be vegetarian. We're raised as omnivores or carnivores, and we choose to be vegetarian. We chose to raise our kids as vegetarian. And when they showed that they sort of understood the values and the ideas and the morals that we were sharing, then they could make their own choice. And right now, both of my kids have chosen to eat meat. My wife actually has started eating meat, and yet we're very intentional. Like at this point, we only eat meat if we know the farmer.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:07:16]:
And in Vermont, we can do that. But most of the time when we go out, we said tell we we're vegetarian because we can't do it otherwise. So these are sort of mundane but important examples. But in terms of parenting differently, we're very intentional, transparent. We're aware of our language and the language we use, especially around gender with our kids. And then the other part is we're very, like I said, transparent. So my kids have always had a voice. Not that, you know, we're the adults and we're in charge, but my kids have always had a voice in in kind of what we do, how we do it.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:07:53]:
They are able and and comfortable to give me feedback. I ask for it as the parent, as the father. And so sometimes I don't always like that, but it but but I but I always welcome the fact that they can tell me or share with me what I'm doing, how that makes them feel, and what it makes them think about. And it gives them a voice and agency and empowers them to grow into themselves in the boundaries that we as the parents have set.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:08:22]:
So talk to me about that intention. And not every father, not every man has gotten to that point where they are doing the same thing or that they are trying or working to build a equitable home in regards to what is happening inside their own home. And we definitely don't see the equity being rewarded from a societal end. So personally, and it may go back to how you were raised, what made you personally decide as a man, as a father, as a husband, that that was important to you and that you wanted to instill that in your own children, and you wanted to break the the societal cycle, let's say, that is out there?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:09:10]:
Wow. That one question we could spend, you know, a lot of time on, but two things. You hit the nail on the head in terms of it does start with my own upbringing and childhood. I would start even with my mother's parents, who've sadly recently both passed away. They were partners in the truest sense of the word. Even as a child, I remember that. The 2 of them sat down and did the taxes together. My grandmother, in a time when that didn't really happen, she was as aware of the money and the investments and that, you know, she was as aware of that, if not more than my grandfather.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:09:43]:
And they were real partners. There's a great story is my grandfather drove me to college when I graduated high school. My parents were working. And I recently asked, I said, was grandma there? Did she go too? And my mom was like, of course, they did everything together. They were real partners. So that was the model I got from my grandparents. My parents, very, very similar. At one point, my mom went back to grad school and said, if y'all wanna eat, you better learn how to cook.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:10:07]:
And my father learned how to cook. And so I always witnessed this sort of working towards equality and working towards an awareness of how we are at home and how the society at large is, and just the strength and courage it takes to do things differently. So that has always been a part of the way I look at the world. And then of course, you know, I I grew up trained as a psychologist. I try I got my master's and my doctorate and was always leaning. I used to joke that as a psychologist, I'm sort of a social worker in psychologist clothing. I have always been someone who looks towards social justice and equality and has been impacted by the inequality and the the sort of oppression and challenges that are led. And then, because of my working with boys and men for so many years, I'm a white man in this culture.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:10:56]:
And having the background that I have, that has all become very prominent. And really, I find it to be one of the most vital issues in our culture today is the level that patriarchy has damaged both men, boys, and subsequently, every you know, families. And so it has become a real passion of mine to work for equality and just intentionality in the way that we use language and and work with gender.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:23]:
So as you think about raising your sons, and as you talked about, you're raising your sons in a different way and challenging them and pushing them and encouraging them in different ways in the way that they are being raised. As you look at your biggest fear in raising them today? When I was young, my mom do you remember the 2? Fear in raising them today?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:11:44]:
When I was young, my mom do you remember the TV show Family Ties? Yep. So when I was young and I was a very liberal, even more so than my parents, progressive kind of thinker, all these things, my mom used to tease me that I was gonna get an Alex P. Keaton furissa. And that's not my worry. I don't think that's gonna happen. But I do worry that the strength and presence of my kids is going to be battered at from a larger society. I mean, we have purposefully, like, you know, my kids have been in a bubble. Like we encourage childhood in a very solid way.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:12:18]:
And we live in a rural town in a small state that is very white. And, you know, we've done our best to expose them to the world, and we talk politics. You know, we share things with them. But I guess my my my, one of my big fears or worries is that when they go out into the world, will they have enough of a solid foundation to stand on when they're hit with much of the mainstream ethos and pathos, you know, frankly. How will they hold up? Now, if the way they say it up to me is any indication, I think we'll be fine. But I do worry sometimes that the the sort of mainstream masculine way of being expectations and roles will beat them down a little bit.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:58]:
I appreciate you sharing that. Now I mentioned at the beginning that you work with men and that you are working with them, with individuals that are struggling to balance work and family and be connected and confident and helping them to, as I said, fully alive. Talk to me about how you got into this work and why you decided that working with men and creating journeymen was something that was a passion area and was something that you really wanted to focus on?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:13:31]:
So I've been a therapist. I've been as a psychologist, I've been working for about 25 years, and almost exclusively with boys, men, and families. And when I started my career, I'm naively embarrassed to share that I started my career and said I'm always gonna work with kids because if you're an adult and you're a jerk, it's too late for you. Now that is really naive to say, you know, 25 years later, I'm embarrassed that that was my way of thinking. I was saying that to justify that I love working with kids, but I had my own kids and I really wanted to save my sort of child energy for my kids and the community that we have. So I started working with older men and eventually sort of landed on men and fathers as a way of working. And as that was developing, as I was then specializing in learning and doing a lot of research on masculine psychology and sociology, you know, all of these things. I also simultaneously was going through a change in the narratives that I work with, that I love.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:14:26]:
So you may have heard of the hero's journey. It is a narrative that is sort of ubiquitous in our culture. It's all the the Pixar movies, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, all of these things. I love that narrative. I wrote my dissertation from the metaphor of that narrative, and it probably was 85 to 95% of all of the interventions, questions, and and work that I did was based around a really in-depth learning of the hero's journey. That said, about 15 years ago, something hit me. Part of narrative therapy is this idea of questioning taken for granted stories. So in professional honesty, I had to question my own favorite narrative, the hero's journey.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:15:04]:
Long story short, I actually now feel that although I still love The Hero's Journey, it's actually not complete. And the fact that it is so omnipresent is actually quite damaging to boys and men. And the fact that our primary narrative models tell us that we either have to be epic or legendary in order to be worthy is really troubling and damaging to men who, most men who are going to work and coming home and you know, doing the dishes and things like that. And so the challenge or the the passion part of developing journeyman came from working more and more with men and fathers and finding how powerful that work was. It came from developing a counternarrative to the hero's journey, which I now call foundational adventures. And it came to this idea of like listening to men who, you know, may be super successful at work, but then they come home and they're lost. They come home and they're stuck. They come home and where's my place? There's a fact, a detail that I remember reading somewhere.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:16:01]:
I won't use the exact numbers because I'll get it wrong, but there is a large amount of men who are largely spending more time at home than ever before, which we might think, hey. That's wonderful. And it is. But there's also hasn't been the equal amount of growth and development for father about what to do when they're at home. So that they're staying more at home. Some guys are getting it lucky and doing well and and being real present to their kids. But many men are staying at or or at home more with their kids, but coming at it with the same mindset mentality and social training that we've had for the last 100 years, which means that they're at home more and there's more opportunities to make trouble or mistakes or propagate this sort of mindset. And so the idea for me is that Journeymen was, how do we write new narratives for masculinity and fatherhood that involve and include a partnership at home and honor going and battling dragons or being off at work doing things and really developing deeper, more meaningful stories for men who just like everyone else on the planet, need emotional connections, strong deep depth of relationships, and love, frankly.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:11]:
And talk to me about over the years, you've been doing this journeyman work since 2019 when you started things. And I'm sure over the time and over working with men in this work that you learned a lot more about men, but also more about yourself. And talk to me about that. And what have been some of the biggest takeaways for yourself as a father, a husband, a man that you're putting now into place in your own life and some of the things that you're learning about the work that you're doing and some of the biggest struggles that men are struggling with?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:17:46]:
The front of mind answer around learnings for me personally that I'm learning from the work and then bringing it home and then bring it back to the work deep in it is none of us are done. I think I'm pretty conscientious. I'm pretty aware. You know, all of these things, and I am. And yet recently, my wife and I had a huge argument about something that was very based in sort of sexism, very based in my unwillingness to be open to a partnership, ideal. And frankly, initially, when she said it that way, I was offended. Like, I wasn't open. I do this work every day.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:18:21]:
And, you know, all of a sudden, I'm getting called out for something. And once I breathed, once I, like, let it sort of settle a little bit, it was really powerful for me to say, okay, you're right. Some of this patriarchal thought or dominance based culture, however we wanna talk about it, is so deeply embedded in all of us. And so for me, it's that there's always growth, potential, and possibility. And I've been using this statement a lot both at work and at home, but the magic and the treasure is in the muck. There's this narrative. There's this story in our culture that it'll be good when. As long as I get to blank or once I turn blank, you know, like, once I get to the end, it'll be better.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:19:00]:
And I think there's such a problematic ideology there. And so a lot of it is in the muck, in the marshes, in the trouble. That's where the magic is. That's where the treasure is. And so one of the best learnings that came from that that I bring back to the work at Journeyman is we do a lot of values work. You know, let's learn what's important to us. And I do something called the values compass. It's an exercise where we pick 4 values that are can be visibly expressed, that I can see, right? Not this big ethereal, vague value, but something that is real can be specific.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:19:36]:
And I have the guys pick 4 values that are inherently connected to the goal, the treasure that they're working on. And we put them in a compass. Well, what we've started to talk about in addition to the magic is in the muck is that our values are both the directional points and the steps on your path on your journey and the treasure. So if I'm following my values, number 1, I know the right direction and choices to make. But number 2, if I'm following my values, I'm feeling better. I'm doing better. I'm acting better. So I've actually achieved my goal on the way towards achieving my goal.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:20:14]:
And so that you're always going up and down with that. It's a challenge and it's it's terribly difficult to live your values in the everyday. And so when we're doing it, let's recognize it and say, oh, I found a treasure. I've hit a goal. Now it's time to get back to it because I gotta keep walking. I'm in the muck. Right? And so it's nothing new. It's nothing some it's not an insight that I think I've developed.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:20:34]:
I mean, Buddhists have lots of people have used it forever. I think there's a saying, no mud, no lotus. That's in a saying. Same kind of thing is that our challenges, our arguments, our conflicts are is always an opportunity for growth, and that's where the treasure is.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:47]:
I love that. And I love that statement because I think you're completely right. I mean, there is a lot of muck that we go through in being fathers and being men. I guess one of the questions that I would have for you in the work that you're doing is there are going to be fathers that have not worked with you, but are thinking to themselves, you know what? There's some things that we that I could maybe be doing here based on what Jason's saying. What are some initial steps, some things that they could do right now today that could get them moving in at least the right direction? It may still mean that they wanna work with you down the road, but at least to have either an internal dialogue or have something that will allow for them to push themselves in the right direction in this regard.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:21:30]:
I think the first step and and I have guys do this early on in the work anyway, and I I it's I think it's really important. There's there's 2 different things to become aware of. The first is what do we want? And I can blow that out. What kind of father do I wanna be? What kind of sons or daughters do I wanna raise? Not that I have much control over that, but in an ideal sense, what would I like to give to my kids? What kind of legacy do I wanna to share with them? What kind of values do I want to do I want to exist in my household? And really taking a look at what I would like that to be. How I would like do I want a household where after dinner, everybody's sitting on the same couch looking at their phones? Do I wanna have a household where everybody goes back to their rooms and does whatever, but we're not connected? Do I wanna have some mixture of that, but also, like, I don't know, we're playing board games at night or whatever, but, like, real specific, what do I want my household, my home to look like? And how do I want the relationships of the people who I purport to love the most? How do I want them to be? So I want first to ask men, how do you get clear on that? Do you want to spend your time tinkering in the garage or do you wanna be with the kids? Do you want what do you want? Do you want more intimacy with your wife? I had one guy who joined Journeyman said, I want my kids to be as comfortable holding my hand at 22 as they are at 12 and that they were at 2 and he said doesn't have to be literally holding my hands, but metaphorically, I want them to have that same level of comfort throughout their life. And that was his goal. That was his treasure. So I wanna encourage fathers to think about what are the ongoing relational goals that they have in their home, with their partner, with their kids, with themselves.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:23:15]:
So that would be step 1. And step 2 would be, what's getting in the way? And it's time to be radically honest with yourselves, guys. Right? What is getting in the way? Let's just use the example of not wanting everyone to be on their own phones and to be dialoguing or spending time together or doing something. What's really getting in the way? Starting with you and the other adults in the house. If you look at yourself, a lot of journeymen, a lot of the work there, I always am very explicit. It's not a parenting group. We talk about parenting. We talk about that.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:23:43]:
It's not about getting your kids to eat vegetables or go to bed on time, or learn to drive the car responsibly. It's men's work. It's about you being a stronger, more present, grounded man who can be in relationship, who can be in partnership. And so with that, you're gonna be a better father. You're gonna be a better partner. You're gonna be a better, more present to everything that's going on. So to answer your question more succinctly is get it clear with what you want at home and get clear about what you really give a shit about and what's getting in the way. What's getting in the way? What are the obstacles? Right? Are you too tired? Are you too stressed? Are you is your own pattern to isolate when things happen? Is your own pattern to get reactive? What is the thing that keeps you from those goals that you're looking for and name it.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:24:26]:
Can't tell you how important that is. Once you name the obstacle, you have some control over it. And I've had clients who, once they identify it, really understand it and give it a name, I've had clients tell me like, oh my god, things are so much better. Just because they start to notice and they start to give something a name, you have some power. So those would be the 2 steps that I would suggest anyone can start to get a handle on before even getting into this work more deeply.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:48]:
Well, I appreciate you sharing that because I think it is a journey and definitely something that will take time and effort, and you may have to get out of some bad practices or bad ruts that your family might have gotten into, especially over COVID or other aspects that change things. You know, you may have to make some adjustments within your home and really think deeply about where you want to be, where you are right now, as Jason already said. Now, Jason, we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our fatherhood 5, where I ask you 5 more questions to delve deeper into you as a dad. Are you ready?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:25:22]:
Before you start, can I add one thing? It'll be very quick. I am realizing I'm reflecting even on what I said, and it all sounds very heady and up here. More importantly or most importantly is, like, having some fun. I think so much of what men do is we go to work, we come home, we discipline, we but have fun with your family. Like, you love them. Have fun with them. And I just think that so much of the work, while it has this real heady, deep depth underground, a lot of the work, especially at Journeyman, is around fun. It's around metaphor.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:25:53]:
It's around being silly. It's around all those things. And so I can't emphasize that enough is that men need to be having more fun. So anyway, the fatherhood 5 we can get into, but I didn't wanna not say that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:03]:
In one word, what is fatherhood?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:26:05]:
Connections.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:06]:
When was the time that you finally felt like you succeeded at being a father?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:26:10]:
I watch my 2 sons being friends. They're 3 and a half years apart and they're buddies. They really are. And they admit it. They like to admit it. They'll argue like other brothers, but they are close. And I watch them. My parents did the same thing, but I, my wife and I always said, we would love for our boys to be aligned together even more than they're aligned with us, and truly they are.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:26:31]:
And so that that's a success. That's a big win for me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:34]:
If I were to talk to your sons, how would they describe you as a dad?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:26:38]:
It depends on the day. I think they would say that I'm silly. I am annoyingly optimistic and positive. I love to cook and I love to take care of them.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:49]:
Who inspires you to be a better dad?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:26:51]:
Well, they do for 1, for sure. My wife does. My own parents do. And I'm really fortunate, actually. I have a close group of male friends. And the depth of friendship that I with them is unusual. And I don't take it for granted, but all of them are either fathers or uncles and are good men. And so there's a mutual, like, love, respect, and inspiration in terms of doing better.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:13]:
You've given a lot of pieces of advice today, things for people to think about and to delve a little bit deeper into their own psyche and themselves to figure out kind of where they're at and where they wanna be. But as we finish up today, what's one piece of advice you'd wanna give to every dad?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:27:28]:
Hug and kiss your kids and say the words I love you. I mean it, of course, but I think the small actions count. I think the piece of advice is really hug, kiss, and saying I love you can be lots of things, but the small intentional and consistent actions are more important than any grandiose gesture that you can do. We're working at a long term deep foundation. And so if you want your kids to be the kind of humans that you're hoping for and to have a relationship for life, then play the lifelong game. And so small, consistent, intentional actions are really the way to go.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:06]:
Now we talked about Journeyman. We talked about the work that you're doing. If people wanna find out more about you, about Journeymen, where's the best place for them to go?

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:28:13]:
The 2 places. First is I live on the website, so journeymenfoundation dotcom. The other piece is right now, I say sometimes we, but it's really me. So if you email jason@nourished connections.com, you'll get me directly. And I I really enjoy connecting with people who are either fathers or who love fathers and wanna be supportive. And so those are the 2 most direct ways, but I'm also on social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. And one thing that I would offer is, and I can send you a link afterwards, is I did put together this sort of it's the 10 fastest, most effective ways that fathers can connect with their kids.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:28:49]:
And it's all about the small, consistent actions. I do every single one of them. So this isn't just something I write about. I'm also the president. And so I can send the link to that and people are more than welcome to as soon as you when you go to that link, you can download that copy. Every single one on there, I think I timed it once. If you did all 10, I think there's a bonus 11. But if you did all 10, it's less than 12 minutes every day.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:11]:
I love it, and we'll definitely add it to the notes today and add it in so everyone can take 10 minutes to reconnect and to better connect with your kids. Jason, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for being here today, for sharing your journey, and I wish you all the best.

Dr. Jason Frishman [00:29:27]:
Oh, thank you so much. This has been great. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:29]:
If you've enjoyed today's episode of the dads with daughters podcast, we invite you to check out the fatherhood insider. The fatherhood insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most dads are figuring it out as they go along, and the fatherhood insider is full of resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step by step roadmaps, and more, you will engage and learn with experts, but more importantly, dads like you. So check it out at fathering together.org. If you are father of a daughter and have not yet joined the dads with daughters Facebook community, there's a link in the notes today. Dads with daughters is a program of fathering together. We look forward to having you back for another great guest next week, all geared to helping you raise strong and powered daughters and be the best dad that you can be.

We're all in the same boat, and it's full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time. We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your AK. Because those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters, and musclemen.

Get out and be the world to them. Them. Be the best dad you can be.

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast we talk with Adam Angel, father of two and founder of Dads with Wisdom, a network for men on their journey through Fatherhood. As Adam explains, Dads with Wisdom works with dads, whether they're waiting for their first, cradling their newborn, or adding another addition to their team, it is a network to call one's own. 

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Matt Burke father of a daughter who was born with a genetic microdeletion. We talk about his experiences in raising his daughter and how this has been an interesting and vulnerable experience for both of them. We also talk about how he  became an advocate for his daughter through her life and while as a parent they have learned more about what it means to be a father. 

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Annette Simmons a keynote speaker, consultant, and author of four books, including The Story Factor, listed in The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Her new book is Drinking from a Different Well: How Women’s Stories Change What Power Means in Action. Today we talk about the new book and how as men we need to advocate for the women in our lives, both those in our families and those we work with. Annette talks about the importance of perceptual agility, gender awareness, empathy, and self-validation in making space for women’s narratives in decision-making. This is a powerful episode you will not want to miss.

you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Joel Hawbaker. Joel is the father of two girls and a blended family coach, an award-winning teacher, author, speaker, and host of ’10CBF: A Podcast for Blended Families.’ He loves helping blended/stepfamilies overcome obstacles and grow by teaching them the 10 Commandments for Blended Families.
Joel is a divorced and remarried father of two. He currently lives in Alabama with his wife, his two daughters, and their two rescue dogs Bruiser and Butterscotch.

His first book, Inverted Leadership: Lead Others Better By Forgetting About Yourself was a #1 best-seller on Amazon. He is currently at work on a book about blended families as well as a 31-day devotional for blended families.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk Ray Arata, father, founder of the Better Man Conference and award-winning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) leader, speaker, consultant and trainer with global clients from PwC to Verizon to Toyota to Bloomberg. WE talk about fatherhood as well as his new book Showing Up: How Men Can Become Effective Allies in the Workplace. Learn more about Ray Arata at rayarata.com and bettermanconference.com.

SOCIAL MEDIA:

Facebook: Better Man Movement - Home | Facebook

LinkedIn: Better Man Movement | LinkedIn

Instagram: Better Man Conference (@bettermanmvmt) • Instagram photos and videos

Pinterest: Better Man Conference (bettermanconference) - Profile | Pinterest

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with father and DIY expert, Taylor Calmus, and star of the series Super Dad on Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Magnolia Network. On this show Taylor Calmus, along with his team of skilled builders, help aspiring DIY dads turn their kids' outrageous backyard dreams into playtime realities.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

In February 2021 Penelope Pine was published. This is a delightful story that teaches young readers to be happy with who they are!

Penelope is a pine tree. She lives in the forest with oaks, poplars, and maples, and enjoys playing with her tree friends. But when autumn rolls around and her friends turn beautiful colors, Penelope the evergreen believes that she doesn’t measure up. But when winter comes and her friends are suddenly very cold without their leaves, Penelope learns that she is perfect just the way she is.

The story was crafted by the daughter and father team of Amelia and Evan Balkan. Amelia, 16, is a junior at Towson High School, in Towson, Maryland. Her father, Evan, has published seven books of nonfiction and three novels, as well as many essays and short stories. 

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Jim Young, a father of two biologically female kids, one of whom is changing their gender. Jim shares his experience with this as well as talks about how how improv acting helped bring his family together and helped him to be a better father.

Learn more about Jim Young: https://www.thecenteredcoach.com/

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

A Heartfelt Conversation

In the latest episode of the Dads with Daughters podcast, we welcome Gerard Gousman to explore the unique experiences and challenges he faces as a father of four sons. Gerard shares his heartfelt insights and practical advice, making this episode a must-listen for every dad striving to be the best parent they can be. Let's dive into the critical themes and topics discussed during their engaging conversation.

Reflecting on the Initial Stages of Fatherhood

Gerard Gousman opens up about his initial reactions to becoming a father. The mix of excitement, fear, and overwhelming responsibility is something many new dads can resonate with. "It's like stepping into a world where you have no previous experience," says Gerard, reflecting on the early days of fatherhood. As he navigated through sleepless nights and constant second-guessing, Gerard began to understand the profound and rewarding nature of being a dad.

The Dynamics of Parenting at Different Stages

Parenting isn't a 'one size fits all' journey, and Gerard underscores this by discussing the differences in parenting toddlers, preteens, and teenagers. He highlights the importance of flexibility and adaptation, learning to adjust his parenting style to each child's unique needs and communication preferences. By doing so, Gerard has been able to maintain close relationships with his kids, fostering an environment where they feel safe and understood.

Embracing Technology and Remote Living

With the shift to remote work and education, Gerard speaks on the challenges and opportunities this new dynamic brings. Living in a more remote setting has highlighted the importance of balancing screen time with physical activity and real-world interactions. Gerard emphasizes finding creative solutions to keep his children engaged and active, such as outdoor adventures and tech-free family time.

The Pressures and Expectations of Fatherhood

One of the most relatable aspects of Gerard's story is his fear of not meeting the high standards and expectations of modern fatherhood. "There's always this lingering worry—am I doing enough?" Gerard admits candidly. Over time, he learned that striving for perfection isn't sustainable. Instead, he focuses on being present and consistent, realizing that it's the simple, everyday moments that matter most.

Creating Wins and Building a Cool Dad Reputation

A shining light in Gerard’s journey is his 'cool dad' win at the trampoline park. Taking his 7-year-old and a friend out for some jumping fun led to high praise from the friend, labeling Gerard as the "coolest dad at school." This moment encapsulates the joy of being an involved parent and solidifies Gerard's belief in the importance of participating in his children's interests.

Finding Inspiration and Support

Gerard draws inspiration from his children's growth and positivity and from other supportive dads who share their journeys. He emphasizes the importance of finding a community, whether through local groups or online platforms. These connections offer a sense of belonging and a wealth of shared knowledge, making the challenges of fatherhood feel less isolating.

Advice for New Dads: Stay Happy and True to Yourself

To new fathers, Gerard offers sage advice: "Don't lose yourself after becoming a father. Your happiness is crucial for your family's well-being." He encourages dads to pursue their interests and maintain their personal happiness, which in turn creates a more joyful and balanced family environment.

Transitioning Careers for Family

Gerard's decision to transition from a high-pressure career in the event management and music industry to being a stay-at-home dad speaks volumes about his commitment to his family. He discusses the fear of missing out (FOMO) and the challenges of shifting focus from an active social lifestyle to home life. Parenthood required him to reevaluate his priorities and embrace a new, fulfilling role.

Navigating Family Dynamics and Individual Needs

Understanding that each child is unique, Gerard keeps notes on his children's favorite things to use as points of connection when other communication methods fail. This personalized approach has helped him navigate tough conversations and strengthen his bond with each child.

Advocating for At-Home Dads

Gerard has become a vocal advocate for at-home dads, participating in a New York Times article to challenge stereotypes. His efforts have been met with positive responses from friends and other fathers, underscoring the value of representation and community.

The Role of Community in Fatherhood

Finding a supportive Fatherhood community, like the National At Home Dad Network and local dad groups, has been instrumental in Gerard’s journey. He emphasizes the importance of reaching out and connecting with others who understand and appreciate the unique challenges and rewards of fatherhood.

The Simple Joys of Fatherhood For Gerard, fatherhood in one word is "amazing." It's the little victories, the shared laughs, and the opportunity to watch his children grow that make the journey so rewarding. As he continues to adapt and learn, Gerard remains a beacon of positivity and strength for his family.

In summary, Gerard Gousman's journey is a powerful reminder that fatherhood, with all its ups and downs, is an ever-evolving adventure. His insights and experiences provide invaluable lessons for dads at any stage, encouraging them to embrace the journey with an open heart and a flexible mindset.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome to dads with Daughters. In this show, we spotlight dads, resources, and more to help you be the best dad you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:16]:
Welcome back to the dance with daughters podcast where we bring you guests to be active participants in your daughter's lives, raising them to be strong, independent women. You know, every week, I love being able to sit down and talk with you, to work with you, to help you on this journey that you're on. Each one of us is on a unique journey. And you have daughters, I have daughters, but we learn from each other. We learn from others. And the more that we're willing to step out and hear what others have to say, step out and take in that learning, take in what others have to say, the more that you're going to be able to be that engaged dad, and that father that you want to be to your children. And that's why every week I bring you different guests, different people with different perspectives and, and different from different walks of life that have gone through either fatherhood in a different way have different resources that they can share. And I love being able to do that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:10]:
Because, as I said, each one of us is on a unique journey, but we can learn from each other and we can help each other along the way. This week, we got another great guest with us. Gerard Guzman is with us today. Gerard is a father of 4 sons. And you might be saying, well, this is the dads with daughters podcast. Why are we having a father of sons here? Well, there's a reason and we're gonna be talking about that. Gerard went through his own journey as a working dad that made some choices, made some choices to be that active, engaged dad that he wanted to be and may have made some choices that you might have made or might not have made. We're gonna talk about that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:47]:
And I'm really excited to have him here, be able to share his story, learn a little bit more about him. Gerard, thanks so much for being here today.

Gerard Gousman [00:01:53]:
Thanks for having me. 

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:54]:
It is my pleasure having you here today. Love being able to have you on and being able to learn more about you. 1st and foremost, I love being able to start the podcast with the opportunity to go back in time, get in the in that proverbial time machine. I want to go all the way back. I know you've got kids that range from 22 months all the way to 22 years. So I want to go back maybe 23 years, I want to go back to that first moment that you you found out that you were going to be a father. What was going through your head?

Gerard Gousman [00:02:19]:
For the first time, I was young. I was in college scared, excited, hopeful. It was there from was the experience of not knowing what was ahead of me, but, like, alright. Trying to figure out, alright. How can how do I do this? How do I be a dad? And I look at the examples of examples around me and okay. To figure out how long if I take a little piece of pieces of this from the different dads I know and trying to grab what I thought was right. And, of course, none of us do it right. It's from the start. So got that knocked myself off, knocked my dust myself off, and got back up and keep trying it again and again until some point in the next couple weeks. I think I may get it right.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:55]:
I'll have to check back with you in that few weeks and see if you actually hit that point because I don't know if any of us do it right all the time. And we definitely stumble, fall, pick ourselves back up, as you said. And our kids are gonna be the first ones to point out when we make mistakes. So that's definitely the case. Now, as I said, you've got kids that range from 22 years to 22 months. And with each and every child, you have to parent in a little bit different way. And you've learned things along the way, but you've got a very young child and a child that's potentially out of the nest in regards to grown, flown, starting his adult life now. So talk to me about what you've learned along the way and how you're parenting your 22 month old now differently than you may have parented your 22 year old.

Gerard Gousman [00:03:44]:
Yeah. It's definitely a much different world now, physical world and just my immediate world where I'm coming from then being young and my experience, all things that come with being a young adult in a big city and trying to do that. And it was also at the time of really starting. I was in music and college and working in marketing. Just Just starting out working in marketing in events and just trying to navigate and figure out what I was gonna be and what I was gonna do. And some of the experiences I have always been of the mind is bring trying to do as much as you can to marry marry my worlds together. I was trying to bring the kids out into the events and never use that having kids excuse to not be able to do something that you probably could do with them. That's something I've always tried to maintain with of showing my kids as much of the world and as many different experiences as I can.

Gerard Gousman [00:04:39]:
And still to this day doing that, but a bit differently, plus the mix of technology, and we're a little more remote than we were then. And starting out, I was with in Chicago, it's so close to a lot of family. But now remote here in the on the West Coast, and most of my family is still Midwest and back east. So it's completely different raising the family, raising kids away from the family, and not having a strong of a communal family support.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:06]:
Now you mentioned at the beginning when you first had your first child, you were definitely a little bit scared. And I think there's some fear that goes along with every father, Whether you have daughters, whether you have sons, in some aspect, when you bring a new child into the world, there's always some fear. What was your biggest fear in being a father?

Gerard Gousman [00:05:22]:
A lot. I think of not being able to hold up to the standards that I had, I guess, as a kid, like, what the ideal dad was. Like, when I grow up, when I have kids, I'm never gonna yell, and I'm gonna always be there, and I'm always gonna be smart, and I'm gonna trust my kids and know all the things that you wanted as a child from your parents. I'm like, I'm gonna be that parent. Like, how do I hold up to be that parent that I wanted as a kid? And then I realized, like, that's not realistic. You you quickly learn, like, oh, that's why they were always tired. That's why they were always yelling. Like, in retrospect, that was very dangerous. It's finding that out that I could try to bring in those parts of me that I wanted to mold and have my parenting style being able to live up to that standard.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:13]:
Now with the fact that your children are at different points, different ages, different experience levels, and you look at that fear now in regard to what you've gone through. Is the fear that you have as a father different for your 22 month old in the life that he will have versus the fear that you have now for your adult son?

Gerard Gousman [00:06:35]:
Think of are you thinking in in time that learn to be a lot more flexible and not take not take the losses as hard. And sometimes, like, I take the stumbles as much. I mean, there's simply times where you do everything you can and things don't work out, but you say, alright. Didn't work out this time. How do I learn from this experience and use it to parent better down the road? So going back to things I thought of with now with my now 7 year old being the 1st grader and thinking back to when my oldest was in that age and trying not to put as much pressure, like, that pressure to be the best student and be the nicest kid and be perfect in public and be respectful. Be always be as respectful as possible and and to try to keep them as polished they could. And now being a point of letting them breathe and kinda learn their own way and instilling those the same principles in them, but not instilling the pressure as much. I wanna know that, yeah, it's okay to take those missteps and but being able to be open and and be able to come back to us as parents and know that we have that support level of support that I don't think I instilled in my kids, in my older kids when they were younger.

Gerard Gousman [00:07:52]:
It's kinda that these are your benchmarks. You gotta hit them. You gotta hit them. And now it's like, alright. If you don't, that's okay. We can find a way to make up the gap.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:08:00]:
And kinda chuckling to myself because I think as you go through life as a parent, and I I could just imagine your oldest son saying to you, you were so much harder on me and you kept me to a different standard than than you're holding to my younger siblings. And you do. You know, it's not that you're favoring one than another, but you learn. And as you said, you become more laid back, I believe. The more fathers that I talk to, the more kids that they have, I think the more laid back they do become.

Gerard Gousman [00:08:28]:
Yeah. And then the thing of knowing how like, in the beginning, you don't know what the outcome or outcomes be, but outcomes will be. But as it goes on, you kinda you understand the patterns. You see the algorithm of life. And, like, okay. I know where before I had to make the 6 or 7 steps. I know that 2 or 3 of those steps weren't really important and kinda slowed things up. So now being able to have been able to more fine tune things in real time and just being more aware of those benchmarks that we like I said before about trying to hit those and not it's not always the most important thing. Sometimes the trying is enough.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:03]:
Now I know that or you, as you said, you were a employee for many years, you worked out in the world, doing event management, Salt N Pepper, Cat Power. I mean, lots of artists that were out there. You were traveling a lot, and at some point, you made a decision. You made a decision that some changes need to be had, and you needed to be closer to home. You needed to be able to be more a part of the family. Talk to me about that internal conversation you had to have, the conversation you had to have with your wife as well to think about this in a different scenario that made you make some choices that were going to substantially change your life and change your family's life?

Gerard Gousman [00:09:50]:
Yeah. Well, I think into that point, it was sitting around the birth of my 3rd, and the 2nd one's went through, and it was kinda wandering in between, I guess, seasons. I guess the way the event seasons go, it's kinda like the tail end and starting I don't know. I wanted to be there and support my wife as much as I could that and doing the beginning of the maternity leave and school being able to really be a part of the moments, all of the pre visits and all that stuff and really having the excitement of the pregnancy. That's not that I missed out by. My other 2 was just, like, being out on the road and traveling and not being able to be there for the earliest moments. And once it got to that point of, like, seeing it, I knew I could be there. And one of the things made it a lot easier is is the decision to be able to support my wife in her career.

Gerard Gousman [00:10:38]:
And she she was on the upper trajectory. And Shrunkar Bennett really got into a point where she was really making strides and wanted to be able to support her in that and give that example for the kids as well. Like, I know I could do this and with cards on the table and look to see what our strengths were. It's like, yeah. I I can do this and give you that so you need to go back and focus on your career and or can I can hold it down here and still be able to do things that I needed to do for myself? And when it I think I've built a strong relationship with my wife, and we are to the point that we are very open communicators in regards to what our immediate needs are. Like, we tend to check-in with each other, and where it may not be something long gone or drawn out, we know when something's not right and, like, always we try to stay on the same page much as possible. And I think that helped make the transition a lot easier, just knowing that I can instill a system, and we have our routines in the house, and it makes us it could be able to flow. And we are able to still have a lot of the things that we loved about life before.

Gerard Gousman [00:11:41]:
Like, we're avid campers, and we like to travel. And being able to do that stuff with the kids while they're young, I think, has been great for me. Like, definitely a lot of those day to day, like, month to month, the growing things, like, being able to notice little height differences. Like, that arm's longer than it was a few weeks ago. And having full conversations with the baby, and actually, like, because I'm with because I'm with him, I understand what he's saying. And so you're having those things that priceless and suits so valuable, and, like, I know you never get that time. It's really knowing the value of the time. It's been more valuable than however much I would have made out there in the field.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:21]:
So talk to me a little bit about that transition, that transition from work at work outside of the house, traveling, working in the industry, working with artists, you know, that high pressure, high paced life to transitioning to home and being that stay at home dad where you're running the household, keeping things running while your wife is working on her career. What was the hardest part for you in making that transition? And what were some of the things that you had to fundamentally change to be able to help you to make that transition?

Gerard Gousman [00:12:52]:
Honestly, coming from for being, very active and constantly out, going out 3, 4 nights a week even when I'm not wasn't working or I wasn't traveling. Still going home and being active in my local art and music event scene. There's no stand abreast. You gotta keep your faces in a place to be active. You're not around. You're not in. Right? So it's coming from making just that desire and having that FOMO was the big thing of man, I'm missing out on a lot of stuff, all those opportunities. And it's it's like the music festivals and concerts and stuff.

Gerard Gousman [00:13:26]:
It's that high energy. Always go, never knowing exactly what's gonna be next, which some days, that's what it's like around here. And, see, see, making that transition was not as hard as I thought it would be at first using a lot of the things that I learned on the day to day managing the field, the schedules, and having those routines, dealing with wrangling wild and unruly staff and artists. I'm like, it's pretty much what I'm doing here, keeping everything afloat. It's that mode of getting into not having that FOMO and finding what elements of that former life can I bring in? I guess the biggest thing is just that missing out on the activity of being around the my peers. I think that was the hardest part of the disconnect of the transition of not being having that peer relationship. As much as I could, we could go out and take kids to do stuff, but kinda hard to have that feel. Getting over that and finding supplements and finding community and that were more in tune with that part of my lifestyle.

Gerard Gousman [00:14:30]:
It has been good and just working with the National At Home Dad Network, and I that was a godsend for me, being able to find find the group. And, like, man, there's a whole community of dads out there. It kinda opened me up to me to see, like, yeah. I'm not as isolated in this as I believe I was in the beginning. That's that made things so much easier, designing was really being able to know that I could go out and find the communities if I look for them. And then once I found a couple of places to be able to places to commiserate or places to share what, for me, it would have been a big win. Like, hey. Today today was a no blowout day.

Gerard Gousman [00:15:09]:
First no blowout day. That's a big deal. My all working, partying event friends were like, no. That's they don't care about them. Like, so finding people that what are my constituted a big win in my current life, finding a community that understood those moments.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:25]:
So talk to me about community because you mentioned that you got connected at the national level with the At Home Dad Network and how we've had some past guests from the At Home Debt Network on the show. Talk to me about finding that community, what you had to do to find that community, not only nationally through the work that you're doing on the board of the At Home Dad Network now, but but even locally of being able to find those peers or those other dads that were going through similar things that you could start to have a new community for yourself. What did you have to do to be able to initially find that community and then build, hone, and grow that community for yourself?

Gerard Gousman [00:16:04]:
Kinda funny. I use some of the things that I would use initially in, like, having events and finding the different event communities and nightlife sectors. They're just going going through and mining through Facebook and different like Facebook and Tumblr and Reddit and looking for those communities and realizing that there are thriving online communities of engaged, active fathers and really putting myself out there and, like, hey, this is what I'm looking for. This is this is what I'm struggling with. These are the problems I'm having. Anybody ever experienced this? And and then finding there's 100 guys like, yeah. Last week, that was me. Exactly that.

Gerard Gousman [00:16:42]:
Last week. We do that both finding that online community, but finding that those those guys were here in my state, in in my in town and going in, like, alright. Putting myself out there. Hey, you guys. Let's get together. Let's meet. Let's go out and do some media at the park or the toddler gym or we should get out and have a beer or something. And when I took it on myself to really throw myself into it, like, if I don't put myself out there and find it, it's not going it's not just gonna come to and knowing that I was struggling with that disconnect, with that FOMO, just like and having that having that backup. This is something that's not ideas off of with other dads. Once I found myself really being able to throw myself into it and reach out to other dads that I knew, like, a and ask them, like, hey. Are you suffering with the same stuff that I have? And, like, no. No. I'm good. Well, actually, yeah. I didn't wanna say anything, but, yeah, I feel that too in, like, of having friends that, like, man, you know what? Let me check on some of my mom check on my dad friends. And, like, I know how I'm feeling. Let me check up on them. And then once doing that, like, seeing it there like, yeah, a lot of us were having that same thing, but, like, not feeling that we had anybody to talk to. So I might try to invite them into different spaces or just always make make myself available to be a space for my immediate community of dads. Then I've gone on to, like, join my local PTA and try being more active in my kids' school and work with some of the dads there to have more of the fathers on campus and doing doing things and more active in the events. And that has helped. Definitely had comments from other dads in the school.

Gerard Gousman [00:18:21]:
And it's great to see you always there. Like, I was nervous about going because it's always just the moms, but seeing you in in it and active, like, made me feel okay. Alright? There'll at least be somebody another dad there to talk to. And and every time now I go out, go to pick up the kids, like, hey, man. I see some of the dads, like, hey, we doing this or something. Just checking in on how you doing. Like, not how you doing, but how are you? And checking in on the other day, that's when I see them at pick up and inviting them into the spaces in school and and know, like, hey, it's not a spady thing. They're not gonna load up on you.

Gerard Gousman [00:18:48]:
Be more active. You got to support. There's other guys here that get it. And we're starting to start to have more of the dads in our school community be more active and stepping up and taking a lead on things. So that's been great to see.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:05]:
Yeah. It's so exciting to to hear that you're finding that community. I think that whether you're working or not, it's so important to find a community that you connect with and don't go through fatherhood feeling like you have to do everything by yourself because so many times men step into fatherhood thinking, I've got to know everything. I've got to be that expert. I've got to be the man per se. And you don't you don't have to be the man. You can be a man and know that there are so many other people right around your block or in your apartment complex. No matter where you live that are going through similar things, you just have to reach out and you have to talk to them and just kinda, Gerard, like you said, just say, how are you and truly be willing to ask the question and see and understand and connect on that deeper level.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:59]:
So, Gerard, one of the things that I guess that I would ask is now you've got kids at different ages. They're involved in so many different things. The personalities are probably very different from one another. How do you keep that connection and build those unique relationships with each of your kids?

Gerard Gousman [00:20:17]:
That part definitely difficult, especially once the teenage years and they grow and get their independence, and they construct their own communities. I think I always tap in and let them know I relate to what's going on. I try to I'll let them know, like, I'm always available to talk. Especially for the older kids, like, we don't talk as much and maybe a like my 16 year old.

Gerard Gousman [00:20:42]:
Are you good? I'm cool. Alright. Tell me about your day. What's we gonna tell me about your week. Alright. Anything new? No. And I'm like, alright. So I'll check-in next month. They're going through and make it a point of having to go on to the, like, all the the school forums and following the the different school Facebook groups and different stuff. Like, I'm like, you got a key from the mayor? Why didn't you tell anybody? Like, it wasn't a big deal. What? The mayor came to send me a school and no. You didn't you didn't wanna tell anybody that that was happening. Like, that isn't a big deal. Well, at least put on a nice shirt that day. So things like that. Like, wanting to be open when I can. I know, not the hippest. They're definitely difficult across but they're totally different generations, I guess. If you ask them, they're totally different generations. What worked with the oldest, I mean, I know I could even work with the 16 year old and between the 16 and the 17 year old.

Gerard Gousman [00:21:36]:
The way I could communicate and relate with 1 to a totally different approach to the other. And so I'm going through and finding those personality points and being able to figure out, adjust, and tweak my parenting style for each of them. Just realizing that, alright, the way I can talk to one isn't the same as other. Like, one, I can go through and ask something, and they'll just ramble on and tell you all the detail. Another one, it puts pulling teeth. You're asking it's 50 questions. It's 50 questions together. How was your day? Just to get to that point.

Gerard Gousman [00:22:08]:
And so finding a way that it each communicates and how to research. I wanna watch videos and read articles and Internet snooping and going on to TikTok and Instagram and going through the trends, like, alright. What did I hear them mention? They're in, like, alright. And just trying to stay abreast of what's what's hip in their different areas. Like, alright. What's hip for the in this age group? What's hip in this age group? And how just using those little points I can to as a point of relation to open them up because I may ask a bunch of questions, but then I may mention something about this one artist. And that may be the thing that unlocks that that window that was shut in with blinds and locked and curtains across it. Now our sun's coming right on in now.

Gerard Gousman [00:22:54]:
It's like, oh, yeah.

Gerard Gousman [00:22:55]:
That's my favorite song. I was thinking about that. You know what? I was talking to my friends today. You know, we were thinking about going to Greece. I'm like, oh, I

Gerard Gousman [00:23:01]:
asked you, had you heard this song? All the information I've been trying to get out of you for a month has just come down because I asked you, had you heard this new song? So I'm interested in finding things like that, those little points of connection where I can. And I keep a little Google Keep note list of the things like favorite food and drink orders, and stuff like that. They mentioned this artist one time. Make sure I remember on that. And just jotting down little things for each kid that those bigger points of relation that I can come back to when that normal communication isn't working.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:33]:
So this whole story of what we've been talking about was recently put out in front of the world through a New York Times article. And talk to me about that, and why you chose to be a part of that article, why you wanted your story out there, but also what has come from that story being shared? And what are you hearing not only from people around you, but people broader than in your local community.

Gerard Gousman [00:24:02]:
Yeah. So, so that was a great opportunity. I was definitely happy to be included. The writer, Kelly Coyne, reached out to me, and we had a great discussion about some of the some of this about my experiences as

Gerard Gousman [00:24:15]:
a father and just in the changing styles of fatherhood, and wanted to work with the org with that Home Dad Network. That's been one of our mission. Being able to help update that face of parenthood and kinda change the popular conception of at home dads. I wanted to have them be included because it's been an interesting journey for me and having more dads be open about the experience. And we we do we have a lot of that. I definitely have gotten that mister mom comment from strangers and friends alike as both an insult and as a compliment from it being termed as something endearing and something as a joke. And knowing that we'd be able to put to face a fatherhood that can be active in being at home and regularly engage fathers, not just done one way. There's not just one way to do that.

Gerard Gousman [00:25:10]:
So that's something I wanted to, I guess, give my perspective on, of the way that it works for us versus the way that some other dads mentioned the way that they came to this point of being at home dad and being a primary caregiver. So it was honor to be able to share that perspective. I think having some of the response I've gotten, really great all around, friends, family. But having other guys that I know that were dads reach out, I think that's been the best part of seeing, like, man, that's cool. Like, I really really wish I could do that. Like, I wanna do that, but I don't think I have it in me to be able to teach my kids on the day of having the patience or having a structure and being able to be open with them. It's like, hey. It's it's not all every day is not great.

Gerard Gousman [00:25:56]:
It's not all wins, but it's all positive. It's all necessary. Like, I am always happy at the end result. Right? And once I you have to have those points hitting those walls and having the end result, like, at the end of day, like, well, it's more worse circumstances we could be in and being happy that I am able to have the opportunity. Having the privilege to be able to be in a position that I can be here and make these mistakes and learn with my family and help my family grow. I guess, I haven't had it's negative. I did have, but I reached out for an interview, and it was kinda the the other side of it, they want it, bro. What's the negative response you've gotten? Like, there hasn't isn't any.

Gerard Gousman [00:26:35]:
Like, what was the bad part? It's not. It's been great as far as the experience. Of course, there's always small things, family things that happen, but it has been a majorly positive experience because that's what I make it. And it's like if in being able to relate that to other fathers. The experience is gonna be what you make. It's not gonna be easy. It's not gonna be as hard as you think it will be either. It definitely will be the days where you gotta sit in the emergency room after you but you get up early and think you're gonna go to bed early, and it's like next thing, you know, you're up till 3 AM, and you gotta get up at 7 AM the next day.

Gerard Gousman [00:27:09]:
It's like but you keep going, and you find the time to make your peace. And that's the biggest thing that has made this a positive and more eased experience for me, is the focus that my wife and I put on having our home be a place of peace. And I instillment with the kids. Like, I yell just like most dads, I'm sure, yell. Then circling back on that, circling back. Alright. Oh, bring that back. That's why I yelled.

Gerard Gousman [00:27:38]:
We need to stop yelling as a collective and learning how to quiet yell. This is something I've been working on with the baby, this quiet yelling with him. Like, you can be you can be mad. You can scream, but don't scream at me. I am so angry right now. Don't do that. Like, see? It still works. He reads the facial.

Gerard Gousman [00:27:58]:
I'm like, he can read the facial expressions. Okay. Okay.

Gerard Gousman [00:28:02]:
And so sometimes that he's gonna

Gerard Gousman [00:28:04]:
go into it, and I'm learning, seeing that he is learning that as well, He's screaming, and then he was I'm like, you're getting it. Okay? So I think I'm a you know, things of being able to share the learnings with so much the with the broader community of dads and parents. But just having that small community of dads that I've been friends with forever coming to me and be like, you know what? I've been struggling. I didn't think I could do this. But, you know, I I read your piece and seen your piece like, man, it's thank you. Thank you for putting on that face for us and know that it is hard and that we can do this. And I think that's been the best response for me was having dads that that I knew come to me and, like, that's it right there.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:48]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our fatherhood 5 where I ask you 5 more questions to delve deeper into you as a dad. Are you ready? Okay. In one word, what is fatherhood?

Gerard Gousman [00:28:57]:
Yes. What indeed? It's it is a constant what. Amazing.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:03]:
When was the time that you finally felt like you succeeded at being a father?

Gerard Gousman [00:29:07]:
Sometime between 3 and 3:15. Last week, I figured a point to kinda catalog my wins so that on those bad days, those those days I'll take the l, I can draw back to them. So I had one last week. I took my 7 year old and one of his friends, one of his classmates. They were on spring break last week. Took him took him to trampoline par, and it's how seeing how happy they were and having the friend comment like, gee, I always knew you were the coolest dad at school.

Gerard Gousman [00:29:36]:
And I was like, you remember to tell all the other kids that when you go back to school next week. Okay? He's like, oh, they already know. Like, you alright. Now you're just messing with me. Get out of here. I'm like, what do you want?

Gerard Gousman [00:29:46]:
He's like, no. Really? We like you. It's like, okay. Maximus is that's my son. Like, Maximus is always he sure ain't always happy, and he seems to have a lot of fun. And you guys do cool things, and you always do cool stuff for us at school. So that's why, like, yeah. You're definitely the coolest dad at school.

Gerard Gousman [00:30:03]:
And I was like, alright.

Gerard Gousman [00:30:04]:
I'm gonna remember this. See how long this last. I'm gonna remember this. Bring this back up in a couple of months when you're making fun of me. Because last year in kindergarten, they were all making fun of me for being bald. So to know that I'm one of them thinks that I'm cool. That's not mine. That that I'm taking that weed.

Gerard Gousman [00:30:20]:
Yeah. Just knowing that it was cool like that. It seemed that not just because we do and giving them stuff, but it's like that. The other kids notice how happy my kids are and think that it's because of me. That that was a win for me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:32]:
Now if I was to talk to your kids, how would they describe you as a dad?

Gerard Gousman [00:30:36]:
Which one on which day? Open? Fun? Tired? A good cook? Positive. More often than not, I am positive and try to keep them focused on a positive trajectory.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:48]:
Who inspires you to be a better dad?

Gerard Gousman [00:30:50]:
First off, my kids. They I feel like seeing the growth and seeing the smaller lessons. The things that I don't think that they all the things that you don't think they listened to that they didn't hear. And seeing them engage in the world as positivity and seeing them being kind and open and taking care of others, that generally is recharging to me. Like, alright. I'm doing something. I'm doing something right. How can I build on this? Right? So I have kinda curated a great great base of dads.

Gerard Gousman [00:31:22]:
So I'm getting lots of great dad content from different podcasts. The things that a lot of the dads in our network do, the way they interact with their kids, the risk that dads take, putting their selves out there to not only tackle their home and family stuff, but in going out and living their dreams. And guys like Matt Strain, who all the stuff for his family, but also as a triathlete and doing things like that. Like, man, I couldn't imagine running on a walker like myself. He's like, no, man. It's you just gotta get into it and and go and delve in and do it. Like, having dads who push the envelope and really put their stuff out there to be more than just dad. And try to remember that, a, we were once young, vibrant men with dreams and hopes and hobbies and try the the dads who find themselves and get back to that and are but are still fully active in in their debt.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:19]:
Now you've given a lot of piece of advice today, things for all of us to think about and to consider for our own journeys as dads. As we leave today, as we finish up today, what's one piece of advice you'd wanna give to every dad?

Gerard Gousman [00:32:32]:
I'd say, in closing, the it tends to know that becoming a father doesn't have to mark the end of you being a man. You can find those avenues to be able to go out and maintain your happiness, maintain your peace, and be a person. Right? And don't lose yourself in that, that go to your kids to see that you are not just that, but that you are still vibrant and that you love your life and are living a life that makes you happy, not just living a life of service. So I think that would be the that's the biggest thing I would share is, like, to go out and make sure that your kids see you being happy with your life.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:17]:
Well, Gerard, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for sharing your own journey today. If people people wanna find out more about you, where should they go?

Gerard Gousman [00:33:24]:
I am so boring, but join the National At Home Data Network. We are doing membership drive. If they come and join us, Come hang out with us at DadCon in Saint Louis this year. That's in October. And it's the only way you can find me in one of those forums if I'm not somewhere wrangling?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:40]:
Well, Gerard, just thank you. Thank you so much for being here, and I wish you all the best.

Gerard Gousman [00:33:44]:
Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate being on. Will be listening.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:48]:
If you've enjoyed today's episode of the dads with daughters podcast, we invite you to check out the fatherhood insider. The fatherhood insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most dads are figuring it out as they go along, and the fatherhood insider is full of resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step by step roadmaps, and more, you will engage and learn with experts, but more importantly dads like you. So check it out at fathering together dot org. If you are a father of a daughter and have not yet joined the dads with daughters Facebook community, there's a link in the notes today. Dads with Daughters is a program of fathering together. We look forward to having you back for another great guest next week, all geared to helping you raise strong empowered daughters and be the best dad that you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:47]:
We're all in the same boat, And it's full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time. We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your AK. Because those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters, and musclemen.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:35:27]:
Get out and be the world to them. Be the best that you can be.

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Matt Haviland who has overcome a lot to leave behind substance abuse and find a path and a community of support to help him be a better father but also challenge him to support and mentor other dads. I talk to Matt about being a father of a daughter but also about his own path to fatherhood.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Kent Frazier, founder of Fully Human at Work and father of a seven year old daughter.  We talk about fatherhood, divorce, being fully human at work and at home and more. 

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Paul Sullivan, founder of The Company of Dads and father of three daughters. The Company of Dads is creating a community for Lead Dads. Its mission is to help Lead Dads feel less isolated and more confident that they have made the correct choice to take on the bulk of the parenting and family duties - or at the very least not embrace stereotypes around who does what at home. 

I talk to Paul Sullivan about fatherhood and building a Company of Dads as a resource for all dads.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Len Herstein. Len Herstein shares some of his own fatherhood journey, but also some of the tips and tricks that he shares in his new book: Be Vigilant!

In Be Vigilant!, Len Herstein uses engaging stories to blend his expertise in business with his real-world experience in law enforcement to deliver the actionable insights and leadership strategies you need to conquer complacency, improve performance, and safeguard success through life.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I talk with Brandon Smith, the Workplace Therapist and father of three. Brandon and I talk about being a father of a daughter and what being a father has done for him as a man, but also about his new book The Hot Sauce Principle and how the principles in this book also can he all dads with being the best dad they can be.   If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Today on the Dads with Daughters podcast I bring back actor and director Michael Fishman. You may remember that Michael Fishman joined the podcast previously to talk about his own kids. This week we are talking to Michael about his work as an advocate about gender and racial equity. Learn from this great dad about all of the things he is doing personally and professionally to make the world more equitable for all women.

You can follow Michael Fishman on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

Balancing Family Life and Professional Responsibilities as a Dad with Daughters

Fatherhood presents a unique set of challenges and joys, each intertwined with the fabric of daily life. In this week's Dads with Daughters podcast, we welcome Ryan Moore, a bi-vocational pastor and school counselor and father, who shares his journey of raising five daughters while balancing his professional commitments. This insightful episode delves deep into the nuances of fatherhood, mental well-being, and the nurturing of relationships.

Growing Up with Sisters:

An Early Advantage Ryan Moore's upbringing played a significant role in shaping his perspective on fatherhood. Growing up with two sisters and no brothers in a foreign country provided him with a unique advantage: an intrinsic understanding of others' thoughts and feelings. This background laid the foundation for his empathetic approach to parenting, allowing him to be more attuned to his daughters' needs.

"I had to be more intentional with my word choice and approach," Ryan shares, emphasizing the importance of intentional communication. This deliberate gentleness has been pivotal in his journey of raising daughters, helping him engage effectively and avoid the stereotypical "male responses" that might inadvertently harm them.

The Importance of Healthy Relationships

One of Ryan's primary hopes for his daughters is for them to cultivate healthy relationships. Having struggled with unhealthy relationships in his past, Ryan deeply values the importance of faith and strong, nurturing connections. He aspires for his daughters to develop bonds that are nourished by mutual respect and love, both within the family and beyond.

As a bi-vocational pastor, he integrates his faith into daily family life, ensuring that his daughters understand the value of spirituality and compassion. His wife's organizational skills and passion for helping people further reinforce this environment, creating a home where every member feels supported and valued.

Navigating Professional Challenges and Personal Well-being

Ryan Moore’s role at Oxford Virtual Academy and as a former counselor at Oxford High School has had its share of challenges. The tragic shootings at Oxford High School took a significant toll on his mental well-being, making it difficult to transition back to family life. "Coping with such trauma requires a conscious effort," he notes, underscoring the importance of mental health for fathers.

To manage stress and maintain a work-life balance, Ryan introduced weekly board game nights. These gatherings not only serve as a fun family activity but also help develop critical skills in his children, such as risk assessment and spatial thinking. Additionally, the Moore family indulges in month-long road trips during the summer, exploring national parks and cultural sites to reconnect and rejuvenate.

Embracing a New Adventure:

The Africa Mercy Ship A significant upcoming chapter for Ryan and his family involves joining the Africa Mercy ship for a two-year term. As chaplain, Ryan will provide spiritual support and counseling for the crew, while his daughters, Evangeline and Seyla, attend the onboard Mercy Academy. This move, inspired by his childhood experiences in Germany and his faith journey, marks a thrilling yet daunting transition for the Moore family.

The Africa Mercy ship, operated by Mercy Ships, delivers essential medical care, including surgeries and rehabilitation, to communities in Madagascar and Sierra Leone. Ryan is particularly excited about the opportunity to serve in a global mission, reflecting his long-standing passion for helping others.

Fatherhood as Mentorship:

A Heartfelt Insight In the "Fatherhood Five," a segment of the podcast, Ryan describes fatherhood as "mentorship." He cherishes every hug from his daughters, seeing these moments as markers of his success as a father. Inspired by his faith and his own father, Ryan aims to instill confidence in his children, reminding fellow dads that perfection is impossible, but love is crucial.

He advises, "You'll never be fully ready. Just love on your kids and acknowledge your imperfections." This authentic and heartfelt approach encapsulates Ryan's philosophy on parenting, offering invaluable wisdom for dads navigating the complexities of raising daughters in today's world.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome to dads with Daughters. In this show, we spotlight dads, resources, and more to help you be the best dad you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:16]:
Welcome back to the Dance with Daughters podcast where we bring you guests to be active participants in your daughter's lives, raising them to be strong, independent women. Really excited to have you back again this week. As always, every week, I love being able to sit down, talk to you, walk with you on this journey that you're on. You know, I've got 2 daughters. I know that you've got daughters as you're listening. And I'm hoping that every week as you're listening, you're taking some notes, you're jotting some things down, you're learning some things and you're finding some things that you can take for yourself that might help you in this journey that you're on because you don't have to do this alone. I've said that over and over and over again, and I'll keep saying it. We don't have to father alone.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:57]:
You don't have to man up. You don't have to act like you know everything because none of us know everything when we walk into fatherhood, we have to learn it along the way. And that's what this podcast is all about. This podcast is all about helping each of us to be able to find that path that we want to walk on, but also to be able to learn from others that have walked on the path before us, but also are walking alongside us that are doing things and maybe a little bit different way than we might be doing that we can learn from grow from, and maybe take some things along the way from that can help us in that journey that we're on. Every week I love being able to bring you different guests, different dads that are walking this journey in a little bit different way that have different resources, different opportunities, different things that they can share with you. And today we've got another great guest. Ryan Moore is with us today. Ryan is a father of 5 and definitely a father of daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:50]:
So we're going to be talking to him about his own journey and his journey as a father to daughters and learn a little bit more about him. Ryan, thanks so much for joining us today.

Ryan Moore [00:02:00]:
Thanks, Chris. Yeah. Good to see you again. And I love what you're doing with the show. And, yeah, I love your vision for why you're doing this. It's very cool.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:06]:
Well, I love that we're able to reconnect and to be able to talk about fatherhood. I wanna turn the clock back in time to that first moment that you found out that you were gonna be a dad to a daughter. This is especially after having 3 sons.

Ryan Moore [00:02:19]:
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:20]:
What was going through your head?

Ryan Moore [00:02:22]:
Oh, boy. Well, I didn't realize it right at first, but it was going to be a huge shift. The old saying is, every guy wants a son, but every man needs a daughter. And the biggest difference in my thinking was that with my boys, they're just little clones of me. And so when they're getting into stuff, you know, we knock each other around. We go on these adventures. And I almost imagine that I understand exactly what they're going through at any given moment in time because I've been there. But the moment that I started having daughters, everything's different.

Ryan Moore [00:02:54]:
I mean, all of a sudden, I don't know how to change a diaper again. I don't know how to respond to crises. I don't understand why feelings are popping up. And I think that was palpable from, I think, right away, even. Like once I knew we were I was about to have a daughter, I knew, okay, this is going to be a shift. This is gonna be an adventure. And it's an adventure that I was thrilled about. It was an adventure that my heart just, my heart just swelled with joyful anticipation.

Ryan Moore [00:03:22]:
And yeah, it's been a wonderful adventure.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:24]:
Now a lot of dads that I talk to talk about that there is joy, but there's also some fear. And you had already had 3 boys along the way. So you'd gone through that experience of having children and understanding what it meant to be a father in that perspective. But what would you say was your biggest fear in raising daughters?

Ryan Moore [00:03:45]:
Oh, boy. Somehow my, I don't know, my maleness or my insensitivity or my, responses to things or the emotions that I carry with me as a guy would somehow arm my child. Like I said with my guys, we knock each other around and and then, you know, we come to like, if if we yell, we yell. If or if we're playing, we get a little rough. Or if, I have an opinion, they know about it. If they have opinion, I know about it. And then we we work through it, and that's good. Right? But that somehow I would harm my girls with the same process.

Ryan Moore [00:04:18]:
And, yeah, truly, I I did have to shift. Having daughters forced me immediately to reconsider how intentionally gentle I was being in communication, how intentionally thoughtful I was being with my word choice. Not to say that I didn't care with my boys, but like I said, they're little clones of me and I would I just automatically assume that heart to heart and mind to mind, we we get each other. And now that my boys are all adults, we do. We get each other. You know? And, yeah, with my girls, I've had to shift. It was definitely a shift. But it made me a better person.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:54]:
Now from the words that you're saying in knowing you as well, I can tell that you're a little more in tune with your feelings, and you're a little more in tune with who you are as a person. So I'm asking this in the sense of you stepping back and maybe not thinking about all the training that you've had over the years as a counselor, as a pastor, etcetera. But as you're thinking about that for yourself and being in tune with your daughters, what did you have to do? What were the some of those steps that you had to take intentionally that other dads can take as well as they have their daughters or are growing with their daughters and may not be at the same place you were in that training and such?

Ryan Moore [00:05:38]:
Yeah. It's funny. I am a licensed counselor and therapist and also, minister with the Assemblies of God. And all that to say, all the training and all the studies and and everything, it took me a master's degree just to get to the point where I was as good of a listener as my wife intuitively was already. So, like, I had to train to be I had to learn skills intentionally to be a good listener. A good illustration of this is my boys, we were not going to give them when we raise them, we had decided that we didn't want to raise violent children. So we were not going to give them toy guns. We were going to give them creative things, tools, Legos, whatever, building blocks.

Ryan Moore [00:06:21]:
And outside, they would go play. We live on 5 acres, and we kind of have a free range mentality for our kids. Go outside, play in the woods. It's good for you. And so they would go in the woods and play. At one point, everything became either a lightsaber or a gun. Everything. Every single stick they picked up was a lightsaber or a gun.

Ryan Moore [00:06:42]:
And once we had girls, everything became alive. Everything became a sentient being. Every clump of clay was a little character that had feelings, and every doll had opinions. And as these girls grew up, they grew up thinking about how this doll felt about that bear, And they would share experiences together, and this doll would share its opinion about how the tea tasted to the bear. Whereas, as my boys were growing and my girls were growing, I was watching them play. And as they got older and into teenage worlds, my girls were adapting their play into the real world, where now they're highly skilled at imagining what other people are thinking and feeling, and they're able to communicate. And my boys, you know, at the time being, late teens or whatever, were still outside hitting each other with sticks. So it's like there was this huge difference in the way thinking process naturally developed.

Ryan Moore [00:07:45]:
And I think the same was absolutely true for me. I grew up with 2 sisters and no brothers in a foreign country. And so I think I had a little bit of an advantage in learning how to intuit other people's thoughts and feelings because that was my core friend group overseas. And so it was a little easier for me, I think. And so I was always interested in trying to understand what other people were thinking and feeling, but it definitely took more skill and intent. And so, yeah, with my girls, I just had to stop and think about rather than just share bluntly what my thought process was on a thing or share bluntly what my opinion was on a thing, there was a certain rule set that benefited them that I had to enter into a certain civility that I had to understand to be able to engage on the level that they appreciated hearing. And that helped me be a much more effective father when I realized that they naturally had this, I guess, rules of engagement that they had worked out that I that I needed to, engage in. And God bless my wife, man, because she had to deal with those poor boys, you know, until I figured out that, okay, okay, I definitely need to, I definitely need to be more intentional with my word choice and my approach.

Ryan Moore [00:09:08]:
And again, I'm a counselor, so so you one would think that that I had the necessary tools to already begin a relationship with that in place. But yeah, no, sadly, I'm still getting there.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:20]:
Now, as you think back to the time that you've had with your daughters thus far, you talked about your fears. What was the hardest part so far in being a father to a daughter?

Ryan Moore [00:09:29]:
I deeply wanted them to each just to be able to engage socially with other people, spiritually with their faith, And if I'm overzealous in any one area or really keen, I worry most about both how they interact with other people and how they interact with their faith and with the Lord. I just deeply want them to have healthy relationships in the way that that I've come to have a relationship in my faith, but also healthy relationships with their peers, because I see a lot of pitfalls. And I see that, you know, in my past, in my history, I engage in a lot of unhealthy relationships as a coping mechanism, be it drugs or inappropriately affectionate, too early, or all these different ways of regulating how I feel during difficult times. And so my strategy was be there as their father, be present as a father, be the father figure who dotes on them and loves them and fills them up so they don't have to go to the world to get that. But then from a position of fullness, help them navigate how to make good friends and how to choose supports that are appropriate and how to choose friend groups that are beneficial and that look out for them. And so, yeah, so that was my fear and my strategy for that. My fear was always, yeah, they're going to fall in a bad crowd. If I don't file appropriately, they're gonna rebel somehow and run into the bad crowd or whatnot.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:54]:
Now you've been very busy in your career, You put a lot of heart and soul into the work that you do. And over the last few years, you've been kind of consumed by the work that you do. I should probably step back and say that currently, you do work within the Oxford Schools and have been very involved with helping kids that were impacted by the shootings that did occur on campus at the high school. So with all of that busyness, with all of the things that you put into the person that you are personally, professionally, talk to me about balance and how you have been able to find that balance for yourself to be able to be the father you wanna be while also giving your heart and soul to the work and the other passions that you have.

Ryan Moore [00:11:48]:
Bi vocational pastor for me means that on top of my full time job, I'm teaching Bible classes. I'm teaching I do weddings every now and then, or I do premarital counseling, or I do all these things that a pastor would do on top of the what's on paper meant to be a 40 hour work week. Now anybody in education knows, Chris is laughing visibly at me right now because he knows where I'm going. Anybody who works with education knows that there's no such thing as a 40 hour workweek within education because traditionally, boundaries are very blurred between work life and personal life because educators don't get into education for work life. Educators get into education for personal reasons. Nobody gets into education because of the money. It's not a business transaction. It's a passion.

Ryan Moore [00:12:32]:
And so when COVID hit, always in the past, I had been struggling with, do I wanna pursue more administrative pursuits within education, or do I wanna pursue ministry? So I've been a school counselor for 20 years and a therapist for 20 years. And I love what I do. I love being able to connect with kids who benefit from the support. I love being able to to help young people figure out how to become a productive citizen or a contributing member to society. I love helping them discover their giftings and their callings and their passions and their skills to figure out, well, how does that practically fit into society? That's what drives me as a school counselor. That's what I love doing. I love helping people grow as a young adult. And so very passionate about that.

Ryan Moore [00:13:16]:
During my career, I picked up an an ed specialist degree to pursue public school leadership, And I thought, well, you know what? This is not a fork in the road for ministry versus school leadership because I can use this if I go into ministry, that led to a position of dean of students at Oxford High School. So when I first that led to a position of dean of students at Oxford High School. So when I first started working for Oxford, it was as the dean of students at the high school. And which was great because that position was just dealing with discipline. It was basically enforcement of the school code of conduct was, bottom line, the job description. And what that meant practically was busting into bathrooms to see who's vaping and and checking backpacks for for vapes and whatnot. And so it put me in touch with, I I feel like, the kids who really needed that one person at the school to care about them. So I felt like I was in a unique position to be very effective in that role.

Ryan Moore [00:14:15]:
But what I missed was the fact that I would not be able to be the person providing that care because I wasn't in a council role. And I did well in the role for 2 years. I enjoyed a lot of aspects of it. Didn't enjoy some aspects of it. But after 2 years, I was ready to get back into counseling. So when COVID hit, I shifted back into the counseling role at working for Oxford Virtual Academy, which is one of the schools in the district. And we trade a lot of students back and forth. Oxford Virtual and Oxford High School do.

Ryan Moore [00:14:43]:
And then I also decided that time to begin pursuing my master's of divinity. And that was kind of the fork in the road for me. And then a year after that is when the shooting happened at Oxford High School. And when the shooting happened at Oxford at Oxford High School. And when the shooting happened at Oxford High School, all of us counselors just dove in head first. And we gave all of our time and all of our energy and all of our passion to helping these kids. And it did take a huge mental toll. When I came home from that, I was not able to really shift well into family life on a day to day as I had previously.

Ryan Moore [00:15:14]:
When I was working as a Dean of Students, I was able to shut it off, right? I was able to, you know, we're dealing with rules, we're dealing with violations, and we're dealing with the person. Okay. You broke a rule. Here's a consequence. But let's help let's help reconnect you. Let's do some sort of practice. I could leave that alone at the end of the day. It was never so traumatic that it stuck with me as I left the building.

Ryan Moore [00:15:33]:
And there was very little that I would have to do after hours. But when the tragedy struck, it was nonstop. And so that was a huge challenge. 2 of the things, actually, I should say that that helped me out. I always made sure that we had board game night. So growing up, I was kind of a nerd, and I really liked, you know, I liked D and D. I liked, board games. I liked chess.

Ryan Moore [00:15:55]:
I liked, there was this little tabletop game called Hero Quest and march your little guy, your little warrior around to fight orcs and whatnot. You roll your dice and risk access and allies and that stuff. Loved it. Monopoly. So that whole hobby had shifted into some amazing strategy games. And I actually did my ed specialist research on that, on how strategy games can be used to mitigate the educational loss of poverty. That's a whole different topic. But I decided early on that this would be a good tool to engage with my kids on an intellectual level the whole way growing up.

Ryan Moore [00:16:29]:
Like, so at any developmental level, there is a developmentally appropriate game that allows me to get on their intellectual strategic level. And through these strategy games, we can process risk assessment. We can process basic statistic principles. We can process valuation of things, and we can process geometric and spatial thinking, depending on the game, of tactics and all these metacognitive processes because after the game, we always kind of debrief our strategies. Oh, I could have done this different. And so once a week, we always tried to have a board game night. And so even when things got crazy and rough, we would always try to have some night a week where we would all reconnect. Another is, you know, one of the benefits of working for the schools is that, yeah, we all agree that we're giving way too much time to a school.

Ryan Moore [00:17:20]:
So summertime, don't call me. Summertime, I'm not a school counselor. Summertime, I am off the clock. And we disappear. And so we, my family and I had gotten into this amazing pattern of taking month long road trips. A lot of my family is from Canada and a lot of my family has land and cottages up there that we frequently visit. But also there's this amazing resource that all of us in this country have a free access to, and that's our national park system. And, so we load up the van and I let the kids pick a destination that they want to explore.

Ryan Moore [00:17:53]:
You wanna go explore mountains? Okay. We're driving to the Rockies and we're gonna find some national forests. It's free to camp in the national forests. So we became, very good at finding spots to explore and hike that didn't cost anything. You know, 5 kids and a school counselor salary. We needed to run on a budget, and so we really got good at adventures. And so in the summertime, the 7 of us learned how to really, get along in enclosed spaces and do some physically challenging things out in the woods, or, exploring cultural locations, or, just getting to know this country really well. And so they really got to know me on a personal level through those weekly interactions and through the summer.

Ryan Moore [00:18:36]:
And then the third thing is always our church. Regardless of where I've gone through, we've gone to different churches at different times based on what our family needed and and these different churches had offered. But always we become involved and my, my kids will watch the pattern of involvement that my wife and I present to them. And they'll learn from that and jump in. And I mean, every church we've been to, my kids have been as involved as we are. So, you know, I'm thinking of 1 church where, you know, my girl's working in the nursery. 1 of my guys is running the sound. 1 of my guys is on stage doing drums.

Ryan Moore [00:19:09]:
And, you know, like every kid I do the school counselor thing, I guess, of trying to figure out where each one's personality, giftings, and passions can have a place at play in, in a church service or in the operation of a church. And I help them plug in. And so they own the church as much as I do. Right? And so, so faith and church organization actually becomes an extension of my mentorship to these little humans. And again, it just becomes a neat way on a Sunday for them to see who I am and and for them to learn from who I am by doing stuff. But working in the school, yeah, they really want your time. And I think that was probably the biggest decision maker. When I was observing principals and talking specifically with principals about this, I heard the theme, they really want your whole life.

Ryan Moore [00:19:59]:
They really want you to donate all your time. And it's like, well, gosh, that time belongs to my wife and kids. So how does one reconcile that? Oh, no, no. Your family life is out the window. You're not allowed to. And so that became one of the biggest things to help me realize that school administration was not the passion that I was going to pursue. But also, I just love teaching the bible, and I love doing all that. So that that that, you know, that that became one of the main reasons I wanted to go into ministry as well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:27]:
Some of the things that you were talking about really have led you in a new direction. You're going to be leaving your current position as a counselor in the school, and you're going to be moving your entire family onto a ship. You're going to be getting involved with Mercy Ships and getting involved in a brand new ministry opportunity that is going to take especially you, your partner, and your 2 girls on an adventure overseas. So talk to me a little bit about this and what made you kind of led you into this. I know that when you were a kid, you grew up in Germany and had that cultural experience and I'm sure that that is leading some of this decision making. But talk to me about what led you to now moving into this experience for you, for your family, for your daughters to give them this experience in their lives?

Ryan Moore [00:21:23]:
Yeah. So my dad worked for GM, and so we were in Germany for about 4 years. And when I was in Germany, I was that weird kid with the American accent. And then we moved to Ohio, and I was the weird kid with the German accent. And then we moved to Michigan in high school, and then I was a weird kid with the Ohio accent and slightly German. And, yeah. So, I never quite fit in. And you remember me, Chris.

Ryan Moore [00:21:44]:
In high school, there were 2 Ryan Moores. And one Ryan Moore was, affectionately referred to as the smart Ryan Moore. And I don't know if you if you remember the nickname that I was given. I don't mind sharing it. It was the stoner Ryan Moore was the nickname that I was given, because that was how I coped with really challenging feelings. And also, that was the culture that I decided to engage with because I calculated, like, oh, these people are having fun. I know exactly how to engage with that. And so I made a strategic decision to engage with that culture in the way that I did, and it worked.

Ryan Moore [00:22:19]:
It provided me with support and whatnot. But, you know, like, it also left a lot of holes and everything. And then fast forward a little bit, and I had an experience in faith, total conversion of my life, and everything changed. I think you probably knew me right at the crossroads of that time, and so I think my last few years of high school, I was walking a very serious faith as a Christian, and my whole life changed. And and so that was another cultural shift. I lost a lot of friends during that process, and that's who I am today. My wife and I got married when she was 21 and I was 22. And we both wanted to do ministry work.

Ryan Moore [00:22:55]:
We moved to South Carolina and we visited what was at the time the Caribbean Mercy. The Caribbean Mercy was a hospital ship and their mission was help the lame to walk and to restore the sight to the blind. A a biblical Jesus message. And so they would go all through the Caribbean doing surgeries, removing cataracts, and repairing leg deformities. Just this amazing ministry. We're like, we're gonna do this. We wanna do this. And so that's what we decided we were gonna do as young married couple.

Ryan Moore [00:23:19]:
And then she got pregnant. And so, we had to pause our application, and this is our first kid. And they said, well, you know, have your kid take a couple years and then come back because you don't want to be pregnant on the ship. Well, in a couple years, obviously, she was pregnant again. And a couple years after that, she was pregnant again. And this kept happening. And, so we moved back to Michigan. I became a counselor, took a job, and we became this all American family where we had a dog, some acreage, and a house, which was never the plan for us.

Ryan Moore [00:23:47]:
And we loved it, though, and we treasured it. And it was amazing, but it was totally not expected from the very beginning. And so, now all of our kids are older, and we're looking around, and it's like, you know what? This dream that we had, we can shift again, and this might actually work. And I started talking to my girls about it, and they loved the idea. So as a 3rd culture kid, that's the term for somebody who, like I did when I moved overseas, I had the culture of origin, which was Ohio, that we moved from to Germany. And then I had the culture of Germany, which was the kids in that neighborhood. And then I had the 3rd culture is the culture that we invent. So which is this group of people that have a similar transient experience, and you can all relate to one another being a third culture kid because this experience of transience, this experience of not belonging, but this instant recognition with other kids who have this cultural, intercultural, inter cross boundary understanding of the world.

Ryan Moore [00:24:45]:
They get you, and you get them right away. And so that was really cool. And I really appreciated that part of my upbringing, because even now, I feel like I just feel like that's part of my personality, that big changes don't bother me. I love interacting with cultures that are not my own. I love bridging gaps between various cultures, ethnicities, languages, etcetera. And it's a joy of mine, and I think a lot of third culture kids experience that. So I wanted some kind of experience like that for my own kids, and now my girls get to do something like that. So my Evangeline, she has a very strong faith, and she loves kids.

Ryan Moore [00:25:19]:
And so she's been saying things like, I wanna be a missionary, or I wanna be a teacher, or I wanna be a nurse for kids overseas. At one point, she came and was like, dad, wouldn't it be cool if I was running an orphanage? I'm like, yes. That would be amazing. And so when Mercy Ships now when she thinks about going over there, she's gonna be observing these nurses that help kids and teachers that work with kids in that kind of setting. And so she's just through the roof about the opportunities that that will firsthand bring to her. Let me backtrack a little bit. Mercy Ships is now a fleet of 2 ships. The Caribbean Mercy has long been decommissioned.

Ryan Moore [00:25:56]:
And so now it's the Africa Mercy and the Global Mercy, and these ships are so much bigger than the Caribbean ever was. The Africa Mercy can sleep, I think, 500, and the Global can sleep 600. That's the newest flagship. But the position I'm taking is chaplain aboard the Africa Mercy, And the Africa Mercy right now is in Madagascar. I think the Global Mercy is in Sierra Leone. And so the Africa Mercy just began her field service in Madagascar. And in May, she'll begin doing surgeries. And there's something like 1200 people signed up for surgery currently.

Ryan Moore [00:26:28]:
And so in a 9 month field service, they do all these surgeries, mainly maxillofacial surgeries, or I know they do some dental surgeries. They remove tumors. They fix cleft palates. They're still doing a lot of the leg work. And then in this 9 month field service, they also do the most of the, or a large portion of the rehab, the physical rehab post surgery. And then during this whole time, they're also training people on land, training locals to run clinics, and then they donate all of their gear, all of their equipment to these local clinics. So at the end of that field service, you've got all these clinics trained for recovery, and then the ship leaves and goes and restocks and picks a new port of call for the next round of field service. Well, there's gonna be 2 field services in Madagascar back to back this time, And we'll be joining them towards the end of the first one in July.

Ryan Moore [00:27:17]:
Me as the chaplain and my wife as what's called the primary caretaker for our girls, which is a required position when you bring kids. But she's also a hairdresser, and she's also quite skilled in HR. She's always done, like, church volunteer coordination. And so she's very interested in a position on board for helping people onboard and helping people transition into Shiplife. And so that is something that she's looking forward to doing. But our girls are, they're very excited. My younger, Sala, she's the 14 year old. She's just the easygoing one.

Ryan Moore [00:27:48]:
She's just the up for anything one. And so right now we started selling all of our stuff. And so it's starting to feel real. And so the loss of it is starting to hit, right? Because a transition like that is all about a balance between excitement for the new thing, but also loss and mourning for what is disappearing from your life, like all your old friends and all your stuff. And so she's feeling it now. She's going up and down. And so, you know, the emotions are coming out of nowhere for both of my girls. I'm just in mission mode right now.

Ryan Moore [00:28:14]:
I'm just in like, go, go, go mode. But they're in this like, yeah, real excited. But then like, oh no, my friends are, yeah, this is going to be amazing. And then, oh, I'm gonna miss all my stuff. I have to give away 90% of my things. And so it's a real emotional roller coaster, but still with the theme of hope and joy for the work that's before us. So they're still on board. That's expected as one begins a transition like that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:39]:
So talk to me about this journey and how long you're going to be on it and what your role is going to be, and how your kids are going to be involved in that.

Ryan Moore [00:28:49]:
Okay. So with the surgeries, most of the people on ship are either serving in a ship crew capacity or a medical capacity. And I'll be taking the chaplain role, which is essentially ship's pastor for all the crew. So there's a chaplaincy team for the crew, and then there's a hospital chaplaincy team for the patients, and I will be one of the chaplain team for the crew. And so I'll be helping run services on the Sundays. I'll be doing a lot of counseling. I'll actually be starting out. My position will be what's called a chaplaincy counselor, and so I'll be handling transitions and mental health crises and difficult moments and things like that.

Ryan Moore [00:29:27]:
So and one of the things I'm really excited about there is the fact that there's 32 nations represented on board. And so the American component is just a small fraction of the crew. Significant portion of the crew is Great Britain, Dutch. There's a significant African representation, some Asian representation, and some South American representation. 32 different nations. And I think of any church I've ever been to. And there's always conflict because no matter where you go, there's always people, and, you know, people have conflict. And in church, conflict is dealt with with certain agreements and rules and, you know, the Holy Spirit guiding you.

Ryan Moore [00:30:08]:
And so I'm really interested when you mix in also the communication, ethnic, linguistic, cultural differences of 32 different nations. I'm very excited to, to help bridge that gap. You know, I feel like this is like, gosh, I feel like all the things I've ever done, I feel like are going to be used in making this job work. And I don't know. I just feel like it's, it's what I it's a job I've been looking for my whole life, if that makes sense. It's it's a dream job. It's definitely a dream job. And so 2 years, I've committed to a 2 year term aboard the Africa Mercy.

Ryan Moore [00:30:42]:
So that'll be both field services of Madagascar and a 3rd field service yet to be determined location wise. But really, if we love it, we'll stay. And if they love us, we'll probably stay. But it it's hard to predict the future. Right? But I have committed to 2 years. And so in those 2 years, Evangeline will be in her junior and senior year. And, so there's the African I'm sorry. There's the, the Mercy Academy, which is an accredited academy both in the States and in Europe.

Ryan Moore [00:31:11]:
And so we could pursue, depending on where she thinks she might want to go to college 2 years from now, we could pursue diploma credentials for either, school setting. And yeah, it's apparently very rigorous and she's up for the challenge. And then my younger, Seyla, 14 years old, will be a freshman. So she'll have her freshman and sophomore years on board. And we're ready to jump into that. The girls, like I said, they're very excited. Seyla doesn't quite know what she wants to study yet, but she's interested in the nursing, and she's interested in the medical. And so she was interested in seeing how those careers look and potentially going in that direction in the future.

Ryan Moore [00:31:49]:
But she's my only one that we really don't know yet just because she's happy with everything. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. But my wife, like I said, she's always gotten into different volunteer organizer roles. Every church we've gone to, she's kind of been the, the one to organize people and, and help them figure out how to plug into different positions. And, she's excellent at it. And she's she's got education in business administration. And so she falls into that role neatly. But more than anything, she likes working with people, and she likes getting to know people.

Ryan Moore [00:32:18]:
So it's not like she wants to be doing a business thing behind the scenes, but working directly with people to help them figure out how to plug in. So she's very interested in that. And then when people find out that she's a hairdresser, as we're meeting people on ship right now through Zoom meetings and through training meetings online, once they find out she's a hairdresser, they all kind of go a little bit nuts because they really want a hairdresser on board as well. So I'm sure she will get her arm twisted into that role again. And she loves doing that as well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:42]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our fatherhood 5, where I ask you 5 more questions to delve deeper into you as a dad. You ready?

Ryan Moore [00:32:49]:
Okay. Let's go.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:50]:
In one word, what is fatherhood?

Ryan Moore [00:32:52]:
Mentorship.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:53]:
When was the time that you finally felt that you succeeded at being a father to a daughter?

Ryan Moore [00:32:57]:
Oh, I think every time they gave me a big old hug. Every time I get a hug from my daughters, I feel like, alright, I'm doing something right.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:04]:
Now if I was to talk to your daughters, how would they describe you as a dad?

Ryan Moore [00:33:08]:
Oh, they'd hopefully say that I was funny, kind, adventurous, and challenging. I hope.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:16]:
Now who inspires you to be a better dad?

Ryan Moore [00:33:17]:
Yeah. I mean, you've heard me talk about my faith a lot. And, you know, there's for me, there's no better example than than how much God loves us. And the biblical example we have of a loving father is is my standard. Gosh. I've got my dad is an amazing provider, and my dad is an amazing problem solver. And though our personalities are drastically different and our approaches at things are drastically different, instinctively, growing up, I always knew that no matter how bad things would get, I had a safety net. He would always be there.

Ryan Moore [00:33:49]:
He would always be able to provide. He would always be able to drop everything and rescue me should I should I ask for it? And that has given me a sense of I can do anything. Because at the very least, I know if I totally screw this all up, my dad will take me in. So I strive to be that. I strive to give my my kids a self of confidence in that same way as my dad did and does to say, go out there, do anything. And what's the worst that can happen? You come back, and I give you a great big hug, and we try again. My dad's an inspiration for that, for sure.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:28]:
Now you've given a lot of pieces of advice today, things for all of us to think about in the way that we father. As we finish up today, what's one piece of advice you wanna give to every father?

Ryan Moore [00:34:37]:
You're not ready. You'll never be ready. Yeah. You've screwed up already. And you'll continue to screw up. Just oh, boy. Yep. So lean into that that being a fact.

Ryan Moore [00:34:48]:
Get yourself up and just love on those girls. There's no perfect father. Well, there's a perfect father. I'm not it. That's for sure.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:57]:
Well, thank you so much for being here today, for sharing your own journey as a father, and I wish you all the best.

Ryan Moore [00:35:03]:
Chris, it's been my pleasure and great to reconnect again. Thank you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:35:05]:
If you've enjoyed today's episode of the dads with daughters podcast, we invite you to check out the fatherhood insider. The fatherhood insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most dads are figuring it out as they go along, and the fatherhood insider is full of resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step by step roadmaps, and more, you will engage and learn with experts, but more importantly, dads like you. So check it out at fathering together.org. If you are a father of a daughter and have not yet joined the with daughters Facebook community, there's a link in the notes today. Dads with daughters is a program of fathering together. We look forward to having you back for another great guest next week, all geared to helping you raise strong and powered daughters and be the best dad that you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:36:04]:
We're all in the same boat, and it's full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time, We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your a game. Because those kids are growing fast, the time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters, and muscle men. Get out and be the dad you can be.

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Aaron shares the story of his daughter and how the cancer she beat at an early age really set his, and the lives of his family on a whole new path. Aaron shares what he has learned through this but also shares the story of his daughter and what she has brought into the world too.

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

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If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!

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Lersch knew he needed a song about his daughter to round out his EP, 100 Proof. “Being a girl dad is a special title and it comes with a lot of responsibility,” says Lersch. “The relationship between a girl and her dad is very crucial and special. It’s my job as her father to show her how to love and be loved, to teach her how a man should treat her like the princess that she is and love her unconditionally. Being a girl dad is so rewarding and much more than I ever could’ve dreamed of and I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”

If you've enjoyed today's episode of the Dads With Daughters podcast we invite you to check out the Fatherhood Insider. The Fatherhood Insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most are figuring it out as they go along. The Fatherhood Insider is full of valuable resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, an interactive forum, step-by-step roadmaps, and more you will engage and learn with experts but more importantly with dads like you. So check it out today!