The blog · 12 articles
Notes on being a dad, beyond the gift.
Legacy letters, family traditions, stepdads and girl dads, the father-of-the-bride speech. Short, practical, no fluff.
- Fatherhood (10)
- Legacy (2)
Weekly Accountability Questions for Fathers
Every men's group that dies dies the same way. It drifts into work, sport and renovations, everyone leaves feeling fine, and within four months nobody can quite say why they stopped going. A fixed set of questions is the cheapest possible fix, because it takes the burden off whoever would otherwise have to be brave enough to change the subject.
Read the article →Why Successful Men Still Need Brotherhood
The men least likely to have anyone to talk to are often the ones whose lives look most sorted from outside. That is not irony, it is structure. The things that produce success also remove the conditions that produce close friendship, and almost nobody notices it happening.
Read the article →Movember, Explained: Why Canadian Men Die Younger
Every November a bunch of guys grow bad moustaches and the rest of us mostly scroll past. It reads like a gimmick until you look at what sits underneath it: more than two in five Canadian men die before they turn 75, and most of those deaths were preventable. Here is what Movember is actually for, in plain numbers, and the handful of things a dad can do that genuinely move the needle.
Read the article →How to Be a Good Stepdad
Being a good stepdad isn't about replacing anyone or winning a competition you were never entered in. It's about becoming a steady, trustworthy presence in a kid's life at whatever pace that kid can actually accept, which is almost always slower than you'd like.
Read the article →What It Means to Be a Girl Dad
Being called a girl dad online costs nothing. Being the man your daughter measures every future man against costs something every day. The difference between the two rarely shows up in a photo.
Read the article →Becoming a Father Later in Life
You did the math already, whether you wanted to or not. You'll be pushing 60 at the middle school graduation and past 70 if there are grandkids. None of that means you shouldn't be doing this. It means you plan differently than the guy who became a dad at 26.
Read the article →Dad Shoes Are Actually Cool Now
For about two decades, the chunky white sneaker was the single most reliable punchline in men's fashion. Then, somewhere around the late 2010s, it quietly became one of the most sought-after silhouettes in the world. Nobody sent a memo.
Read the article →How to Write a Father of the Bride Speech
A father-of-the-bride speech doesn't need to be polished or clever. It needs to be specific, short enough that people actually listen to the whole thing, and honest enough that it sounds like you instead of a template.
Read the article →Best Father-Daughter Dance Songs
The right father-daughter dance song depends less on what's popular and more on what actually sounds like the two of you — sentimental, playful, or somewhere in between.
Read the article →5 Money Lessons From Rich Dad Poor Dad Every Father Should Actually Use
Rich Dad Poor Dad has sold tens of millions of copies for a reason — it puts a name to a real gap most fathers feel: nobody taught us how money actually works, so we're improvising what to teach our own kids. Here's what's genuinely useful in it, and what to leave out.
Read the article →Creating Family Traditions That Last
Some family traditions survive thirty years. Others quietly disappear after the second attempt. The difference usually has nothing to do with how meaningful the idea was, and everything to do with four practical ingredients.
Read the article →Writing a Legacy Letter to Your Children
A will tells your children what they'll receive. A legacy letter tells them why any of it mattered. Most fathers mean to write one someday — this is how to actually get it finished, with a real structure instead of a vague good intention.
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