I absolutely love being a dad! My wife and kids are amazing and I literally can’t wait to get home to see them from work each day. My son brings so much joy and energy to my life (which is great because I need more energy to try and keep up with him) and my daughter’s smile just melts my heart. It may sound crazy…but sometimes I feel like I was born to be a dad.

Something that I have found I enjoy just as much is talking about being a father, especially with other dads. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve started a group for young fathers at my church, and have been lucky enough to be offered opportunities to facilitate a boot camp for new dads and write a blog for an organization from a fatherhood perspective. Each time I engage in an activity where I get to talk with other dads about our kids, about fatherhood, about struggling through the ups and downs of being a parent I get rejuvenated. I’m very fortunate in that the dads in my church father’s group are amazing guys and dads and always have great insight to offer. They are a great group to commiserate and swap stories with. When I get to facilitate a new dad boot camp, I get to meet these nervous new dads who come in with questions and anxiety, and after three hours they leave totally excited and reassured that they can do this whole parenting thing. I love it! I love everything about it and have definitely realized my dream career and my passion.

As dads and as guys in general it’s easy for us to kind of internalize everything, go into problem-solving mode and just push ahead as if nothing is bothering us. But I wholeheartedly believe being a dad is so much easier, and so much more fun when I get to talk about it and share it with other dads and their families. The old adage that “it takes a village to raise a child” is very true, and I am so thankful that my village includes some amazing dads that care about me and want to see me succeed as a father.

I hope that my future includes more and more of this and I’m going to seek out every opportunity to increase my interactions with other dads that I can. I sincerely hope that if you’re a dad out there who is feeling alone or feeling like there’s not a lot of support out there for dads that you will contact me or you’ll reach out to another dad or an online fatherhood group. Because being a dad becomes even more fun and a lot easier when you get to share it with other dads.

This is fraternal fatherhood…

This is fatherhood…