Practical tips & tools, links, videos, photos, audio and more about and for today's dad...
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 12:38PM by John Badalament My friend john yen delivers some great, simple wisdom about removing the clutter of toys and teaching gratitude at the same time...
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 10:35AM by John Badalament Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 2:16PM by John Badalament In the following video clip you’ll meet Paul, a young dad whose story about coming to terms with his son’s illness is an inspiring, yet cautionary tale for all parents. After viewing the clip, ask yourself these questions: are you showing up for your children as much as you’d like and in the ways that they need? How far is your reality from your ideal? Finally, do any of your priorities need resetting?
Here are four practical tips for improving the quality of your time together:
1. Make sure your child is the center of your attention, and not just a distraction while you do other things (errands, calls, emails, etc.)
2. During your time together, do activities you both enjoy—or, put your needs aside and do something your child enjoys, even if you don’t.
3. Invest time and energy into their lives everyday, not just when it’s convenient (this applies whether you live with your child or not).
4. Spend ordinary time with your child just hanging out…with no particular purpose or goal in mind.
Friday, December 10, 2010 at 2:15PM by John Badalament Every Friday Fox 25 in Boston, partnered with the Good Men Project features a man who is making a difference. I was honored when asked to be on the show. Check out more men making a difference, and other amazing men/dad related media content at Good Men Project...
Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 12:59PM by John Badalament Recently, my best friend Jonah Matranga took a journey to discover more about the father he hardly knew. Not only are the images he found beautiful and haunting, but the song that accompanies them is a gem. Jonah and his daughter Hannah have been subjects and supporters of my work from the very beginning; they appeared first in my documentary film, All Men Are Sons: Exploring The Legacy of Fatherhood, and most recently in my new book, The Modern Dad's Dilemma. The following piece is from Jonah's blog page :
A vid for my sweet, troubled dad. RIP. Images and words I found on a recent trip to Florida, visiting a couple sweet people on my dad's side of the family, set to a song I wrote about him. He left when I was around 6, and I wasn't in regular contact with him or his family after that. He died in 1994, just before my daughter was born. Beyond all that, the song pretty much tells it as well as I know how to. Goodbyes keep going. Good luck with yours.
Oh, in case you can't read his writing in the letter at the end, here's the part of what he wrote that really got to me. I can hear me in it. It's odd. He wrote it in 1960, years before I was even a thought. He was in his early 20s, writing a letter to his sister:
"I have thought of you off and on the past few months. Now that I am back in circulation, so to speak, I wonder about you and me and life more often. I know that we share a sense of urgency concerning the possibility that life might pass us by. This feeling is called ambition when we know what to do with it, and frustration when no direction is apparent. I run hot and cold between ambition and frustration for lots of little reasons, not the least of which is the weather. There are other factors also, such as sex and money and feelings of self value. You know, little things. Well, slowly I am learning to push during the high times and keep up the front during the low times. Another trick I've put in my bag is to spend less money, thereby releasing me from the need to work at things I don't like.
Perhaps you will find my attempts somewhat useful, if not, at least entertaining."
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 3:51PM by John Badalament In the hours after his beloved Gramps had passed away at the all too early age of sixty-eight, my five year-old son, Jake, asked the question on everyone's mind. What would Grammy do without Gramps? What would any of us do without Gramps?
In his struggle to make sense of his grandfather's death, Jake has laid bare many seemingly unspeakable truths - about love, loss and life itself - for our family to face. He has helped us see more clearly just how much we don't know, and how asking questions is at times more important than trying to have all the answers.
Jake's journey has been a gift to our family. While we have been equally as inspired, mystified and taught so much by our daughter (7), Jake has been so incredibly verbal through this process that I chose to focus on his story. Interestingly, my highly verbal daughter, has expressed herself more through art and other ways than with her words.
My hope is that some of the wisdom from the heart of this boy will resonate with you or someone you love.
The day before Gramps actually passed away, my wife and I sat our kids down and had one of the most difficult conversations I’ve ever had. My friend Donna, the director of The Childrens Room, had given us a few very key pointers, but for the most part we didn’t prepare much. The plan was to keep it simple and concrete, reassure them that all of us were okay, and not to try and hide our emotions.
We explained that Gramps was very sick, as they’d known for many months, and that no matter what the doctors tried, no matter how much we loved and prayed for him, he was not going to get better.
“Is Gramps going to die?” Jake asked immediately. My wife and I looked at each other. Probably for the first time in this difficult journey, my wife definitively faced this awful truth.
“Yes, Gramps is going to die.” We both shed a few tears, then she continued, “We don’t know when, but it’s going to be soon because he is so sick.”
The next evening, my wife, my mother in-law, and I were with Gramps all night. He passed away as the new day began. Driving home from the hospital knowing the two little faces who would greet us at the door was almost unbearable. Again, we gathered everyone together and told the kids simply, sadly that Gramps had died and gone to heaven.
Keenly attuned to her distress and sadness throughout the day, Jake’s natural instinct was to try and comfort his Grammy. Soon after our family meeting, seemingly out of nowhere, Jake asked, “Grammy, what are you going to do without Gramps?” At the very moment we adults were reeling in the silence of our grief, Jake’s words seemed to turn us gently back towards or deeper into our own hearts.
Later that day, Jake asked Grammy if he would still be getting Gramps’ train set. Yes, she said. Momentarily delighted that he’d been anointed to carry on the family tradition Gramps had started - setting up the tracks around the Christmas tree - Jake quickly grew quiet. As if suddenly realizing that his gain was going to be Grammy’s loss, Jake said to her, “I’m going to make you a train set Grammy.”
The day Gramps passed away seemed to go on forever. That evening, Jake repeated his question from earlier in the day, asking Grammy what she was going to do without Gramps. Before she could answer he said, “maybe you can get a new husband?” Though he was quite proud of his solution to Grammy’s sadness - and his own - Jake seemed to understand it wasn’t going to be so easy. We praised him for caring so much and gently explained why Grammy, or any of us, wouldn’t want to replace Gramps.
Jake sat quietly, perhaps letting the reality sink in that Grammy would not be getting a new husband and he would not be getting a new Gramps. “Don’t worry Grammy,” he then said, “I’ll take care of you.”
Jake is no different from any other male - child and adult alike - in that he is innately an emotional being, fully capable of experiencing and expressing a wide range of feelings. The question we're asking ourselves as parents is, "how do we help this boy stay connected with his own heart, with himself?"
On the evening of our first day without Gramps, I read the kids a fantastic book, When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death. One section of particular interest to Jake explained how when someone dies, their body stops breathing, they no longer eat, sleep, awake, etc. In other words, it’s explicitly concrete about what happens to the body after death.
I then fumbled my way through an explanation of how we believe that Gramps‘ soul and spirit goes up to Heaven. Struggling to wrap his head around my less-than-stellar explanation of Heaven, Jake asked, “Can we bring flowers up to Heaven and give them to Gramps?”
In the days before Gramps’ passing, we bought Jake and his sister sketch pads and colored pencils. Finding creative ways to help our children express what’s going on inside of them and make sense of what’s happening around them, has been a major priority.
By exposing them to a variety of mediums - reading, talking, listening to and playing music, drawing, painting, building, making - Jake and his sister have each found their own unique ways to communicate and express themselves throughout these difficult times.
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 12:26PM by John Badalament As women have moved into the workforce, many dads – some by choice, others by necessity – have begun to be more active at home. No longer able to rely on the traditional roles, ‘man the breadwinner/woman the caretaker,’ modern dads and moms have an unprecedented opportunity to redefine a more involved and healthier version of fatherhood for generations to come.
Whether it means leaving work early to make a performance, joining the parent organization at school, becoming a stay-at-home parent, many modern dads are determined to show up for our families in ways that our own fathers could not or did not. However, we’re also just discovering what most mothers have known for years: doing it all ain’t so easy.
Unfortunately, the emerging discussion about modern fatherhood – as it relates to work-life balance, gender roles, parenting, and women’s issues – is already devolving into ‘who’s got it worse or who is less appreciated, mom or dad?’ I was disheartened to see so many unproductive responses to both a recent Boston College study detailing the challenges men face in a mostly father-unfriendly workplace and the NY Times Magazine article, "Now Dad Feels As Stressed as Mom".
If modern dads are going to step fully into parenting, we as a society must:
Take the challenges modern dads face more seriously - whether that's a work-life conflict or an increase in stress due to the increasing demands of homelife. Moms' challenges matter too; this is not a zero-sum game.
Acknowledge how radically and quickly the identity and expectations for men today are changing. For a man who grew up believing his self-worth is measured by his success at work, doing most of the childcare because his wife's earns more, could plausibly lead to his experiencing strong feelings of shame, anger, and failure. If not addressed, his health and the well-being of his family could suffer.
Show boys and men (girls, women too) what the potential payoff of being a fully involved dad actually looks like. Leading parenting workshops in schools over the last decade, I've heard dads become more vocal about their desire to have closer relationships at home; I wrote a very practical book, The Modern Dad's Dilemma: How To Stay Connected With Your Kids In A Rapidly Changing World (New World Library) to inspire men with stories of everyday dads who are successfully - not without challenges - building emotionally connected relationships with their kids and their wives/partners.
To put a human face on the real challenges of modern dads - as well the potential payoff for more involved parenting - I give you LeWayne Jones. LeWayne, one of dads featured in my new book, is a great example of a modern dad stepping out of his comfort zone and more fully into fatherhood.
What is there to learn from this short video clip of LeWayne Jones?
How one dad deals with the new, initially uncomfortable reality that his wife earns more money than he does. LeWayne's identity, like millions of american men, appears to be more rooted in breadwinning than caretaking. Yet, despite having to shift in his seat during the converstion about his wife earning more than him, LeWayne describes how the "motherly things" he does benefit his family.
Why becoming a better dad and a better man requires stepping out of your comfort zone. Instead of resisting his changing role in family life, LeWayne views it as an opportunity to support his wife and show up for his kids in new, but unfamiliar ways. For instance, realizing that he needed better listening skills, he actively practices listening not fixing. It should be noted that many women have also stepped out of their comfort zones to become breadwinners or business owners.
What unforeseen benefits dads can discover by taking on the ‘second shift,’ or doing what has historically been referred to as ‘women’s work’ – housework and childcare; In LeWayne's case, he details how his involvement has led to him developing a much deeper emotional connection with his daughter...the kind of relationship he wanted with his own dad. He has also developed a stronger partnership with his wife, Renea.
