Being a stay-at-home dad with a daughter has particular challenges.

Don’t get me wrong—I love my daughter. She can be the sweetest, most compassionate, caring and loving person. I cannot describe how much I love her hugs and kisses.

But she always wants to go into the women’s restroom. Whenever we are out, I always pause before deciding what to do. Do I just let her go by herself? What if she locks herself into the stall, can’t turn on the water or reach the soap? How do I not look awkward waiting patiently outside the women’s room?

In public places, such as airports and parks, I prefer to take her with me into the men’s room. However, when she has to go, she has to go! One time, we were at a park when she just ran into the women’s room, and as I ran after her, I stopped in my tracks when I saw the security camera at the entrance. I didn’t want the cops to show up and arrest me for going after a girl in the women’s room!

I was almost arrested once. One day at Santa Monica Pier here in Los Angeles, my daughter was about to pee her pants but we found the men’s room closed for cleaning. I stood at the door of the women’s room, yelling inside every 30 seconds to make sure she was OK. Just as she finished up, a cop car showed up to “check” that I wasn’t some “weird guy” on the pier Once the officer saw my young daughter, he understood my predicament.

Taking her to the men’s room can be equally awkward now that she knows that boys have penises and girls have “jinas.” She asks why boys get to pee at the urinal and she cannot. Sometimes she walks up to other people while they are using the urinal. This is when I realized the concept of privacy isn’t inherent; it has to be taught. Add to that the judgemental looks you get from others when a father helps his daughter to the men’s restroom. Those looks of indignation that “mom” should be doing it (or the assumption that there is even a mom) or that unsolicited advice on how to raise your child. Y

Another restroom challenge is when I have to go and ask her to “stay put” for just enough time to allow me to finish my business. Most of the time, she listens. One time, however, we were visiting the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. She was so thrilled by the experience of seeing the bridge that she forgot to tell us she had to pee, and she started to pee in her car seat. We quickly jumped out of the car to go to the restroom and clean up. It was a big public restroom with dozens of people coming in and out.

After I had cleaned her up, I asked her to wait while I used the facilities. But she wanted to see the bridge again! I almost peed my pants as I ran outside— zipper still down and screaming her name—to catch her. Thankfully, I caught her just before she stepped into the road to cross the parking lot.

I breathe a sigh of relief when a family restroom is available because we can all use the restroom together without a challenge arising. I can change my toddler. We can both go to the restroom in private. I don’t have to worry about her running out the door. It’s nice to see more restaurants, malls and public sites have family restrooms. Sadly, too many non-family people use them for the same reason that I like using them–privacy. It is frustrating when I have waited patiently, too many times, outside the family room just to see a non-parent come out and don’t care even to apologize when they see a family waiting–even when my daughter is doing the “potty” dance. We need more family rooms and stricter enforcement of rules around them so actual families can use them.

Fellow dads—how do you navigate going to the restroom challenge in public facilities? How do you address privacy issues? Do you have any fun stories to share? Post them in the comment section!

+ + +

This blog post, which first appeared on our L.A. Dads Group blog in 2017, is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

Driving in traffic, especially Los Angeles traffic, sucks.

But driving in L.A. traffic with kids is the worst. And I had to do a lot of it over the past few weeks.

I used to think you really only have these options:

1. Listen to their music (usually Katy Perry on repeat).
2. Sing.
3. Play “I spy.”
4. Ignore them.

But then we found the amazing world of kids’ podcasts.

Not only do great kids’ podcasts keep your children quiet, focused and entertained during the long car trips we endure her in L.A. but we almost always learn something new about the world.

Our favorite kids’ podcasts

Good Stuff Podcast

Good Stuff Podcast is my friend Mike Mason’s podcast for kids and adults. He makes music recommendations for the family minivan, gives sports updates and trivia for the young sports lover, and tackles big issues like farts! This podcast is good for kids ages 3- to 9-years-old.

Brains On

Brains On is where kids send in their questions for real scientists and experts answer. The cool thing is the kids themselves host the show. My 3-year-old is fascinated by elevators and the story of the two “Otises.” If your children love science and asking questions, this is the podcast for them. Great for kids 3- to 13-years-old.

Circle Round

Circle Round brings folktales from around the world to life. My children enjoy the fun characters and they learn lessons about diversity, kindness, generosity and persistence. This is great for younger kids ages 3- to 6-years-old.

Pants on Fire

Pants on Fire is the antidote to a world of fake news. If you want to teach your kid how to tell truth from fiction, check out this podcast where kids interview two experts on a topic and have to weigh the evidence to decide what is genuine and what is a lie. This hilarious podcast for kids and adults might make better citizens out of all of us!

Story Pirates

Story Pirates takes stories written by kids and writes them into catchy tunes like “All Eight Unicorns” and “Annoy Your Sister School.” And they do the podcast from a falling apart pirate ship (it is part of the joke). This fun and funny kids’ podcast is great for children 5- to 10-years-old. Plus they have a book and do live shows around the country.

Wow in the World

Wow in the World! If you are an avid NPR listener, you will love this podcast with Guy Raz (my kids now sing songs about him and recognize him on the “adult” radio and Mindy Thomas (satellite radio owners may know her from Sirius/XM’s “Kids Place Live”). This podcast focuses on weird and wild things that happen in our world and weaves scientific discoveries into the crazy lives of the hosts. This one is best for the 6- to 11-year-old age set.

Do you love any other kids’ podcasts that help you get through the monotony of carpool line? Let us know! If you want to listen to something more adult, then lend an ear to these great parenting podcasts.

Podcast photo: RetinaBoys on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

This is the third post in a four-part series on our ultimate go-to spot for an L.A. play date. Check out our first post on why these dads came to LA and our second post on kid-friendly places to eat. And come back next week for the next in the series on the author’s most “L.A.” parenting experience.

Where is your ultimate go-to spot for am L.A. play date (weekday or weekend)?

My go to spot for a play date is the Japanese Garden in Van Nuys. There is so much to see there, and yet you think you’re no longer in LA! There is also an adjacent park area to picnic and allow the children to play.

-JOËL LËOJ, L.A. Dads Group Co-Organizer; blogger @Joël Lëoj

So many places! We love everything that the City of LA has to offer from the Zoo to Griffith Observatory to any City park, public library, or pony rides in the park. The Central Library in Downtown LA is an incredible building with a huge children’s book section, story time, and lots of places to play. You can also go to the 100+ year-old Angel’s Flight and ride up and down on the world’s shortest rail and then get lunch at either Grand Central Market for a smorgasbord of food or Clifton’s Republic – a blast-from-the-past playground for kids (and adults – they have a bar, too!). Most of them have free parking but check open times first because I have definitely shown up too early or on days when they aren’t open.

– Eli Lipmen, LA Dads Group Blog Editor; Blogger @Badassparenting

My kids are older now (tween and teen, respectively), so play dates have been replaced with extracurricular activities and the occasional “hanging out.” That said, the overwhelming majority of play dates over the years were held at outdoor areas: parks, beaches, hiking trails, etc. In fact, those are still our go-to spots for family fun and fun with other families.

– Whit Honea, Author of The Parents’ Phrase Book; founder of @dads4change.

Soccer of course!

– Juan Pablo Delgado Gomez, LA Dad Group Co-Organizer

This is probably the most predictable answer, the beach! You have the most options: swimming/surfing, building sand castles and so much more!

– Trevor Mulligan, LA Dad Group Co-Organizer; Blogger @OneSAHD

This is the second post in a four-part series on why parents love living in LA. Check out last week’s post and come back next week for the next in the series on the ultimate go-to spot for play dates. 

Where is your favorite kid-friendly place to eat (on any budget)?

I’ve always felt that kid-friendly was a matter of opinion (unless the establishment has a rule against kids, then screw ‘em). We enjoy a variety of places, but we’re suckers for stuff like Golden Road Brewery where the food is good, there is root beer on tap and the kids can play ping-pong or watch some soccer. We’re also fans of the occasional grilled cheese at In-N-Out or the closest Mexican food restaurant.

– Whit Honea, Author of The Parents’ Phrase Book; founder of @dads4change.

Well, at this point my kids are growing up and we love to eat almost everything!! We don’t have a special place but we love sushi.

– Juan Pablo Delgado Gomez, LA Dad Group Co-Organizer

We do not visit restaurants often, but when we do it’s normally BJ’s for some pizza and homemade root beer. They have an activity sheet for the kids to keep busy and enough TVs to keep the happy and or distracted!

– Trevor Mulligan, LA Dad Group Co-Organizer; Blogger @OneSAHD

Our family eats Asian food a lot and we like to do  “sushi night” once a month where we go to the local Japanese market (either Mitsuwa or Marukai) and pick out some fresh fish and vegetables for tempura and then make it all at home. It is a fun (and inexpensive) way to enjoy our favorite food without trying to keep three young kids contained in a restaurant. When we go out, we love going to Ramen Yamadaya because the ramen is incredible, the service is quick, and all five of us can get full for under $40!

– Eli Lipmen, LA Dads Group Blog Editor; Blogger @Badassparenting

My favorite kid friendly place to eat is Gum Tree Cafe in Hermosa Beach. This place offers up organic and locally sourced ingredients. Some of our favorites are the lentil soup, Gum Tree ma and cheese (which is super fresh tasting) and the avocado toast.

-JOËL LËOJ, LA Dads Group Co-Organizer; blogger @Joël Lëoj

We have been having a hard time coming up with ideas for new blog posts (send them to us, please!) so we reached out to a few dads and bloggers in the LA area and asked them a few questions about their LA experience. We are going to share their responses in four-part series on everything from their favorite kid-friendly spot for play dates to their most memorable LA parenting experience. So strap in and enjoy the ride on this journey that we call “Parents Love LA!” 

Question #1: Why did you come to LA (or if you are from here, what has kept you here)?

We moved to the area for two reasons, one being that my wife’s family lives here and her father’s health was such that she wanted to have time with him. In addition, I had started a production company that was getting some attention and required regular flights to L.A. (from Seattle). Of course, now my wife’s father has passed and none of the production projects were ever developed, but the schools are great and the beach is nice. We’re also partial to theme parks.

– Whit Honea, Author of The Parents’ Phrase Book; founder of @dads4change.

I came here with my family almost 4 years ago to have a better understanding of the culture (lifestyle, economy, education) as well as to have for my kids a progressive-quality education since they are Mexican-American citizens. Not to mention to feel safety as well.  Yo never take for granted your safety way of life. A hostile and unsafe life-style can mess up everything. For me as a Father and entrepreneur I was looking to expand my business here but instead, I choose to start a new career here as part of reinventing myself.”

– Juan Pablo Delgado Gomez, LA Dad Group Co-Organizer

I am originally from Seattle, the weather helped me make the decision to follow an opportunity here in LA. No regrets and now the weather influences me to stay!

– Trevor Mulligan, LA Dad Group Co-Organizer; Blogger @OneSAHD

I moved here for love! My girlfriend grew up here and I started living in LA during the summer while in college. When we got engaged, I moved out here full-time and immediately got a job. While we left LA to live in London for a year for school, we came right back. And while we started out living in the Valley, we have now lived (or worked) all over the City of Los Angeles. I love that every neighborhood has a different character with interesting restaurants, parks, and places to explore. We now live in Palms, a great neighborhood with lots of things to do that are all within walking distance of our home, which is great because we are a one car family.

– Eli Lipmen, LA Dads Group Blog Editor; Blogger @Badassparenting

I came to L.A. for the food places and to experience things that were not available in my hometown area. Plus it was a great way to be in the city which was where I wanted to live. 

-JOËL LËOJ, LA Dads Group Co-Organizer; blogger @Joël Lëoj

You know you’ve met a super dad who really cares about his community when he shows up on a Tuesday morning, without kids, to volunteer for two hours.

Those were the dads who came out on Giving Tuesday to pack food and clothing to deliver to families struggling with the basic necessities.

Plum Organics, the nation’s leading organic baby food brand, delivered a pallets of food — most weighing over 400 pounds, to various cities around the country with chapters of City Dads Group. Here in Los Angeles, the Plum Organic products were delivered to the GOOD+ Foundation, a nonprofit group that works with a network of more than 100 community-based organizations throughout the United States to distribute essentials to families in need. GOOD+ Foundation added care packages of children’s clothing to the outgoing food deliveries.

Watch as dads from Los Angeles to New York worked to pack, prep, and load all the donated food and clothes to get to families during the holiday:

Los Angeles County has the largest number of food insecure families in the country – these are families who don’t know where they will get their next meal. Many more struggle to cover rent, with nearly half of all LA County residents paying more than 30% of their income in rent.

The need is tremendous here and the LA Dads Group, with help from Plum Organics and the Good+ Foundation, helped to make it a little bit easier for those families who received the food and clothes.

The group’s first task was to pack donated diaper bags with Plum Organics pouches and other donated supplies for expectant parents. The team of LA dads wrote inspiring notes to these parents, who later received those bags at a baby shower thrown for them because many cannot afford to buy everything a baby would need.

After filling dozens of bags, the team of LA Dads sorted through a massive pile of clothes to create bundles of clothes to be donated. The dads are a hard working group – we finished all this work in less than two hours, helping hundreds of people.

It was incredible doing something for Giving Tuesday 2017, which marked the second consecutive year that LA Dads Group has participated in this day of giving back through service. We are grateful to the dads who came out, Plum Organics for their support, and Good+ Foundation for welcoming us to their warehouse!

DISCLOSURE: Plum Organics partnered with City Dads Group for the mentioned above through a donation of goods and financial compensation.

Disclosure: We proudly partnered with WaterWipes for this event and post.

Have you ever wanted to do a big art project with your kids at home, but dreaded cleaning up the table, walls, kids, brushes, and pets afterward? It can be stressful just thinking about it!

Thanks to WaterWipes, an Ireland-based company founded by a concerned parent seeking a better baby wipe, we had the perfect opportunity get super dirty at the Zimmer Children’s Museum “Art Crawl” without needing to worry about the cleanup!

The Zimmer Children’s Museum is an interactive museum that allows children and parents to explore everything from water play to shopping for groceries. There is even a small model plane! The Zimmer regularly hosts events like Etch-A-Sketch Day, safety awareness days, and a summer camp.

For our L.A. Dads Group, they set up a whole room covered in butcher paper with every color of the rainbow for kids (and dads) to paint to their hearts’ desire! There was also an art table for older kids who didn’t want to run around in their underwear getting covered in paint, and snacks for both kids and adults.

And the best part of the day? After all the fun was done, our fathers used WaterWipes to clean off little faces, ears, hair, hands, toes and more! WaterWipes are the world’s purest baby wipes made with 99.9% water and a drop of fruit extract. They  were even awarded the National Eczema Association Seal of Acceptance.

“WaterWipes are great. We have been using them since our first child was born three years ago,” said Kevin “Kwick” Wick, father of a 3- and a 1-year-old. “They are very pure – just water added and that’s pretty much it.”

WaterWipes are available through many major online and brick-and-mortar retailers nationwide. For more information, visit www.WaterWipes.com/us.

Has your kid done something extraordinary (like, all the time!) and you whip out your phone or camera, only to miss it by a few seconds? Well, it happens to us all the time! This time, however, we actually caught one of our L.A. Dads Group co-organizers Juan Pablo on camera trying to film his son’s first attempt at surfing. We won’t give away the hilarious story…but the moral of the story might just be that we should all just “be in the moment” with our kids a little bit more often, rather than watching our kids through our phone or our camera.

Whatever you do, first enjoy our short film about his experience, and then post your funny camera experiences in the comments section.

A couple of our local dads were featured in a video on dads by TODAY Parents for Father’s Day. Thanks to Doyin Richards for putting all the pieces today. We strive to raise our children to the best of our abilities, no matter what others may say. And we had such a great time playing in the park and working on the video. We hope you enjoy and share it!