“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Those words from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as an encouraging rallying cry for Americans navigating the Great Depression. But to an 8-year-old who got pegged in the helmet by a “fastball” in his first at-bat of the new recreational baseball season, they mean nothing.

Sports bring out the best and worst in us, whether we’re fans watching our favorite team (go Knicks!) or participants on our church softball team. That’s a lot for parents to handle because much of our life seems to revolve around watching our children play sports, organized or otherwise, as soon as they can walk. For example, all three of my kids play on rec teams. This means two games a week for each child. Then add on one of two practices — again, for EACH CHILD. Then add that to all three kids’ other extracurricular activities. It is, to put it mildly, a busy life. For me.

This brings me back to FDR’s quote about fear. 

When I checked on my son, Jackson, after he got hit with that pitch, I could see his desire to play baseball had left him at that very moment. It was a brand-new experience for him. Two years ago he hit off a tee in games. Last year was coach pitch, so fathers lobbed slow pitches he could crush to the outfield. He had always been one of the best players on his teams up until that fateful at-bat. I loved watching him play and believed he could be a special player for many years. 

But after taking that less-than-fast one on the helmet, even though was OK physically, he was not OK emotionally. His not wanting to play for the rest of the game hit me in a way I was not expecting.

It got worse after the game. That’s when Jackson told me he didn’t want to play baseball anymore.

I was mad.

‘Fun’ comes first in ‘fundamentals’

Something felt like it was taken away from ME. I had spent time getting him ready, taking him to practice, doing pitching drills, and many other things to prepare him for another great season. The moment became about me, my time and my feelings rather than about my son and his state of mind.

Baseball soon became a struggle between the two of us. Two games later into the season, Jackson was still apprehensive about playing. I would spend an hour getting him dressed for games and practices. We’d argue the entire time about why he had — NEEDED — to go and couldn’t just not show. I was getting frustrated and so was he. I could see he was getting further and further from wanting to pick up a bat again.

Then, one day before practice, I was talking with another dad who coaches the team.  He didn’t blame Jackson for not wanting to play. He even admitted he would be scared to get back into the batter’s box after an experience like that too. While Jackson warmed up with his teammates in the outfield, the dad reminded me of a simple fact.

“They’re only 8,” he said. “This should be about learning the fundamentals of baseball but also having fun. If they aren’t having fun, then why are they doing it?”

That’s when I realized my duty as a father was not only to provide for my family. It was also my duty to listen to them. I wasn’t listening to Jackson about his genuine fear of getting hit by the ball, a fear anyone might have. It is no different than being afraid to get behind the wheel of a car after a traffic accident. Trauma affects everyone differently, and as parents, we must learn to recognize it in our children and address it.

With youth sports, we parents sometimes get caught up in the fantasy. We hear about all the benefits beyond physical health — friendship, teamwork, discipline, etc. — and expect results on Day One. Often it becomes about our kids living the athletic dreams we wanted to come true for ourselves. Maybe we even indulge in thoughts about the riches (or at least the college scholarships) it provides only a select few. We make it about ourselves and think our kids should tough it out. 

Youth sports parents: Listen, learn, enjoy

But these are just children. Some just want to hang with their friends, sing a few fun and clever rallying cries, and then get a hot dog and slushy from the snack stand after the game. Youth sports parents must remember to frequently ask their kids one very simple question, “Are you having fun?”

If you know they are having fun, it makes the long road trips, the late-night games, and the rain-soaked practices worth it. If your kid is not having fun, then you as a parent are definitely not having fun. So what’s the point?

As parents, we want our children to be active, but we must have the wisdom to step in when necessary be it youth sports or violin lessons. We should not let them become overscheduled. We need to be sure they are having fun while building healthy relationships and habits they will carry off the field.

As of this writing, Jackson is halfway through the season. He still isn’t swinging the bat much, but he is playing and his confidence appears to be returning. I make sure before every game to tell him the coaches and the other sports parents are there to ensure he has fun while prioritizing that he doesn’t get hurt. I remind him that getting hit is a part of the game of baseball, but it doesn’t happen very often. And I tell him after every game that I am proud of him getting back out there and facing his fear. 

When I see him out there making plays, catching a fly ball or two, I remind him of all he would have missed if had let his fear keep him from playing baseball. However, I let the coaches do their jobs and coach. Sometimes hearing things, especially instructions, from an authority figure who is not your parent, gets through to a child better.

So if this turns out to be his last season of baseball at the ripe old age of 8 going on 9, I am OK with that. If he’s not having fun playing a game, then why should he? He will have plenty of time to do “not fun” things when he is an adult. 

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This blog post 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 Ben Hershey on Unsplash.

As fathers, and as parents, we know that whatever is within us is imposed upon our children. Whether it’s our jacked-up DNA or the baggage we carry from personal traumas, we can’t help but infect our kids with who we are – who we REALLY are. This is an involuntary imposition. Most of us want to share the good and excise the bad inherited traits in our kids.

But parenthood doesn’t always work that way.

I’ll start with a confession: I’m chronically anxious. I am afraid of everything and nothing all at once. I know that sounds impossible, but the things I should fear, I don’t. It gives a false impression of courage and confidence, but it’s just unhealthy. Rational fears have almost no place in my life. The irrational, the improbable, the highly unlikely, the complex web of “what-ifs” — those cripple me daily.

Over the years I’ve put genuine effort into keeping my inner struggles from impacting my children. For a while, I was sure I was succeeding. I made a lot of changes, and if I may boast a teeny bit, I made amazing progress. Sadly, it wasn’t enough.

As my oldest child’s personality began to emerge, my attempts to change the outward expression of my inner struggles clearly worked with her. The same struggles were embedded inside my daughter. It was the betrayal of DNA.

She becomes quickly discouraged by a simple task, seemingly overwhelmed by very minor obstacles. She latches onto a feeling and it overwhelms her and consumes her, leaving her unable to keep herself from spiraling. Too many variables can crush her forward progress. What for others is a quick decision — grab the thing and go – for her is a quagmire of possibilities with no clear path forward. She gets stuck.

Just like her dear ’ol dad.

Hope never gives up

For example, tonight is supposed to be her first sleepover. Last night she was shaking. Panicking. Terrified of the sleepover. In her fits and worries, in her frustration and anger, she asked if she could see a therapist.

It’s heartbreaking to know this is my fault. What broken strand of proteins have I cursed my daughter with? It’s clear she has the same poisonous voices in her mind. Her brain leaps to the darkest outcome for the darkest reasons – just like mine. It feels like an unbroken connection to ancient Celts on forlorn, rocky shores cursing the gray skies, fearful they may not survive another harsh winter.

But as parents, there’s one thing we can never do. It’s an option we discard when we embark upon this great adventure of parenthood: we can’t give up.

There’s no time for belly-aching. Our kids need our help now. Right now. We can be honest about our failings, and gentle in our solutions, but there’s no retreat here. We only get to move forward. Not trying is the only way we truly fail them.

I wish my pessimistic mind was able to gaze toward a horizon I believe to be filled with rainbows and chirping birds, but I know there’s no solution to this problem. There’s only learning how to cope. My brain will forever be this way. I’ve done the therapy and I’ve done the work. I’ve discarded the indoctrination that blamed invisible forces existing in imperceptible realms. All of these tools have been transformative, but the storms remain.

My hope is these words don’t discourage my fellow parents. My goal is to encourage, to empathize, but above all, I hope this acts as a reminder about the sacred oath to our children. It’s our job to raise them to be superior to us in every way. We must accept we can’t “fix” them, in the same way we can’t fully “fix” ourselves. We can be a little better every day and so can our kids.

I’m going to break the fourth wall here a bit. (Yes, I know, it’s a bit of a hack thing to do, but I don’t care.) A few paragraphs ago, I mentioned my daughter was having a mild panic attack regarding her first sleepover. As I’m re-writing and editing this, it’s the next morning. She made it through the night! I was unable to do the same at her age.

See, there’s hope, fellow parents. There’s always hope.

Of course, my daughter’s strength may come from her mother’s DNA.

Ahhhh, dammit …

Inherited traits photo by Anna Shvets via Pexels.

Editor’s Note: We’re digging into our ample archives to find some great articles you might have missed over the years. This one comes from 2014.

Never did I think the person holding a screaming baby on a cross-country flight taking off at 5:30 a.m. would be me.

Yet there I was, returning to New York City with body odor ripening as my deodorant quickly vanished under the stress of what would be the flight from hell.

Ah, the joys of flying with your baby.

“Why me, God? What did I do to deserve this?” I thought while people searched for their seats and visibly prayed it wasn’t next to this dude with a 1-year-old screaming for freedom from his Baby Bjorn.

When the couple sitting next to me realized they were stuck with us, I apologized in an attempt to win some sympathy. It didn’t work. All I got in return was a look of disapproval.

After everyone buckled in and the lights dimmed for the takeoff of our five-hour flight, I followed our pediatrician’s advice and gave my son an eight-ounce bottle of milk. It was the first time since I woke him at 4 a.m. that he was silent. During those brief 10 minutes, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and calmed down.

It was then I realized nobody was going to say anything to my face and, besides, who cares what other people are thinking? If someone said something about me and my caterwauling baby son it would made them look like an ass. We were simply trying to get home.

Once I calmed down I could feel my son, who was strapped facing forward on my chest, fall asleep. I took another deep breath, closed my eyes, and slept for about an hour.

That’s when I had to use the bathroom.

The screaming baby airplane bathroom blues

When I closed the bathroom door the only thing I was thankful for was that I am not claustrophobic. Have airplane bathrooms shrunk? Maneuvering inside such a small space with a 22-pound kid strapped to you is like doing yoga inside a box.

My first option was to take my son out and place him on the floor while I peed. That thought went down the toilet when I looked down and saw water. And probably worse.

The second option: pee with him still strapped on. I hate to admit it but this wasn’t the first time I’ve done this. So how bad could it be?

I had to maneuver around to avoid peeing all over my son. Wailing soon ensued and my nerves shot through the low, slanted roof as I attempted to relieve myself. I was astonished that I managed to shoot in the right direction. “Damn I’m good,” I thought as I zipped up.

Now, time to change my screaming baby boy.

As I searched aimlessly around the small space for a changing table, I started to think I was still half-asleep. I splashed some water in my face to try and snap out of it. After another fruitless attempt, I opened the door to ask the flight attendant for help.

“This particular plane doesn’t have baby changing tables,” he said.

I closed the door, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. All I have to do is be quick about this, I thought. Piece of cake.

I took my son out of the Baby Bjorn and turned him toward me. “Sorry. There is no changing table so we’re going to have to do this old school on the toilet,” I said. I hugged him, placed the changing pad on the toilet lid then placed him on top. He had this look on his face of “what the hell are you doing to me?” that reminded me of Stewie from Family Guy.

Then he slipped off the toilet seat.

I imagined people in the last 10 rows of the plane hearing his screeching and thinking the worst. Sweat dripped from my forehead while I got him off the pee-covered floor. I cursed United Airlines.

After finally changing my son, I looked at myself squarely in the mirror and vowed out loud to myself, “Never again will I fly alone with my child.”

I know one thing is for sure, next time I see a father flying alone with a screaming baby I will go out of my way to say hello, tell him what my experience was like, and offer whatever assistance I can.

Photo: © Irina Schmidt / Adobe Stock.

At soccer games on Saturday, I’m the dad furthest down the sideline, away from any other parents. I am not chit-chatting with other parents typically, tending to slide in and out unnoticed. While I’m not anti-social, I’m not overly mingle-y during our weekly games. 

It’s not that I don’t like the parents I share virtually every weekend with, but with each passing season, I find myself being less “people-y.” Joining in with the friends-off-the-field type of comradery isn’t me. I guess I’m good with the friends I have and don’t feel a pressing need to make more.    

Most of the time, how friendly I am on the sidelines does not much matter. 

Other times, like on a recent Friday morning, it does. 

With no school because of spring break on Friday, Everett, my 10-year-old, agreed to play in a makeup game across town. My wife and I had work responsibilities that day so we sent our little guy with another trusted soccer parent, Kelly. 

The game began at 10:30 a.m. 

By 10:35, I had missed two calls from Kelly and one from my wife. When my phone rang for the fourth time, I broke from my conference call and picked up.

My wife’s frantic voice didn’t allow me to speak, “You have to get to the hospital now!”

I was confused but assumed whatever was going on centered on the kid outside of our care, Everett.    

“I just talked to Kelly,” she said. “Everett broke his arm and dislocated his wrist. She is taking him to E.R. now. He is in a lot of pain. You gotta go.” 

My minivan had never cut in and out of traffic like it did that morning. As I sped to meet my ailing little boy, my phone rang again, this time from a fellow sideline dad. 

I could tell my son was listening as the other dad began slowly. “Toby, I have Everett right here waiting for a ride to get his arm fixed up,” he said. “He is hurting and scared, so I wanted you to talk to him and tell him that you’ll be here soon, OK?”

For the next few minutes, while speeding down the interstate, this fellow dad and I calmed down my hurting little boy. Then, I heard Kelly’s voice.

“OK, let’s go get you better, Everett. Tell your dad you’ll see him soon!” 

I hung up. My mind raced. 

Mostly, I felt deep gratitude to those parents standing in for me – the same sideline parents I often shun in favor of a quiet patch of grass on the outskirts of the pitch on any given Saturday. These were parents I’d previously stopped short of calling friends. 

Until now. 

Suddenly, the importance of befriending other sideline parents mattered. It mattered A LOT. 

It mattered that the other parents at the field with Everett that day treated him as if he was their own. 

It mattered that they knew how to break the bad news to me and my wife without freaking us out completely. 

It mattered that my son, laying on the ground screaming in pain, could recognize being surrounded by adults he knew and could trust. 

It mattered that I knew he was in good, caring hands when I could not be there.   

This situation has forever changed the way I’ll think about my fellow parents on any team our kids play on. That day I learned any team he plays on needs to have a similar “I got your back” mentality among the parents watching the game. 

That type of sideline comradery does not mean everyone gets along all the time. It does not require getting together socially after the game for beers and wings. Hell, I can even have every parents’ back from my preferred position of solitude on the sideline. 

It does mean, though, that every time our kids take the field, we are there for each other and our children. 

I felt that sense of community after Everett was stable as I stood at the side of his hospital bed. He and I spent the downtime responding to kind texts about how he was doing from everyone on the team. We FaceTime’d with teammates who left the field scared to death at seeing Everett carried off the field crying. Everett reserved a special place on this new, bright red cast for only his teammates to autograph. I felt so proud as he thanked Kelly and that other dad for making him feel OK in my absence.

These are more than fellow sideline parents, each is an extension of us. Making friends with sideline parents doesn’t matter until it does – even for the most non-“people-y” of parents like me.

Photo: © athichoke.pim / Adobe Stock.   

I’m a bit of a pessimist. When I type that sentence, I’m at war with the feelings no one will ever read it, no editor will accept it and no writer will respect it. This defeatist inner monologue is annoying when trying to be creative, but it’s dangerous for a father of young children.

If I were to list all the reasons why I prefer my children to never leave my home, I’m confident I’d smash my word limit entirely too soon. As a parent, you don’t need me to detail the threats looming just outside the door. If the Netflix documentaries I torture myself with are a reflection of reality, for some kids, those threats come from within the home. Then there are the constant threats from strangers and people we trust, from foreign agents and domestic despots. How do any of us let the soft hands of our children slip our grip and find their own way?

Sometimes, I try to satisfy my parental anxiety by quoting statistics. The chance of anything really terrible happening to any one person, at any one time, is extremely low. I accept the truth of the math, but when I constantly feel like I’m white-knuckling a cross-wind landing with a couple of hundred other people, I’m not comforted. Nor am I comforted by the math when I’m kissing my kids goodbye. However small the chance may be, there is a chance I’ll never kiss them again.

I told you I was a pessimist.

Paralysis from parental anxiety costs your kids

I can always find a reason not to go to the zoo — and I love going to the zoo. Traffic is a chronic concern. What’s parking going to be like when we finally get there? We live in Florida, so it will be hot and uncomfortable and the kids will inevitably complain. We won’t stay nearly as long as I want, considering the effort it takes to mobilize our family of five. It’s too expensive to get in. It’s too expensive to purchase anything once inside. The place will be filled with annoying people. People who don’t watch where they’re walking. People who wear purposefully provocative, politically themed T-shirts just to see who might react. There will be rides for the kids, but the lines will be too long. Besides, when was the last time that ride has been serviced? How attentive is the bored teenager operating the controls? And you know what? That polar bear really, really looks eager to swallow a toddler.

A variation of the above paragraph flashes through my mind the instant my wife casually asks, “Hey, wanna’ go to the zoo today?” I often wonder what it’d be like to be normal, or at least open to the possibility that something good could happen.

These defeatist inner monologues are dangerous because the parental anxiety it arouses in me directly impacts my children.

Maybe they’d be signed up for dance, gymnastics or a team sport if I wasn’t so fearful of all the potential pitfalls.

What if the lessons they are missing out on about navigating the complex social dynamics of a team could allow them to be an effective leader when they’re older?

What if my parental anxiety keeps them from falling in love with the pursuit that could define their future?

The amount of untold damage my fears and worries could inflict upon my children is staggering. While I grudgingly accept I’ll likely screw them up somehow, I’d really love to not infect them with this oppressive mind virus that has haunted my entire existence.

Just go do it

If you’re not resonating with the above struggles, then use my words to help you see the silent struggles of many. If you resonate with my words, if this post about parental anxiety is giving you anxiety, then we are kindred spirits, and perhaps, with one sentence, I can help.

Just go do it. Whatever IT is, just go do it.

Listen, if that sentence came from someone who hasn’t been professionally diagnosed with chronic and crippling anxiety, you’d be right to reject it. The mantra of the ignorant is often to simplify the complex. But I have, so I’m offering you something different.

With that simple sentence above, I’m providing you the freedom you’ve craved, and a lifeline for your kids, who, whether able to articulate it or not, are desperate to experience more – more of everything.

The hard part about navigating complex mental health issues is that the solutions are often simple. So simple, they’re rejected. But just because a solution is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. I know it’s hard to go do the thing. It was hard for me to admit I needed help. Hard for me to confess these feelings to my wife, and harder still to walk through the door of a licensed therapist for the first time. I just had to do it.

I’m not diminishing the effort. I’m not trying to make it sound easy. It’s not. But as dads, we have no choice. We have to go do it – whatever the “it” is for you. There’s no magic mantra. No special utterance. Appropriate pharmaceuticals are helpful for some, but they aren’t cures. They’re aids. You, yes you, have to do the work. You just have to go do it.

I’d like to say that over time my pessimism has been cured, but it hasn’t. I’ve accepted there is no cure for all this parental anxiety, but you know what? Things have gotten easier. It’s easier to get out of the door, to say yes to my kids when they want to try something. It’s easier to go to the zoo, and even easier to believe my children will return home safe after school. And as I overcome more and more obstacles, I get closer to believing tomorrow will be easier than yesterday.

Just kidding. I’m still pessimistic, and it’s all still hard. But I’m just going to go do it anyway, and so should you.

Photo: © PoppyPix / Adobe Stock.

“Push on my belly.”

It seemed like such a simple request from my wife. Once I complied with it, I’d never seen her in so much pain, and I had previously witnessed her giving birth to our two children.

After a little more pushing and prodding, it was clear something needed to be done. Was all the pain and nausea simply symptoms of her first trimester of pregnancy? Could it be something more serious, like appendicitis? A doctor needed to access the situation.

We hopped in the car and drove 20 bumpy and agonizing minutes to the hospital. We arrived, checked in, and were sent to triage.

After receiving a CT scan, it was time to sit … and wait. There was not much else to do while the doctors checked the results. Over the course of the next few hours, we flipped through several TV channels and finally landed on the movie Fight Club. It had been well over a decade since I’d last seen this movie. I’d passed it up while flipping through channels many times before, but for some reason that night I was drawn to it. I clearly remember one scene where Brad Pitt’s character (Tyler Durdin) holds a gun to the back of a guy’s head and threatens to shoot him. After a few minutes, Tyler lets the man go. He then goes on to talk about the new appreciation that the man will have for his life:

“Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.” 

This struck me as a deranged but somewhat understandable comment. 

Answers and more worries

Three hours later, the answer was clear. My wife had appendicitis. An appendectomy is a relatively simple procedure (at least that is what I was told) but everything becomes a little more complicated when your wife is 14 weeks pregnant. And things become a lot more complicated when the part of the body where the surgery will be taking place is essentially right next to an unborn child. As scary and dangerous as the possibilities were, the surgery was necessary. An untreated and ruptured appendix would certainly mean the loss of a baby and potentially terrible consequences for my wife as well.

At 1 in the morning, she was wheeled away for surgery.

She returned to the room at 4 a.m. She was not doing well coming off the anesthesia. My wife began alternating between thinking she was the doctor and giving orders to the nurses about her care, dropping F-bombs about the entire situation, and vomiting into a bucket next to her in the hospital bed. Finally, things calmed down. Off to sleep she and I went.

After a few hours of sleep, the next day was quickly upon us. It was time to see what type of stress the surgery had put on the baby and check the baby’s heartbeat. Our doctor that morning was someone that had our complete trust. Just a year earlier he’d delivered our second child and once someone delivers your baby, there is a lifelong bond you carry with that person. Our doctor arrived in the room wheeling in a Doppler machine. He pressed the microphone to my wife’s belly, no sounds were heard.

“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” was all I could say to myself, over and over.

I gauged our obstetrician’s behavior to help me know how to react. He was calm, so I stayed calm. Maybe there was something wrong with the machine. In came the ultrasound machine. After a minute of fumbling around to get it set up, we could see the baby.

The baby was not moving and no heartbeat could be seen or heard. Panic began.

Waiting on a sign of life

So many thoughts raced around in my head. “Calm down, be strong for your wife,” I told myself. “Stay calm, stay calm.”

Again, I looked at the doctor to help measure my own reaction, this time I could see the fear and sadness in his eyes. I gripped my wife’s hand even tighter. What happened next was the saddest moment of my life. The doctor removed his hands from the machine, looked into our tired eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry.”   

There was nothing left to do but cry.

While this was going on, another doctor, a close friend of my wife’s, ran to grab a different type of ultrasound probe. They decided to try a different probe, hoping for different results. Through the tears in our eyes and pain in our hearts, we barely even paid attention to what she was doing.

Then, suddenly, the ultrasound showed MOVEMENT!  

Wonderful, beautiful movement!

Our little baby was fine and kicking away. I have never felt a greater range of emotions than I felt that morning. From the deepest darkest place I didn’t even know existed to a mountaintop high feeling of pure joy. Amazing! Unbelievable! Miraculous! 

We continued to cry, but now it was for different reasons. Once the doctor left the room, we spent a great deal of time trying to come to grips with all that had happened in the last 24 hours. One thing that kept flashing back in my mind was the scene from the movie Fight Club we’d watched the night before. 

Tyler Durden made a good point. Never in my life have I appreciated the joy that is watching a baby move inside my wife’s belly quite like I experienced that morning. And even though it was a stale bagel with a plastic tub of peanut butter smeared on it, Tyler got it right … my breakfast tasted better than any meal I have ever tasted.

A version of this first appeared on Indy’s Child. Photo: © serhiibobyk / Adobe Stock.

The history of humanity is cyclical, and generally, I’ve viewed its nadirs from a safe, temporal distance. It’s a wheel of power-hungry men, only concerned with their own purposes, spinning endlessly for thousands of years. But now, as a nuclear-powered dictator attempts to march across Europe, starting a Ukraine war, I feel its crushing force.

I’ve been holding my phone, consuming too many videos on Twitter of Russians and Ukrainians at war. The wheel grows heavier, spinning faster. The lighthearted jokes about World War III aren’t nearly as funny as nuclear tensions rise and countries across the world are choosing sides.

The last time I felt the weight of war this heavily I was in sixth grade, and my brother was on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. My family huddled around the TV, watching the grainy footage of air raids in Iraq, and the once-distant world of combat and conflict was alive in my home. The sobbing of my mom is still loud in my ears while my dad and I shrugged, feeling powerless to help.

The wheel spun as I learned about Scud missiles in my sixth-grade class the morning after. The wheel spun while we purchased yellow ribbons to tie on the tree. It spun as we bought banners to hang on the house.

I felt the wheel these past two years as the United States confronted a global pandemic with nothing but ideology and dissent, sparking racial tensions, and highlighting social failures we’d rather not confront. We eagerly tear ourselves apart because piss-poor leaders seek to divide us only to serve their own selfish pursuits, all at the cost of us, and all threatening the future of the children to whom we’ve devoted our lives.

War in Ukraine takes lives for one man’s lust for power

I’m not proud of some of the videos from the war in the Ukraine that I’ve recently watched. I’ve seen the faces of the dead.

They seem so young. Just kids. Kids sent to fight either at the service of a dictator or against one, but both youthful victims of war.

These are sons who once only worried about which classmate would pick him for the schoolyard game. These are daughters whose main concern was how long it took to get her turn on the swing. Now they’re the fallen. Blood spilled because the powerful said so.

I’m desperate to know how I can protect my children from meeting the same fate. How can I stop the wheel before it rolls over their innocent lives with crushing indifference? Better yet, I feel one, overwhelming goal: “I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.”

I’m also compelled to confess my hypocrisy. Why haven’t other world crises brought me to this emotional state?

The unending turmoil between Israel and Palestine.

The civil war in Syria.

The genocides and civil wars consuming many parts of Africa.

The concentration camps and genocides in China.

Maybe I resonate with Ukraine because they look like me. Could I be guilty of not having empathy for people of different cultures and colors? Maybe, and it’s hard for me to type that sentence. Maybe the war in Ukraine is scarier because it has the ability to directly impact me — selfishness I’m sad to admit.

Will you break the wheel? Will your kids?

Whatever the catalyst may be, the fire burns, and my rage at the wheel is nearly blinding. My own apathy and inaction will be the demons I’ll confront, but what about my kids? What about your kids?

We’re parents raising the next generation of cannon fodder. How do we protect them from the machinations of geopolitics? How will they be more than pawns in the hands of the powerful? What can we as parents do to stop this wheel and rescue our children, and by proxy all children, from being consumed by the generational inheritance of wars and endless bullshit?

I have no answers, my friends. I’m spent. Empty. Maybe you feel the same. Hug your kids a little tighter today, and every day after.

You know your kids deserve more from you. The world desperately needs a generation with fresh ideas and renewed vision and courage. But can it come from me? Can it be from you? I hope so.

Let’s renew our commitment to the next generation to do our very best to rescue them from our failures. We may not be the first to confront the world’s great challenges, but maybe we can find a little spark of optimism. Maybe that spark can start a fire of hope, one that gives us all the courage to stand up to the wheel, and break it once and for all.

Break the wheel photo: © AlphonseLeong.Photos / Adobe Stock.

We live in an age in which we can’t survive without our phones. We rely on them for everything.

Communication.

Banking.

Exercise.

Music.

You name it.

I’m no different. Throughout the day I’m constantly scrolling, checking my text messages, email, social media and stocks. Every day. Rinse and repeat.

One of my favorite pastimes is looking at the thousands of pictures I have of my son in my phone. I’m constantly taken aback at how time has flown by and how much he has changed in a few short years. He’s approaching his third birthday yet it seems like yesterday when it was my turn to get up in the middle of the night to soothe his crying during those first few weeks of his life. I have photos of it all. I have no doubt I’ll be taking just as many, if not more, pictures when our second baby, our baby girl, arrives later this year.

A few weeks ago during my usual scrolling, I came across some photos from three years ago of me putting my son’s crib together. As a soon-to-be first-time father at the time, I was beyond excited about his arrival. Through these pics, I tried my best to document the process from the time we found out we were pregnant up until birth.

I should be jumping for joy, right?

Looking at the pics of the half-built crib, I did the math in my head to calculate when I was working on it in relation to how far along my wife was at the time. It hit me that in terms of preparation, we haven’t really done nearly as much at this stage of her pregnancy compared to what had been done during our first. The crib hasn’t been built. The nursery hasn’t been painted. The baby shower hasn’t been planned. In many ways, I’m walking around as if a baby is not coming for many months.

This has been bothering me for some time. I should be jumping for joy about this second baby, right? After all, I’m about to be a girl dad. I even told my wife I felt like I wasn’t holding her belly as much as I did the first time around. She’d definitely noticed. The excitement is there, but it’s not where I feel it should be. And where it should be, I’m not exactly sure.

As I admittedly struggle with this, I’m doing my best to give myself some grace. I’m understanding that things don’t exactly have to be like they were with my son. Just as life was different then, life is different now, and that matters. I wasn’t a parent three years ago. As we prepare for our daughter’s arrival, I still have to parent my son as he works his way through his own development. My wife isn’t the same as she was yesterday and that matters as well. 

We don’t often talk about the psychological challenges that fathers go through during pregnancy, but they are very real. The feeling of uncertainty, the irritability, the stress of wondering will everything get done — and will it be paid for. The excitement of being a new dad has been replaced by the indifference of becoming a father of two. And that’s OK. I’ve been reassured by other parents that they’ve experienced similar feelings in their respective journeys.

I have plans to start painting the nursey soon. Once that’s done, I’ll get the crib together. Only this time, I go at my own pace, and not feel bad if I don’t meet some mythical deadline.

And I’ll be sure to take pictures of it all.

Second baby photo: © Rido / Adobe Stock.

I had a conversation with a friend recently about the value of learning about what interests our kids.

“If you don’t know what they’re interested in, then you’re not in a position to effectively offer them great counsel,” he said to me. “You can’t offer advice or insight in areas that you have zero knowledge in. Therefore, even if it’s something you don’t understand, it makes sense to at least explore the subject matter so that you can be a resource to your kids. At a minimum, you gain clarity on where you need to seek outside help.”

This statement really made me think. Why do we, as dads, avoid learning new things? Why do we shy away from certain subject matter or topics?

I came to a conclusion that we tend to “fear” certain things. And that thought process made me think about a concept that’s floated around in various circles — the concept of individuals needing to “study what you fear.”

If we’re completely honest, nine times out of 10 we fear something simply because we don’t understand it. For example, people who tend to fear guns are typically didn’t grow up around guns and have no level of proficiency with them. Once you become proficient in everything associated with guns, one typically doesn’t fear guns anymore. You might fear “people with guns,” but you don’t fear guns anymore. The same thing happens with individuals around water. Folks who tend to have some level of fear around water are typically individuals who don’t know how to swim or are confident in their swimming ability. But once they’ve studied the art of swimming by taking lessons and reading up on it, practiced in a safe environment and become proficient, their fear of water becomes less dominant.

It’s interesting that this is an article for dads because there’s a contingent of individuals out there who fear fatherhood. But, once you become a dad you realize that there’s really nothing to fear. It’s tough, but it’s not something that you need to be afraid of. Most of us have gotten to the place of overcoming our fear of being a father by “studying” the art of fatherhood. It might be more “on the job” studying by actively parenting and talking to other dads than reading books about it, but the reality is we studied what we feared and the fear disappeared.

As dads, we must remember we’re writing the playbook for our children to follow. Kids don’t always do what they’re told, yet they’ll have a tendency to replicate what they see us do. If we want to raise children — and later adults — who aren’t paralyzed by fear, let’s start modeling actions that teach them how to punch fear directly in the face.

So today, I challenge you. Think about something you fear and study it closely. Fear is a natural response to the unknown, therefore I’m asking you to buck natural and embrace it — embrace the study of your fears. You might have questions about it. You may find it’s not your cup of tea. But, the reality is, you won’t fear it anymore and you’ll better understand what others do. You can start this process today by taking a deeper dive into the things your kids are interested in, whether we understand them or not, whether we fear the complexity of the new technology or not, let’s at least try and make it a point to create the habit of “studying what we fear.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Dorsey, known as “Mike D” by many, is an author, business entrepreneur, community organizer, speaker and podcaster. He hosts the Black Fathers, NOW! podcast and founded the apparel company Black Family Apparel. He has author two books: Dynamic Black Fatherhood Manifesto and ABE: Always Be Engaged — The 7 Keys to Living a Fit Urban Life. He can be reached via Instagram, Facebook or email.

Photo: ©TSUNG-LIN WU / Adobe Stock.

I sit in front of my laptop at my kitchen table most weekdays now, writing radio advertisements while my 6-year-old sits beside me on another laptop learning math in Spanish.

Like many things in 2020, that sentence would’ve made very little sense to me a year ago. Yet here we are.

My son sits in his chair, knees pulled up to his chest, watching the screen. His teacher talks about prisma rectangulares and triangulos. I don’t understand much more than the names of shapes, numbers and colors, and I don’t think my son really does either. But it’s the beginning of his second year in a dual-language immersion program, so hopefully he’ll eventually figure it out. As he sits and wiggles and bounces, he sometimes leans over and clutches my arm or rests his head against me.

Our youngest was slated to start preschool this August. This time last year I thought my house would be incredibly empty come the fall of 2020. How wrong I was. It turns out the house has never been fuller.

Not only am I here all the time — that’s nothing new — all the children are here, too. All day, every day. And so is a growing legion of computers and other devices, worksheets, crayons, pencils, textbooks, glue sticks and occasionally a lizard that just stops by to get in on the house party.

In the few moments during the school day that I’m not providing technical or emotional support, I churn out advertising copy for a content mill I’ve started working for nearly full-time. It’s weird work, but it suits me. There is zero interpersonal interaction. I write quickly so I can crank out large amounts of content and earn decent money. I feel fortunate to have the work when so many others are struggling to stay afloat.

However, this year has certainly seen an unusual confluence of events. I started taking on more work because I anticipated having all the kids in some type of school. Then the pandemic came and crushed all those plans.

Safe at home — now and …

So, now I’m working almost full-time, parenting more than full-time, and leaving the house maybe two or three times a week at the most. All around me, I see other people’s lives going on while I’m in the Groundhog Day movie.

I understand most people want to “get back to normal,” but I’m becoming less and less certain there is any type of normal to get back to. The pandemic has laid bare divisions in our communities I didn’t even know existed. As coronavirus case numbers and deaths piled up here in Florida in July and August, I saw acquaintances and even friends pretending it was over. While many people attempted to cling to normalcy, I completely tossed it aside.

At some point in time that I can’t specifically identify, I stopped venturing out not only because it wasn’t safe, but because I just didn’t want to anymore. I know I’ll have to emerge from my bunker eventually — if not for my sake then at least for my kids — but it won’t be easy.

For example, I went inside a store for the first time in nearly six months a few weeks ago and promptly spilled the entire contents of my wallet on the floor at the checkout. In that moment of raw panic while I shuffled my plastic cards around on the linoleum floor as the cashier judged me with his eyes — luckily the incredulous laugh that was no doubt there was hidden by his mask — I determined that I needed to retreat to my house, throw away all the junk in my wallet, and practice doing routine activities for a few more months or years before venturing out and trying to get “back to normal.”

But it’s not just that I’m socially rusty. Many times, I wonder what really is out there to go back to? What could possibly be worth the risk right now and for the foreseeable future?

It turns out I’m getting pretty comfortable in my very uncomfortable kitchen chair, typing away on my computer, right in the middle of everything that really matters to me. It feels familiar. It feels safe. I never have to search for somewhere that feels like home if I never leave my actual home in the first place. If I’m not careful, I could get a little too used to the safety of this new normal my family has created.

Photo: © ajr_images / Adobe Stock.