I am going through a long and sentimental (bordering on mawkish) ending of sorts. It involves a 20-year-old Coleman pop-up camper.

My wife and I bought it new just after we were married. This was well before we had the twins, well before I even dreamed that was on the horizon. It’s old and worn now, ravaged by time, memory, miles and many backyard sleepovers. I am trying to figure out what to do with it as it’s barely roadworthy.

We were so delightfully young and naive when we purchased it. For weeks we looked at floor plans, considering size and amenities, before finally deciding on a smaller one that could be towed by my six-cylinder Chevy S-10. A smaller size would also make backing it up easier. Truth be told, I suck at backing a trailer. This one proved small enough it actually be hand-pushed into a space when necessary. It never occurred to us we might be camping with twin toddlers or giant teenagers, so we based our needs on just us. It contained no toilet and an interior set up to accommodate just two newlyweds and a guitar.

The camper’s been in our backyard for some time now. The boys like to hang out in it as the WiFi reaches that far. I’ve got to put it down before … well, I can’t.

You see, when we bought the camper, I purchased a nice leather-bound journal. I put it in a drawer inside the camper and vowed to write a bit about every night spent in it. And I did. The writing is not very good, few metaphors or deep insights, but the years are covered, each trip dutifully noted. Through the pages, the boys grow up, I age, the relationship with my wife deepens and a continuity and connection is established. Over the years, it has held the stories and hopes of a young family growing together. Stories of thunderstorms and frightened toddlers, scraped knees and sleepless nights. Hopes for the future in the minds of 6-year-olds and my hopes for their lives moving forward.

I am very glad I bought that journal. It sits to my left as I am writing this right now.

I spent a couple of recent evenings in the old camper, looking through what was in it when I came across the journal. With a curious urgency — fueled perhaps by the beers — I put it with the pile of things to take into the house.

Here’s the thing. The “ending” of that old camper is a new “beginning” for that journal. It is done with its long present and now can begin to show me my past: a past where I hoped for my boys’ future. It is so strange how, as one writes in diaries and personal journals, how prescient we can be. There’s an entry from 2011, written of an early morning at a state park in central Ohio, where I say: “The boys are getting along surprisingly well. They rarely fight or bicker and are good friends, it seems. Who knows how long that’ll last, but I really hope it does.”

How could I know then that, nine years later, they’d still be best friends?

Or, that at the time I was watching the beginnings of what I think will be a lifelong friendship?

How, perhaps, would I know that camping and bonding in the close quarters of that little camper would help that along? Maybe I had helped it through sheer happenstance and in a leather-bound journal I’d noted it. Now I can look it up.

Recently, a fellow father and writer on this website purchased a used camper. He solicited advice from a social media group we are in. I typed a long answer — advice on gear and the such — but I deleted it. The real advice was too ethereal and came from a place I’m at now, a place he’ll get to, a place he already is. Camping, like so many other family adventures and hobbies, is about memory-making. Their worth can only be revealed later. However, at the time you’re making them, you still somehow know that even if you don’t realize it then.

About the author

Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. Bill also coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.

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This blog post, first published in 2020, 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.

Editor’s Note: The author of this post requested, and was granted, anonymity for this article to protect the identity of his family members. This post originally ran in 2018.

When I was a child and having one of my many disagreements with my mother, a retort from her would often be, “Wait until you’re a parent. Then you’ll understand.” Since becoming a dad myself several years ago, I’ve been thinking about that phrase a lot.

Like many contemporary dads, I am a different kind of parent than my father. Broadly speaking, I’m more present than he was in my childhood. The conventional wisdom is that social and cultural norms were different “back then.” We should cut, say a distant father, some slack because of this. Not me.

My father appeared to be a nice, gentle man. He never disciplined me, rarely even raised his voice. But then, I didn’t see much of him. He would leave the house for work before I woke. He would be back for dinner. He often worked weekends.

He never did the school drop-off or pickup routine. Never read me a bedtime story. Never came to a “parent’s evening” to meet my teachers or classmates’ mothers and fathers. He rarely spent time alone with me.

Now, as a father myself, I find this almost unthinkable.

A specific example of how little time my father and I spent together is this: I can count on one hand the movies my dad took me to see. On two fingers to be precise (ICYI: Bronco Billy and Airplane). I’ve been taking my daughter to see movies since she was 3 years old. I’ve lost count of how many hours we have shared together, side by side in a darkened theater.

To me, it boils down to this — I LOVE spending time with her, and sharing in those things she’s enthused about (like movies). My dad’s lack of this in my own childhood seemed at best lazy at the time. But it wasn’t simply that.

Distant father started as a prison dad

When I was a teenager, I discovered my father had been in prison (no one told me — I found some letters in the attic). He was incarcerated from when I was a baby until I was 4. He didn’t see me at all that entire time. In contrast, I spent this equivalent period with my daughter as a stay-at-home dad. When I think of the amazing time I spent with our daughter, the heartlessness of his subsequent decision to not spend time with me is amplified.

It gets worse.

Despite the prison time — for embezzlement — he somehow had a successful career as an office manager. He would often work late and on weekends. Ah, that explains why he spent so little time with me. He was too busy funding our house and home.

Nope. He was too busy having an affair.

An affair that began within a few years of him coming out of prison. An affair that lasted until I stumbled upon it when I was 19. He eventually co-owned the property she lived in. He was living a fantasy second life there, where he didn’t have a family to live with.

There’s a sucker punch. He took out his mortgage with her in my name.

This all came to light when I opened a piece of mail I thought was addressed to me (my father and I have the same first initial). The letter turned out to be about the property he owned with her. I still remember the sarcastic “thank you” he repeatedly directed at me while my mother screamed at him.

The full scale of his betrayal only came to light a few years ago, when he randomly blurted out a confession to my mother (they’re still together) while reacting to a melodramatic plot on a TV drama.

His sorry behavior is alien to me. Abhorrent. I’m supposed to dismiss this as “things were different back then”? No.

I haven’t confronted him about any of it — the lies, the betrayal, his lack of interest in my childhood. He has a heart condition, and I can’t trust myself to not explode at him. But I can barely stand to be around him, and I do my best to avoid speaking to him.

So I simply seethe with internal anger whenever I think of this whole sorry scenario. Fuck that guy. Never be that guy. Never be ANYTHING like that guy. You’re a good dad, I tell myself. That guy is an asshole.

Then I think about my daughter. My amazing daughter. Who I love and adore. And who will never – ever – have a father like that.

Photo: Trym Nilsen on Unsplash

Wisdom can be found wherever you are willing to let it in.

Sounds like a fortune cookie, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I think I made it up – feel free to quote me or tweet it. Even if I didn’t make it up, it’s something I believe very much. Another time when this credo was proven correct recently when I learned the secret is nothing.

One of my sons recently wanted to see the first Kung Fu Panda movie again, so we took the movie out of the library. He even asked me to join him since I had never seen the movie. Bonding time – why not?

Here’s a summary for the uninitiated. For those who know the movie, skip to the next paragraph.

A panda, Po, is chosen to be the Dragon Warrior, the ultimate kung fu warrior. The choice was surprising because up to that point, Po had been working in his father’s noodle restaurant. On top of that, he was big, clumsy, and clueless in the ways of kung fu. Those who had been trained and were excellent at kung fu were disappointed at not being chosen and doubtful that Po was the chosen one. There’s a desperate need for the Dragon Warrior because an evil warrior has escaped prison and is headed toward the town looking to take revenge. Ultimately, Po trains and proves his mettle by defeating the evil warrior and saving the town.

The movie was pleasant enough and had some nice typical child-friendly themes and moments. There is the underdog from humble beginnings who overcomes and ultimately becomes the hero. Before he takes his place as a hero, a problem arises that must be overcome.

Po has earned the title of Dragon Warrior and was given the ancient scroll which he was supposed to understand due to his position. However, the scroll is empty, blank. There was no wisdom to impart. The only thing Po saw was his own reflection. Maybe the whole idea of a warrior was a hoax as well.

Po, dejected, turns back and goes to his father. Sensing his son’s mood, Po’s father tells him the secret to his noodles: “The secret is … nothing.” He explains that something becomes special if people truly believe that it is.

From there, Po is revived. He recognizes the message of the scroll about believing in himself, and he becomes the hero that he was destined to be.

Could that be true of everything? Something or someone becomes special only if a person truly believes that it is. The secret is nothing. There is no secret.

We spend our lives looking, chasing, and seeking. For what? For understanding, for knowledge, for joy.

I take so much for granted including the health of my family and myself. Yet, is there anything more precious than that? If I recognized how special each blessing was, how rich, how content, how happy would I be?

The idea of believing in yourself and appreciating your blessings is not a new one. I suspect every faith and belief system includes some sort of call to believe.

However, despite the simplicity, it’s hard to do. I suspect we’d be more successful if we kept in mind that the secret is nothing.

I have a lot to learn. I might need to watch the other Kung Fu Panda movies. I need more knowledge and wisdom.

A version of this first appeared on Me, Myself and Kids. Photo: © fran_kie / Adobe Stock.

Editor’s Note: We’re digging into our ample archives to find some great articles you might have missed over the years. This Father’s Day recollection comes from 2015.

Until my own first child was born, fatherhood was just what my dad did, and all I had ever done was take it for granted.

My earliest memories are of sitting on his shrinking lap, a slice of jean-covered thigh quickly losing ground between the random growth spurts of a lanky boy and the constant expansion of an ex-smoker’s belly. I sat there for years sharing tickles, snacks and forgotten conversations. There was a montage of facial hair, and I was captivated by its splendor or the sudden lack of it. Everything was long legs and gangly tussles. I nestled happily in the swell of my father’s contentment.

The years stretched and the stories we planted sprouted stories of their own. The days passed, blooming with milestones, lessons, and the fragrant sweetness of life in hindsight. Fond memories wafted down a timeline, always spinning toward what will be and always remembering what has been. The scent was fantastic and the world somewhat dizzy.

We spent days together that grew into weeks, rolled into months, and segued into years as smoothly as you like. I was hanging one arm out the window of a blue and bruised Datsun pickup, home in the welcome give of a worn bench seat, my father popping pistachios in time to an AM radio already out of date. I was bronze and blond, buck-toothed and skinny, and I was glorious against the sinking horizon that we spend our whole lives chasing. My father was a smile in sunglasses, a song on his breath, and he was younger than I ever knew.

The journey also took us through fields of frustration tended with firm hands and cultivated by consequence. There were sidetracks and shortcuts, disappointment, and discipline, but all days ended in sunsets and every morning the sun would rise. There were birds in the distance and a whistle brought them nearer.

At some point, our kisses fell from lips to cheeks to hugs masked as handshakes. The emotions on our sleeves grew heavy and hard to carry. Life has a way of twisting and testing, and it wrings out the innocence with the sweat and the tears, leaving two grown men in the shade of all that we built, awkward with gratitude and loving one another.

I remember the day I called my dad to tell him the news. He was at work in Arizona, and I was states away, sitting in a parking lot with my wife and our giddiness.

“You are going to be a grandfather,” I said into the phone. His joy was instant and electric.

I spent the next nine months trying to examine the examples he had given, preparing to cross to the other side, the fatherhood side of my experience. My wife and I went on long walks through wet, winding woods, and we talked about the things that we would do when the baby came. We were all things but patient, and we walked around again.

“It’s a boy,” I said through more tears than rain. My father had been sleeping with the phone by his side and had answered before the first ring ended. “You have a grandson.”

And then I rambled about the all of it — full of I-had-no-ideas and now-I-sees. I got it, suddenly, like a swift kick to the head I never knew I needed. The road opened wide before me, and the future teased us all with a glimmer, orange and bright, warm with promise and paths untaken. Then I returned to my wife and our new baby boy, him bundled tight and her softly sleeping. The room was already spinning with fatherhood and motion.

Then three years later we did it all again, but this time with dimples.

Now I spend all my days on the dad side of the fence, where the grass is always greener and in desperate need of trimming. It is my lap slowly shrinking and my shadows being cast. We are the stories being written and we are living in our memories.

I don’t see my own father often enough, but I see my boys every day. Their eyes are like time machines, always racing toward tomorrow, taking lessons from the past, and making the most of the now well before it passes. And it turns out, my father is here, in all of that. The next time we meet I will tell him so, and perhaps a small kiss upon the cheek will show him.

Fatherhood isn’t just something my dad did. It is something he taught me, and it is a thing we do together regardless of the miles between us.

And so it goes. The shadows we cast grow longer as the days grow shorter. We wax and we wane. We give love and we take love. That is the way of fatherhood, and I wouldn’t have it any other.

I learned that from my father.

This post first appeared on Honea Express. An earlier version appeared on Safely.com. Main photo: © ivanko80 / Adobe Stock. Other photos: Contributed.

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 2016.

Charlie had to go to the doctor recently. He was not at all pleased about the trip. Our 3 1/2-year-old was in pain and arrived there, with his mom and brother, a hot mess.

Bawling on the floor, he cried like he was getting paid in candy for the tears that hit the floor. It was then that his older brother did something incredibly sweet, genuinely helpful and entirely on his own accord.

He walked over and started asking Charlie questions about Phineas and Ferb.

Phineas and Ferb is something the boys and I watch quite often together as it is as entertaining for adults as it is for children.

“Charlie, who do you think is funnier: Buford or Doctor Doofenshmirtz?”

He thought for a moment and said, “Doof.”

“Charlie, who is funnier: Phineas or Doctor Doofenshmirtz?”

He thought for a second. “Doof.”

The two went on talking about Phineas and Ferb until the doctor called them in.

Brothers: Potential best friend, worst rival

Charlie had gone from zero to crazy meltdown at the drop of a hat but was called back from the edge in the same amount of time just by his big brother making conversation with him. It was something a parent couldn’t have done, but his big brother did it with ease and grace.

In my mind’s eye, I thought about the boys being in their 30s. I hope they are the best of friends when they’re adults. Siblings are one thing; brothers — well, that just has a whole different, deeper and more permanent bond, isn’t it?

I imagine brothers opening up businesses together when they’re older, going on crazy adventures in the backyard or camping with other friends. Brothers, that’s a bond that nothing can break. Siblings are cool and do have a bond, but it certainly varies from family to family. I suspect sisters have the same club as brothers, though. It’s the potential best friend and rival that they’ll have all of their life.

It’s possible what happened in the doctor’s office might have been replicated had they just been siblings and not brothers. Had that been the case it would’ve been cute, too. However, in my “guy” (not to mention, parent) mind, there was something even better about it because it was the two brothers figuring something out and fixing it.

My dad has a younger brother. One time my uncle told me that when he was a child, the only thing he wanted was to be more like his big brother. In response, my dad just shirked and mumbled something smarmy. But that brother bond was still there.

A version of this first appeared on Daddy Mojo. Photo: © luengo_ua / Adobe Stock.

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.

There’s a theme circulating on the Internet right now, mostly related to prom season – dads who threaten their daughters’ dates.

I’ve seen it on T-shirts, tweets, Facebook messages, and other places. The posts usually include a reference to the father’s guns, bullets, and, sometimes, boots. A list outlines the father’s expectations for the potential boyfriend and usually ends with a comment that if some boy mistreats his daughter in any way, then the above-mentioned guns/bullets/boots will be used on said guy.

These are well-meaning dads who want to display their devotion to their daughters, I’m sure. And as the father of a little girl, I get it.

I understand the love you have for your daughter, but let me be clear. If you mistreat any of my sons when they show up to your 1950s doorstep to take your daughter out on a date, you’ll have to answer to me.

I do not take disrespect lightly and that rings true from adult to child. I’m teaching my sons and daughter to respect others, so don’t be a jerk and act like a tough guy when my boys come around your girls.

Because you know what? If you act that way, they won’t come around and your daughter will probably sneak out to meet them anyway.

I get it. I get that you want to preserve your daughter’s innocence. That you want to be the only man in your daughter’s life. But you won’t be. So instead of bragging about how you’ll threaten your daughter’s dates with your guns and the “whooping” you’re going to give that boy if he breaks her heart or mistreats her, teach your daughter:

To stick up for herself and others.

To be wise and independent.

To be smart and courageous.

To value her own image and hold it in high self-esteem.

To make good choices.

To hold on to something that’s worth waiting for (and that means having “The Talk” with them). That’s what I’m teaching my girl … and my boys.

So go ahead and post your blah-blah-blah and that you have blah-blah-blah and you’ll do blah-blah-blah if some guy does blah-blah-blah.

But I suggest, instead, that you quit talking and start raising. (And encouraging, for that matter.) Throwing out ridiculous threats won’t stop boys and girls from doing anything. The best way to protect them is to raise them to make good decisions for themselves.  Have frank discussions about the risks of engaging in certain behaviors and the benefits of waiting for the one that may change their lives for the better. And you don’t want to risk scaring away the person that could do that.

Threaten daughter’s dates photo: © Mdv Edwards / Adobe Stock.

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 2016.

Since the internet and calendar tell me I’ve got a kid approaching age 13, I offer you eight observations that will give you important insight into what you need to know about raising a tween.

1. Your Silence is Golden … Sometimes

I get it, fellow dads, you’re fixers. Same here. But when you’re raising a tween you will find she will go through some stuff that you can’t fix, complicated stuff that she doesn’t even want you to try to fix. Often during this time, a steady shoulder to lean on — literally and figuratively — is all that’s required of you. You’ll know when your sage advice and vaguely related stories of your own youth are needed. That’s when you can strap on your cape and save the day.

2. What are You Wearing/Doing to Your Hair?

Tweens will, especially if they weren’t permitted to have any decision-making power in their “younger days,” push boundaries and your buttons when it comes to fashion. While you should have been granting them this freedom all along, it is important to understand they are trying to define themselves to the world. This is a good and important thing. So pick your battles wisely. Eventually, the “Can I color my hair?” or “Who said you could color your hair?” conversation will happen. Have a spare towel and a pair of plastic gloves at the ready.

3. Watch What Your Face is Really Saying

Michelle Icard nails it in her great book, Middle School Makeover: You may think you are saying nothing while your tween opens up about him or her or them or it but your face is anything but quiet. Raising a tween means paying more attention to your facial expressions than you ever thought necessary. (Listen to the Modern Dads Podcast with Michelle Icard about this very topic!)

4. Smell Like Tween Spirit – Eww

Babies smell like rainbows. Toddlers like every food ever made AND then combined. Tweens … well, tweens smell like sweat and hormones and awkwardness. Water bill be damned, daily showers are now essential.

5. It’ll Inevitably Come Unhinged Raising a Tween

Usually, by using nothing more than a Phillips head screwdriver, you can take a door off its hinges. Keep this in mind if door slamming becomes a part of your life when raising a tween because it gets awfully hard to slam something that isn’t there.

Now for a few things that might fly in the face of conventional wisdom about raising a tween …

6. They’re Never Too Old for a Snuggle

Admittedly, it might not happen as frequently as when they were 5 and maybe not in front of certain (or any) friends, but your tween will still crave a good snuggle and they won’t necessarily refuse a hand to hold while walking into a concert with you either.

7. You Can’t Spell ‘School’ Without ‘Fun’

OK. None of the letters in “fun” are found in “school” but tweens, while obviously growing up, are still kids and kids like having fun. That’s a fact. It’s important to remember not to strip all of the school time fun away just because the kids are starting to look like mini-adults.

8. Toys are Still Fun

It’s not all texting and dystopian books with tweens, or at least it doesn’t have to be. Littlest Pets, Matchbox cars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Legos, Minions, and more: pop culture toy icons don’t fade away when a kid turns 10 (only to return a decade later when that kid is suddenly a hipster 20-year-old). They are still fun and if given the opportunity to enjoy an elongated childhood, your tween can and will still be a kid.

A version of this first appeared on Out with the Kids. Photo: © Alinute / Adobe Stock.

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 2012.

As the father of a 13-year-old self-proclaimed Satanist, I can honestly say I’m proud of my son, Noam.

His beliefs are at once jokingly provocative and seemingly serious. He says he doesn’t believe in God but does believe in Satan “because Satan is cooler. And if you think about it, Satan is actually ‘good’ because he’s punishing bad people, right?” He’s got a point. To me his being a Satanist is like a person trying on a wild-looking hat out in public, to see what the reactions will be.

That said, Tamara, my son’s mom, no doubt contributed to Noam’s professed beliefs. He was raised on a steady diet of Tim Burton films, like Nightmare Before Christmas, and horror classics that cherish the macabre. Noam’s favorite toy at age 3 was a doll named “Spooky.” It looked like a chubby vinyl black teddy bear with a simplified skeleton printed on its front.

For at least a year, Noam also towed around a two-foot-long creepy-looking Frankenstein monster doll with a grotesquely large head, its veins popping out left and right. At age 3, the doll was practically the same size as he was.

Today, at 13, he now has a tendency to draw zombie clowns and multi-horned devils. So should I really be surprised when my son announced his Satanism? At least he is showing conviction, right?

Tamara is also the daughter of a Jehovah’s Witness. She wasn’t raised that way – her mom converted only a few years ago, possibly at the behest of Tamara’s grandmother who has been a Jehovah’s Witness for decades. I bring that up because it’s interesting to witness, if you will, the disruption, variety and rediscovery of beliefs all in one extended family. Tamara and her partner – Noam’s stepdad – do not practice any religion. But as far as I know, they both believe in God, just not organized religion. And Noam spends the majority of his time living with them.

I came into my own non-religious or atheistic tenets at around the same age as Noam is now. As I studied for my Bar Mitzvah I questioned the fantastical stories of the Torah. The tales are such an intrinsic part of Jewish life that they are retold year after year, holiday to holiday, and every day in between.

After years of Hebrew school, in which I barely communicated with the rabbi, I distinctly recall wandering up the synagogue’s back stairwell toward the offices to speak with him. I walked down the dimly lit office hallway, where the tiled floors were angled to point toward Jerusalem. The rabbi, a kind but distant man, invited me in and asked me what I had on my mind. 

“In the Torah, it says that the flood that Noah escaped killed everyone else in the world. Does that mean we descend from Noah and his wife, not Adam and Eve?” I asked.

“Well, probably at that time it felt like the whole world was flooded, but it was just the area around Israel,” he replied. “Besides, they are just stories that are told, they are metaphors.”

“Oh,” I said.

My nonbelief was solidified that day I finally had the courage to question the rabbi.

I can only imagine that this disjuncture of shared beliefs within a family system is increasingly common in an era when co-parenting or split parenting is prevalent. With that in mind, I admire Noam’s questioning, searching and playfulness as he discovers the world around him and what beliefs he will hold onto as “the truth.” Even if he is a Satanist.

About the author

Fivel Rothberg is a New York-based father, media maker, producer, educator and activist. He is not a satanist.

Photo: ©  Andrey Kiselev / Adobe Stock.

In a few months, I’ll be able to once again hold a newborn in my arms. This time, a sweet little boy. I’m looking forward to the moment I get to meet him. But being the planner I am, I needed to make sure I felt prepared for what that meant. I knew how to be a dad for a girl, but could I do so for a boy?

As someone who’s taken a deep dive into feminist issues to be more conscious of how to raise our daughter, I felt a little intimidated by what it would mean to raise a boy. 

When I bring that up, everyone tells me raising a boy is easier or it should come so much easier for me to father a boy than a girl. A 2018 Gallup poll of Americans even said 2-to-1 that they thought raising a boy is easier. But if that were the case, would men’s mental health issues be as prevalent as they are today? Doesn’t the way society dictates gender norms have a lot to do with the commonality all men feel in our resistance to sharing our true emotions? 

I know how much impact toxic masculinity can have on a child. I know its effects can stay long through adulthood. I’ve worked on my own traumas relating to that in order to make me better for my family. But how can I prevent my child from being damaged by this and repeating a cycle? 

I don’t know the answer yet. I suspect the reason this is even an issue is we are quick to box what we expect from each gender at such an early age. I’m doing it now, but I am trying to learn to parent without expectations of who my children will be. We have to let kids be.

We need to be careful not to persuade them to like certain things simply because they are male or female. As responsible parents, we must give them the environment to explore whether it’s playing in the dirt or with dolls. Kids like what they like (I tried preventing my daughter from liking princesses, for example, but she’s all about it now).

Also, I know that the learnings I’ve had regarding feminism and raising my daughter should only be amplified for my son. Raising a child on empathy and respect should be a priority, regardless.

Finally, I know that there’s so much more to learn. I’ll need to keep up my self-education. By learning more about men’s health, feminism, gender identity issues, and doing more self-work, I hope that I can continuously be better, for both my son and my daughter. 

A version of ‘Raising a Boy’ first appeared on Being Papa. Photo: © kieferpix / Adobe Stock.

When it comes to dynamic duos, Batman and Robin of Gotham have nothing on Led and Jake Bradshaw of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Led, 48, a professional comic book illustrator, and his son, Jake, an 11-year-old with autism, have bonded over superheroes and comic books. But flash back to nearly eight years ago, when Jake was first diagnosed — Led wondered what the future held for his son. He worried about their relationship. He knew nothing about autism but began reading everything he could and asking therapists and other professionals lots of questions.

While scrolling the internet, looking for the latest sci-fi and comic book news, he came across a reference to art therapy and its impact for children with autism. Led, who began drawing at age 3 and never stopped, would add drawing for 25 minutes every day to Jake’s routine. Colors were used to express emotions. Led would engage Jake and ask why he was happy, angry or sad.

He beamed over his son’s obsession with superheroes, reminding him of his younger self. Jake had a speech delay but Led indicated he didn’t recognize it as a sign of autism. Art, something Led was totally at ease with, could help Jake express himself, even without words. He empowered Jake to draw himself as a superhero. That’s when things really took off.

Jake Jetpulse: A superhero with autism born

By embracing Jake’s passion, while luring him into learning, they have created a series of comic/workbooks, The Adventures of Jake Jetpulse, that gives readers a glimpse into Jake’s life on the spectrum.

The villains and monsters in Jake Jetpulse comics are from Jake’s nightmares, Led said. Jake would draw them and name them. To fight off the monsters, Led made “monster repellant spray.”

“I didn’t know what I was walking into. I was just being an attentive dad,” Led said. “I’ve created the superhero universe with him. The stories come from his experience, and I draw to bring it to life.”

Little did Jake realize, he was reading and learning while gaining more confidence. His teacher at school, at the time, shared the comic and activity books with other children.

“If you’re diagnosed with autism, that’s not bad,” Jake said. “It’s OK. You’re still unique and you can do anything.”

Working on social skills at school

Jake brings his creativity and his love of writing and drawing to his classroom at AHRC New York City’s Brooklyn Blue Feather Elementary School.

If it was up to Jake, “he would sit and draw all day,” said Rose Dorcia, his teacher. He is friendly, sociable, talkative, and very inquisitive, she added. “He reads very well, with good pronunciation and he understands most of what he reads.”

Like other children on the spectrum, Jake struggles with social skills. Rose said he’s learning how to approach other children if he can join their activity in an appropriate manner. He’s also working on reading body language, she said.

Led also continues to learn, every day from Jake. By encouraging Jake to pursue his special interests, he has learned to communicate better with him.

Led’s tip for other parents of children with autism?

“Do everything you can to be the best advocate for your child,” Led said. “Establish relationships with therapists and others who work with your child. Ask them, ‘What can I do at home, so my child doesn’t forget this.’”

And most importantly, he added, “make things fun.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

AHRC New York City is a nonprofit organization that advocates for people who are neurodiverse to lead full and equitable lives. It helps more than 15,000 people annually, and calls for better education, living arrangements, prospects for work and fuller lives in the community for the neurodiverse.