My wife and I in Georgetown where we passed a goober looking dad and his son. The dad was financially well off, it showed in the shopping bags they were carrying, but he had given up on his masculine duty of virtuous leadership. The man was with his son, a teenager, and the young man has surrendered his birthright. Soft jaw. Bad posture. It always hurts my heart to see otherwise healthy men look like cattle.
I told my wife it occupies my mind that I’ll be an older dad by the time my boy is a teen, as he’ll want to confront me (this is healthy). By then he’ll understand my role in history, so it’ll be OK. He might also rebel. We had a talk about how young men often do that, if they feel dad casts too large a shadow.
My own dad was a good one, still is a good grandpa. Did martial arts with me, pointed me in a good direction or two, but a lot of Boomers were hands off. Gabor Mate wrote an excellent book about this. American parents let teenagers raise each other. “Hold Onto Your Kids” explains why this is a mistake. Parents need to be the center of leadership.
It’s ironic that Gabor is a lib, but the book is a good one for dads to read. It’s a better read than the usual slop and machismo you see among too many conservatives. I tell my boys and girls stories of heroism each day and work to model virtue. There’s often a pause within my own mine. Stories of great adventure, and then a boy grows up and does what?
Nobody really knows, and that’s part of the search. Meaning is the quest in itself. The good news is that if you’re still confused, so is the mega rich guy alone in his thoughts. So is the person you might be jealous of.
Everyone interesting is still figuring out despite how they may posture on this site or elsewhere.
Happy Father’s Day to the dads and if your dad is still alive, be sure to forgive him (absent something truly demonic he may have done) for “he knows not what he does.”
I write about what’s interesting or on my mind, and parenting has been the largest subject of this project. Here are some links to past writing on fatherhood:
The First Six Months of Fatherhood
A man is in trouble on Twitter for expressing something most fathers feel. “Did I just ruin my life?” The responses to this ordinary emotion are revealing.
Does Having Kids Hold You Back?
Good question someone sent in, which went sort of like: “How will I be able to continue my personal development after starting a family.”
Exercise, Time, and Kids
I’m not some Team 5 AM HARDCORE guy. Never was, not even when launching a best selling mindset book in 2015. (It has aged well.) I’m more deliberative. Don’t smash through walls. Find a way to work with yourself.
Daughters and Sons
People commonly ask me how I am raising my daughters, and it’s an amusing question. The subtext is that I’m a toxic masculinity guy. Anyway it’s funny to me, as I don’t have a fixed version of what a “real man” or “real woman” should be. Humans express themselves in various forms, and generally we want to keep our children away from known vices like pro…
As a 32-year old male looking to have kids in the very near future, I truly appreciate all your parenting related posts - both on X and Substack.
There is a lot to be consumed on this topic but with the right moral foundational principles, if you can lead by example and be a guiding force for your family unit in a turbulent world, you can navigate the chaos and raise well-adjusted kids. What they'll all do for jobs is another question to worry about later on, for now, just raise them right. Thanks for sharing your insight and experiences over the years.