Matching dad/child superhero capes, brushing hair, campaigning for #AmazonFamilyUS, demanding changing tables in men’s public restrooms — all lightning rods of modern fatherhood.
In most homes though, being a dad isn’t always Instagrammable and there are no hashtags capable of capturing the breadth of emotions, skills and tasks many dads are happily responsible for within their family dynamic. I’m curious, what does being a dad in 2015 look & feel like to you?
This is what modern fatherhood looks like in my house:
Me, helping nearly-8-year-old Mouse with her homework and assisting just-turned-11-year-old Bear with her Girl Scout project at the kitchen table…
…vacuuming the entire house, backing my way out of each room to preserve clean lines if only until the kids trample through again, embossing tiny footprints into the well-groomed carpet…
…folding a load of still-warm laundry into piles for each of the three ladies in my domestic care to put away into the appropriate drawers…
…and doing the dishes from school lunches (including Mouse’s lunch bag which was, OMG, so freaking gross)…
…all while watching Champions League football…
…and listening to the new Brandi Carlile album…loudly.
I’m not only happy about all of the above, I consider myself the luckiest S.O.B. in the world to get to have this exact version of modern fatherhood. There’s not a single solitary thing I’d change…okay, that’s a tiny lie, I could very much do without the gross-ass lunch bag slime. And, at 4:30pm when all of this is happening, I probably should be thinking about what to make for dinner so it doesn’t end up in a cereal and bagels breakfast-for-dinner again. Otherwise, I’m all-in on this kind of modern fatherhood.
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