just for dads helping each other

Hi Dads,

I made a post over in [email protected] about possibly consolidating the many dad groups down to just one (at least for now) to encourage activity.

The general consensus was that we focus discussion over at [email protected] because, among some other reasons, it’s the only community that seems to have an active mod.

I hope you’ll join me in posting over there!

I was laid off earlier this month from my job as an HVAC service tech due to lack of work, a first in the 8 years I've been in the industry. I'm looking for work but the mild winter in California has made my job obsolete until it gets hot and I'm feeling ROUGH.

My wife became pregnant with our second child last month, and my hours have been slashed since last October, so money is tight, and our relationship is strained.

I'm considering a career change but I have a couple thousand dollars worth of specialized tools and experience that I'm loathe to put aside. I'm feeling hopeless and I just wanted to reach out to other dads to vent and see if there's other ideas out there.

Not looking for and dadvice here; more of a dadvent. Just had a sweet and apparently normal conversation with my 9yo about stuff going on in their world. Everything is fine; I recognize it as a normal and healthy processing of some shit that has gone down in our family.

I know it's good to listen while they process this stuff, but damn. They way kids can be so brutally straightforward about how fucked up it is. And, it's just what they (we all) have to deal with, and they are doing it.

We had a little talk over dinner and now they're doing their usual evening chill, and I'm rocked! So, like I said, I needed to vent a little. I'm not freaking out!!

(P.s. No, this isn't about whatever truly horrific situation you might imagine. It's relatively mild, but still consequential for our family, and something we'll get through as well as anyone can.)

Maybe this is the wrong place to ask questions about how to be a good parent for adult kids, as I see a lot of questions here are regarding young kids, but I figured I'd ask here.

Long story short, I just got out of prison last year. I was in my son's life for his first 5 years, then I fucked up and got sent away. His mom went no contact with me then. A few years before I got out, I got a letter from my now-adult kid wanting to reconnect.

I am out now, but I just have no idea what I'm doing where he is concerned. He wants a father in his life, but I don't know how to be that person for him. It has been difficult to transition back to the 'real world' and I don't want to fuck up what little relationship we have.

He says he just wants to hang out, but like I don't even know what to say to him or talk about with him. Most of the time he does all the talking and I just listen but I'm worried that's not enough and that I should contribute to the conversation more, but I don't know what to say.

I never had a father figure in my life growing up, so I don't really have anyone in real life to ask (plus it's embarassing and I prefer the anonymity of the internet).

I have no intention of trying to 'parent' him, and I know I'm not role-model material, but he wants to hang out and I feel like every time it's very awkward and weird (we hung out 3-4 times since I got out). Should I just treat him like I would anyone I hang out with (friends, brother/sister), or do you think he is expecting something else, and what even would that be?

Disclaimer: not a dad.

Trying to think of gifts, either items or gestures, for my partner whose birthday is next month. We have an almost 2-year-old, and would love to get the perspectives of dads in the know of what they would love to have at this point. Doesn’t need to be about or involving the kid, but that would be nice too.

Thanks in advance!

In the last six months a lot changed, we moved to a new house, my wife had a baby (girl) and my son turned 4 and started school.

I'm not really sure if this is the reason but for the last month or so, my son has more and more temper tantrums. Basically any time we tell him no, he gets very frustrated and angry. Sometimes shouting or pushing me. It's pretty new behavior and I really don't like it. I have talked to him after the tantrums and he usually agrees he shouldn't behave like this, but so far it keeps coming back. One other thing he does is just ignoring us whenever we ask him something he doesn't want to do, pretending he can't hear us.

The last thing I want to do is be angry or use threads (like I'm counting to 3). But sometimes it's the only way to get him to do something (like getting dressed for school).

I would really want to have a better way to communicate without the negativity.

For me it's if it won't matter in 5 years it doesn't matter now. Kept me from being a tyrant over things like leaving lights on and what not.

For me it's if it won't matter in 5 years it doesn't matter now. Kept me from being a tyrant over things like leaving lights on and what not.

When I had one kid, once she started sleeping through the night fairly regularly, I woke up at 5am a few days a week to exercise before work. With two kids, that seems harder to do. Every time I set an early alarm, at least one kid either has trouble sleeping through the night or wakes up very early, making an early workout difficult or impossible.

My own personal options seem to be to either wake up even earlier and accept the fact that I’m going to be very tired, or try to stay up later and exercise after the kids go to bed (usually around 8:30pm, with any luck…).

So, to the dads that find time to exercise, when do you do it?

For years I was on Reddit and the last few years as a new dad I really liked daddit, it was a very nice community of dads that would share advice and help each other. It's the only part of Reddit I miss and never found a substitute for.

So I hope dadvice can grow into a community like that.

Please share your stories, dad jokes, ask for help, etc.