What Dad Needs on Father’s Day (It’s Not a New Brisket Smoker)

The past eight years I’ve spent a lot of time around fathers. As an at-home dad and organizer of a local dad group, I’ve spent time with dads of all stripes, both at-home dads and dads who work outside the home. I’ve listened as they’ve shared the joy and pain of fatherhood, the ups and downs of marraige, and the stress of attempting to balance all of it. I’ve had the privilege of access to the inner world of dads, a place often sealed off.

Listening to dads share their struggles and frustrations on the playground or at the park or at story time, I naively expected to unlock the mystery of modern fatherhood. I expected to fully grasp the role of the contemporary dad. This seems silly and grandiose in hindsight because the mystery of modern fatherhood isn’t mysterious.

Listening to the hearts of dads has challenged my assumptions of modern fatherhood. Perhaps the biggest assumption undone is that modern fatherhood is a mysterious realm only understood by professionals or researchers. There’s been a lot of discussion in recent years about the role of fatherhood being “in flux.” Much ink has been spilled discerning the new role of fathers as gender roles have loosened. This approach has created a view of fathers as an elusive, complex creature only understood by deep analysis.

I’m not a professional observer of dads, nor have I dove deep into research, but I can tell you what I see from the ground level, from the trenches of modern fatherhood.

The truth is dads are not a mysterous breed; we share the same worries, insecurities, fears, and frustrations that lie at the core of human experience. On a basic level, dads deal with the same emotions every human being experiences. And without denying the unique challenges of motherhood, I remain convinced mothers and fathers have far more in common than differences. Besides a few unique factors, I found few things unique to modern fatherhood.

Thanks Captain Obvious!

I realize my observations are less than interesting. It would be more insightful to reveal a new angle of modern fatherhood. Sorry to let you down. Perhaps the insight to be gained is we’re making things too complicated. Understanding what dads are thinking and feeling doesn’t require a secret code, but it does require a safe space.

For Father’s Day, your dad doesn’t need a new smoker or power tool or necktie. Sure, those things are nice but a real gift would be space for your dad to be a full human being with full emotional range, a space to openly struggle with insecurities, fear, anger, ego, pride. All the things that make us human.

Mothers seem to find these spaces of support easier than fathers. Dads need help. What are you willing to do to make space for the fathers around you to share their interior life?

What does this space look like? It can be the couch in the living room or the front porch or the dining room table. Maybe its a hike in the woods or poolside or a trip in the car. The space can be whatever you prefer but make sure its a space attentive to what’s stirring inside dad.

This Father’s Day lets retire images of dad as stoic protector and provider who always keeps his guard up. Instead, lets make space for dad’s interior life and ask simple questions: how are you feeling or what’s going on inside you?

The interior life of a dad isn’t a mysterious realm that can’t be penetrated. Sure, I get that sometimes it feels this way. And I get that men are conditioned to hide feelings. But this doesn’t mean what’s stirring inside them is foreign.