Todd Patkin and we share a lot of the same philosophy about the importance of dads. It was fun to get a chance to ask him some questions that get at the heart of some of the themes in his new book.
Q: You’ve written an important book that touches on an important aspect of parenting, Finding Happiness: One Man’s Quest to Beat Depression and Anxiety and—Finally—Let the Sunshine In. What is the one thing you think parents should know about your work?
The biggest takeaway for parents is the importance of being happy. I don’t just mean trying to raise happy kids—I mean being happy yourself, and being happy when you’re with your kids. Our children learn to live their own lives by watching how we live ours. They notice when we’re too hard on ourselves and don’t show ourselves enough love, and when they see that, they’ll grow up thinking that unhappiness is an acceptable way to live. However, by modeling what positive priorities, outlooks, and attitudes look like to your children, you’ll give your kids the best chance of growing into content, positive, and fulfilled adults.
We’ve been reading Greg Wright’s new book, Daddy Dates. Daddy Dates outlines Wright’s experience and advice on how to develop real relationships with your daughters as they enter their tween and teen years. His advice: Get off the phone, take time to be with them, and let them talk.”
We like all books that support the idea that you need to do more than just spend time with your family; you need to really focus on who they are and what they are thinking, especially as they go through the difficult years of adolescence. Wright, a motivational speaker by day, has found a winning concept in the idea of Daddy Dates, which is a straightforward how-to book for dads who are clueless on how to approach getting to know their kids. He suggests different “dates” or outings you can go on and how to prepare for them. In classic motivational speaker mode, he even has mini-personality assessments and grids to help you analyze and talk to the girl in your life.
Written in a kind of Haiku-style, with sentences that break rhythmically yet are written in something more resembling prose and poetry. For that reason, 160 pages is probably less than a 100 in this slim tome.
Of all the loves I had before kids, golf was probably the hardest to give up in order to spend time with my family, but I’ve never mourned it enough to spend more than a few Sundays away. … Feinstein is a fantastic sports writer and for any golf fan who lived that year (the year he stayed home to help with the baby?), it’s a good read. … It’s a coffee table-style book with glossy photos of all the horrible things that happen on the course and the funny names that have been given to them, from Zinger to Dunch to Mulligan.
… For a lot of fathers, the Sunday of Father’s Day means taking time to be away from the kids to play golf. … Of all the loves I had before kids, golf was probably the hardest to give up in order to spend time with my family, but I’ve never mourned it enough to spend more than a few Sundays away.
Dude, You’re Gonna be a Dad (How to get both of you through the next 9 months), joins a pantheon of dad pregnancy books. … Dads need to know how other dads live pregnancy and childbirth, and the havoc it wreaks on the “normal” life before kids. This is less a tongue-in-cheek book than one of our favorites, What to Expect when SHE’s Expecting , but it is very readable and well-organized, walking new dads through all the minefields from the first visit to the OB/GYN all the way through the big day and beyond.
… Dude, You’re Gonna be a Dad (How to get both of you through the next 9 months), joins a pantheon of dad pregnancy books. … This is less a tongue-in-cheek book than one of our favorites, What to Expect when SHE’s Expecting , but it is very readable and well-organized, walking new dads through all the minefields from the first visit to the OB/GYN all the way through the big day and beyond.
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