I did not expect this to make me emotional. We picked out this bed as a family, and while she is at school her mom and I put it together to surprise her. When we were done I realized this is a little girls room not a toddlers room. My baby girl is growing up too fast.

Picked up my daughter from My Gym today. It's a little bridge camp we put her in between summer camp ending and school starting.

I walk in the door and before I've taken three steps, a staff member basically cuts me off: "What are you doing here?" Not "Hi, can I help you?" Not "Who are you here for?" And right on cue, I get the death-stare from the gaggle of moms in the lobby.

I tell her that I'm here to pick up my daughter.

She goes, "Well, which one is she then?" Like I'm about to fail a pop quiz and prove I'm the predator she's already decided I am.

I say my daughter's name. And at that exact moment my kid spots me through the interior window of the studio next door, and she SCREAMS "DADDY!" and comes sprinting to the glass.

Case closed. But nobody apologized. No "oh sorry about that." Just an awkward reset like nothing happened.

I'm not naive — I get that these places are trying to keep kids safe, and I'll never be mad at anyone for actually protecting children. But there's a difference between a security protocol and treating every man who walks through the door like a suspect until proven innocent. I'm a big guy — 6'3", 240, facial hair. And I've noticed the bigger and more "dad-shaped" you are, the faster people's brains jump straight to threat.

I've got a bunch of friends who are dads with the same stories. Getting side-eyed at the park. Getting asked "are those YOUR kids?" at the pool. One buddy got followed around a Target by an employee because he was buying kids' clothes. Alone. For his own kids.

I love being a dad. It's the best thing I've ever done. But I'm tired of the baseline assumption that a man in a kid space is dangerous until a screaming toddler personally vouches for him.

Anyone else dealing with this? How do you handle it without either losing your cool or just quietly eating it every time?

“Do you know how easy this is for me? Do you have any fucking idea how easy this is? This is a fucking joke! And I'm sorry you can't do this, I really am because I wouldn't have to fucking sit here and watch you fumble around and fuck it up.”

The speech from Good Will Hunting comes to mind almost every time we interact.

TLDR: My oldest daughter fabricated wild lies about me to her school counselor, and got CPS and law enforcement called on me. Then admitted she lied, and didn't care one bit about it.

This is long, so forgive me... and it is mainly just me getting stuff off my chest since this is something my wife and I aren't wanting to broadcast openly IRL... but fuck, fellow dads.

I have 3 kids - my 16yo stepson, 11yr old daughter, and 5yr old daughter.

My 5yr old daughter has multiple brain tumors (benign, thank God), and she is going through chemotherapy for it because one of the tumors is on her optic nerve and when it started growing, she began to lose eye sight. It was also pushing on her pituitary gland and causing her to grow as much in 3 months as she is supposed to in an entire year. She's been in treatment for several months now, and the tumors are already shrinking.

But, as you all could imagine, she gets a LOT of attention. She constantly gets care packages in the mail; people are always checking in on her; companies and organizations send her stuff, etc etc.

This has caused issues with my 11yr old, understandably. She feels left out. We put in honest effort to do extra things with her, but it does get a bit time restrictive because one full day a week is for chemo treatment, then the next day is a recovery day where our youngest daughter is dealing with nausea and fatigue... I'm in school taking 20 credit hours a semester on top of working, and my wife works full time. But we still do our best to take her out on one-on-one sushi lunch dates, or taking her to Comic-Cons (she's in to anime and Kpop)... we're splurging to take her to a Katseye concert and staying in a nice hotel over night, we signed her up for Hip Hop dance classes and take her weekly... I mean, we try to do as much as we can to make up for her feeling left out.

She's told us she would like to start seeing a therapist for her mental health, and we have been looking... but just about everywhere is either not taking new patients, won't answer the phone or call back, or won't take my insurance. It's been a struggle, but we've been trying.

Friday I had to drive out of town, and my phone went in to Do Not Disturb mode, so I didn't know I got a phone call until I got to my destination. It was my daughter's counselor, and she left a voicemail saying she wanted to talk to me about some "concerning information" my daughter told her. At this point it was well after school and business hours. We tried to call her on Monday, but she didn't answer. We had also already set up an appointment with our PCP so that maybe he could send us in the right direction... and he had us take her to a 24/7 mental health clinic yesterday. They set us up with an appointment with a therapist in a few weeks.

Then... we get a phone call from CPS a few hours later telling us they need to come by.

The CPS lady comes over, and you can tell she is intentionally refraining from looking at me, and is putting 98% of her focus while speaking to my wife, only briefly shifting her gaze to me for like half a second here and there. She finally looks at me after quite some time and says, "I'm going to be honest, there are allegations in this report about you that are incredibly serious. Hardcore stuff. I will let you know the Sheriff's Department has also been informed, and they will be conducting their own investigation."

My daughter told her school counselor that she is terrified to come home because of me... that I make her feel suicidal. She claims I get in her face and scream and have spit flying all over her face. She told them that I body slam my stepson and stomp on him while he's on the ground. She claims she's had broken bones and I've refused to take her to the doctors and make her suffer instead.

It blew my fucking mind. Like, I seriously had no idea how to even react. I raise my tone when the kids are misbehaving and not listening, but I sure as hell don't scream, much less get in anyone's face. I've "popped" her butt one time, and that was like 5 years ago and was the only time in her life... and it was a weak pop at that. My stepson is the same damn size as me and is a high school wrestler, where as I'm partially disabled and old... I'm sure as hell not capable of body slamming him and stomping on him even *if* I was a psycho like that. The worst punishments any of them get is having their electronics taken away, and even then I feel bad and give in after like 1 full day when we told them it would be for a week. Anytime my daughter has complained of being hurt, we have her at the doctor's the very next day. She has had heart-to-heart talks with me well past bedtime many, many times... and I'm always an open ear, and listen to her, and talk with her. I'm not an overly affectionate dad, but I do show love openly, and I definitely don't come anywhere close to even being mean. I walk her to the bus every morning and hug her and tell her I love her and to have a good day. Anytime she asks for something, I do it if I can. Anytime she says, "Daddy, can we talk?" I say absolutely.

I just do not get it. It breaks my heart that my daughter would feel the need to make up such insane, hurtful lies about me being this absolute monster. Not even just lies, but shit that could get me arrested and/or her taken from us.

The CPS lady did talk to my stepson, my 5 year old, and me and my wife. She admitted, "I'm going to talk to your daughter now, and be honest with her that this just isn't adding up. I see abusive households all the time, and this definitely is not one of them". When she came back downstairs about 10 minutes later, she said my daughter admitted to making it all up... but tried to claim her brother told her to say it all. But then after the CPS lady left, she admitted to my wife that that was a lie, too.

The only silver lining in this is that the CPS lady told us the way she is going to write the report should shut everything down, and the law most likely won't even bother contacting me now... but it's still possible. Regardless, the damage is done.

I told my daughter that I need space from her for "some time" and let her know how much it hurt me that she would just blatantly lie like that. My wife, who never cries, was in tears and told her how hurt she is. My daughter just stared blankly at us, and didn't seem to give one single fuck. She just walked off and went to bed.

Sucks, bros. Send good vibes, please. I have a lot of schoolwork today, so not sure how often I'll be able to reply to anything, but thanks for taking the time to even just read this.

For me, I’m so tired of always being the one who checks up on family and friends while no one checks up on me.

Hey guys, we signed our son up for his first youth soccer team through a local youth sports program. We found out late last week that our team still hadn't been assigned a head coach which meant no practice or games until that role was filled. I reached out yesterday and said if there were no volunteers, that I'd be happy to help out.

The league said in their email that they'd be sending resources to help coaches figure out what to do, but it was pretty much all CYA safety training stuff meant for older/more competitive leagues.

My last experience with soccer was ~25 years ago when I played on a youth league. I have not watched any soccer at all since, so I have essentially no knowledge.

I know it's a casual league so expectations are low, but I have genuinely no idea where to start, and practice is this afternoon lol. If you have any suggestions, I'd appreciate them!

Edit to add: This is for a 6-year old league! Should be very casual, but I'd still like it to be beneficial with teaching skills and somewhat structured

This Sub seems like most of it's traffic is about how to deal with the crisis of parenthood and how to deal with all of the complexities and challenges that come up.

And yeah, we need that. Having a kid completely transforms your life and your marriage, and not in easy ways... but oh my god, for me at least it is worth it a thousand times over.

I have what, by most standards, is a pretty challenging kid (special needs and medical issues both) but it's amazing to see him in his joy.

I just got him riding his bike without training wheels yesterday, and the level of joy and pride I feel is incredible, it's something it's really hard to communicate. He's started learning to play the drums, and he is *terrible* and honestly it's like the most joyful and moving music I have ever heard.

He's reading "Calvin and Hobbes" now, and loving it, and sees that he's just like Calvin as opposed to most of the media portrayed kids. And he loves it.

Honestly, it feels like creating the universe. And you look at it, and it's good.

I really hope everyone on this sub gets the moments where they look at there kid, and see that someone with a whole life is in there behind those eyes, and realize what an amazing thing it is that they have done.

The one thing I(25m) was terrified of while this journey started is that I didn’t want to miss my first child’s birth. But it looks like it’s happening now. I honestly feel like I’m a failure and having a bad start as a dad and a husband.

It kills me everyday from within that I can’t do anything about this situation, and I have nobody to talk to about it. My wife has been supportive and says it’s okay but I just can’t digest the fact that I’ll miss being there for my first new born.

My wife(24f) is in South Asia and I’m in the states working on a non-immigrant visa.

She isn’t getting an appointment thx to the major changes in immigration rules and is running out of time as she cannot travel after September.

I’m unable to take off as my company won’t let me and she’s due in late November.

The earliest I can travel back to South Asia to see my kid is in feb and I just can’t help but wait that long

Did any of the dads go through this? How did you all deal with it? Any tips?

I've read the tales, I've consulted the oracle, and yet I'm still shocked at just how fast she got a cold. Y'all weren't lying when you said it hits hard and fast....but she just started 3 weeks ago 🤯

Fellow fathers…I feel the need to seek your counsel. I know I’ll get flak from some and I’ll respond by saying I already have the books so no additional profit.

I’d like to introduce my kids to fantasy like Narnia, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. I’m sure others will come as Ender’s Game sent me into reading in high school. Has anybody introduced these series to their kids and do you have a suggested order? We all know the reward will be watching movies At some point (4/6 y.o. kids).

Please help me introduce in a way that they find wonder and the flame doesn’t get blown out by unnecessary nightmares.

I miss cooking.

Since meeting my partner I've had this drive to cook for her, make delicious meals that she loves and to remove the mental load from her day. Before we had our 3mo old I cooked nearly every meal (bar takeaways/eating out) for the 4 odd years we have lived together. I did it for her, but also for me.

It became a nightly ritual, she'd decompress with some TV and I'd decompress by making something new for dinner or just by making it from scratch. When tomatoes were cheap I'd roast them in the oven, blend them into a sauce with homemade meatballs. I'd make my own curry paste, I'd fuck around because it was brought me joy and grounded me after a day at work.

My partner keeps reminding me that we can have jar sauce and pasta, or frozen pizza. Because however long I'm cooking is more time she has to look after our son, when she's spent the day with him and is already touched out.

I was prepared to step back from my hobbies and I've been okay with that for a while, it's just I'm suddenly realizing that my cooking is another hobby I have to step back from.

RIP my back though

don’t have family nearby to help w the baby i know it’s a lot but i work and doordash on side and am constantly stopping and coming home just to put the baby to bed and leave again, sleeping maybe 5 hours. which is how it is but just feels like she doesn’t care to lighting the load. feel like anyway i steer this conversation it turns into a argument and i love her but want to figure this out. i’m 23 and she’s 22 and our daughter is 8 months old.

edit: yes i said bruh and prolly not the best thing to call the mother of my child but that’s just how we talk i guess.

Hey dads. I'm the guy that asked for support a month ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/daddit/s/kRaIr8KdHM

I want to thank everybody for their prayers, positive thoughts, stories, and words of encouragement. I really tried reading every comment, thank you for saying where you were sending your messages from, I was amazed that they were really coming from all over the world!

Today (after 5 weeks since the illness started) we left the hospital, she's in good shape. Happy, energetic, talkative. From the outside you wouldn't see much that would tell you what she's been through. Maybe her legs and arms are now kinda thin (from staying in bed for 5 weeks and not getting any exercise).

But even if we won the battle, the war is not over yet. We were asked to come back next week for tests. We will come back weekly for the first month, then monthly for the first year, then yearly for the rest of her life.

Right now her kidneys are well enough to support her body and not need dialysis but they are still fragile and need protecting. She is not allowed salt until further orders from the doctor. She must drink 600ml+ of water daily. She must not get sick (sickness and medication put pressure on the kidneys). She's not allowed in malls, in parks with kids, no seeing family and friends indoors, no kindergarten. We must protect her for the next 3 months to give time for the kidneys to recover.

Right now I'm not sure if we're in the 70% that will have a normal life or the 29% that will have something to be careful about for the rest of our lives. Like that farmer in Bluey says: We'll see.

It's now the beginning of the rest of our lives. We now have a different view about what's important and what's just noise in life. We went through hell and managed to come back.

Thanks to all the people involved. From the doctors, nurses and other auxiliary staff at the hospital. To our friends, family, and "village". To everybody doing the medical research and building the medical equipment. To my country/system that helped us without putting us in debt (without insurance we would have payed about 17000 euros, we only paid about 300 euros). To all of you guys (and gals) for sending your energy our way. Thank you for everything.

Even though we‘re all fine and healthy, I miss my two year old every second, at work, at hobbies - like constant.
Deep inside I want to quit everything else in my life just to spend the max. amount of time with her.
I know, sounds crazy - won’t do that.
But does it get better from time to time?
I am really struggling to for example play tennis once a week because that’s time I could spend with her.
It drives me nuts sometimes to get my ass up and actually go to work when she’s at home.
Can anyone else relate?

Summer is fighting back with a stretch of 90+ degree days this week.

And thanks to https://www.reddit.com/r/daddit/s/r7RlYLQHwY this post, i finally had use for scrap 3/4” pvc laying around from destructing a previous owner’s project.

The kids haven’t seen it yet and i plan to add more mix of pieces. This isn’t 1/4 of the scrap pvc and i bought contractor bags of fittings.

Hoping for some fun this week.

For context, her mom and I aren’t together any longer. Her mom lives with her parents, with her 3 kids. They have a pretty decent size house. I’m 29, been on my own since 18, dealt with some drug/addiction stuff in my 20s, but as of the last couple years I’ve been in a much much better spot. I currently own a trailer in a trailer park and my daughter absolutely hates coming to my house. For those three days a week I have her, she’s constantly asking when she can go home and she throws tantrums and fits. She’s only 8, so I understand the emotional side of things can be tough and I try to keep our days full of activities. Her yearning to go home to “her house” (as she calls it) ruins things a lot of time. And it’s not like she doesn’t have a pretty sweet space of her own at my house, she has a freaking couch in her room and it’s decorated to her liking. As a Dad, it’s difficult having my kiddo not enjoying spending time with me at my house. Just because I don’t have a giant house right now and I’m not rich like her grandparents, that doesn’t mean I don’t love that girl a ton. It’s just hurting my heart is all.

My daughter's been in daycare since she was ~6mo old, changing daycare at just over 2 years old. She handled that change really well & now is loving her daycare. However, that daycare is about 20min away & we want her to be involved in her school district. So when we found out her school district offers preschool for her age (3.5yr), we enrolled her. Her last day at daycare is tomorrow & she starts school on Thursday. Im so excited for her, because I think she will excel in the school setting & shes generally excited too. But you can definitely tell shes nervous, & i am too. Any advise from my fellow dad's who've gone trhu this situation already?

Newborn, 8 days in. Wife is having issues breastfeeding, we havent done more than an hour since the hospital because the latch hurts her. Milk production has been low.

We have seen a lactation consultant and pediatrician which all say latch issues are from a tongue tie. We are seeing an ent for a consultation tomorrow.

I'm hesitant to proceed with this surgery. I've read how it can create more problems, causing sensitivity when eating and read horror stories about babies who have seen rapid weight loss from essentially refusing to eat post surgery.

I also dont see the point. I get my wife wants to breast feed, but our baby has gained weight since leaving the hospital, almost back to birth weight, and averaging 16-20oz per day on bottles. I dont think ive seen someone chug like that since college.

Why mess with bottle feeding when it is working so we can try something that you may not like? Her niece had no tongue tie, was breast fed for 2 weeks before her sister was like f this, and went to bottles.

To add, both my wife and I were fed as kids on formula only and both turned out healthy. I get the motherly instinct to breastfeed but neither of us did. If production picks up, let's pour it into a bottle.

Worst case scenario, I could see us proceeding with a surgery, her deciding breast feeding isnt for her and want to do bottles, us back pedaling, and our baby being in pain and not taking back to the bottle, introducing a sleuth of serious problems.

Does anyone have experience with tongue tie, how did the procedure go, what was your motivation for getting it? Would you get one if your only reason was breast feeding comfort but baby was otherwise fine with a bottle and gaining weight?

I need a sanity check. I don't think I'm being unreasonable, but if I am, I'm all ears.

Currently, my wife works weekends 7AM to 7PM (Fri/Sat/Sun). I work during the week, M-F, regular old desk job 8-5. This leaves us in a situation where my son needs childcare one day a week, on Fridays. I watch him all weekend, every weekend while my wife is at work. He goes to bed shortly after she gets home but she gets time with him during the week. Since my wife is pretty tired after a 12 hour shift, she goes to bed and we don't get much time together. It kinda sucks, and I don't like it, but it could be a lot worse so I try to be thankful for what we have.

This is the part that I need advice on. My wife will not, and I mean will not, consider anyone watching our child that is not immediate family. Not even friends we have known for years. She says that she is protecting our son. While I am very thankful that she is invested in our child's safety, this greatly complicates things. To give a concrete example, she thinks that it is reasonable to ask me to drive an hour and a half one way to drop our son off at her sisters place. If this was a last resort option, I would consider it, however she refuses to even contact any of our local friends. This is not a permanent arrangement either, this is just two Fridays coming up near the end of the month where our usual arrangement will be unavailable. Another concrete example is I had to negotiate with my wife to be able to go to church. She used to work F/Sat/Sun overnights, and would get off around 8 AM. We would meet at the 9:15 service where my wife would volunteer in the kids program and always be in the room with my son. It would have been seen as a major violation of trust if I took my son to church without my wife having volunteered. This leaves me alone during service which is kind of lame, but again, I can just be thankful my son is able to socialize and I get to attend service.

Due to the nature of my wifes job, she does see some pretty bad people and hears about some bad things, some of which have to do with children. I am empathetic of this and understand that her fear is coming from a real place, however it puts a lot of pressure on me to always have to accommodate. I've been able to make it work so far but I'm honestly kind of getting sick of always having to bend. I'm also projecting out in the future a bit, as a second kid has been talked about and I really don't think I can work all week and watch two kids all weekend by myself. Could I do it? Sure, I could, but we aren't really a family. My wife recently turned down a week position because of her stance and I can't help but feel let down that we passed up on a chance to be a family. I hardly know my wife as a parent.

I guess a concrete question to end off with, am I being unreasonable in my expectations and just need to stop being a wuss or does this seem off to you? My personal opinion is that I'm not asking much.

Anyway, thanks for reading and thanks for any constructive advice.

EDIT: Our child is two. My wife also wants to home school for the same reasons.

The answer is The Sleepover S01E39 and it’s not even close. But I do have two more seasons to watch

So, I'm very comfortable as a rational physical materialist.. But I've also learned that the world is both larger and smaller than it seems, and funny shit happens sometimes.

Well, we connected today. Things have been a mess... marriage is bad, dad's dying, I just got randomly laid off, and jr. is starting college... and my extended family, who I've allowed to creep back into our lives over the last 15 years or so, and who live near jr.'s new school, have decided to go back to huffing leaded gasoline exhaust or something. We'd almost gotten back to full on "everyone's on speaking terms" levels of familial bliss... But the ergot poisoning has apparently resumed. Other stuff too... lol.. I can't possibly list it all.. even just plans for the trip wouldn't stick.. the entire agenda and schedule changed literally the day we were supposed to leave... 🤷

You know when you're fucking something up, and everything you try to do is a problem? But before you realize you're fucking up, it just feels like you're having shit luck? I was starting to think this wasn't supposed to be working.

But then we actually got to school... no family, no other bullshit... This place is fucking awesome. This is exactly where she's supposed to be. Everything gets settled in, she meets s ton of people, all of a sudden, everything works. I can exhale for the first time in about a week.

Fast forward to tonight. It's the first day of class... In her evening seminar, she looks up at the teacher and he's wearing a tee shirt from the local bar in this tiny little town in Colorado where she went to high school. Next town over from where we live... Population, maybe 1,100? 🤦😂

I know it only means something to two people on the planet, but the world sure can make a person feel down right welcome sometimes.

Other times, less so... but not today.. yet. 😉

Our daughter is 2.5 and it feels like the ability to do anything has progressively disappeared. I really enjoy being a dad but I can’t do anything on my own anymore, and my health is paying the price. I can’t exercise, can’t get enough sleep, can’t recharge, hobbies are all dwindling. I’m not sure I’d do this again if I knew it would be like this even with as much as I love my daughter. I didn’t realize being a dad would be the only thing I was within a few years.

thanks.

Edit: thank you for all of the advice. Recently went to the doctor and have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and prediabetic. I’ve never had any problems with any of that stuff and now I drop into bed completely spent every day. I have no idea when I’d work out, unless I started getting up at 3am.

This has been very validating, thank you again.

So I was reading a book to my son in the bed in preparation of putting him to sleep. His reactions where specially cute so thought it would be a good idea to record the audio to show my wife when she got home. When the story ended we kept talking in the dark about various things.

As an autistic dad I tend to talk about facts more than the traditional things. I talked to him about how rockets work, how large is the moon, how deep are the craters etc.

I made a story where he fell into the crater and found all kinds of cool things in there. Of course he was scared but I assured him I would be there to protect him. And then he said twice: "te amo muito papai!'. Which would be "I love you very much dad!" in English.

Later I realized I never stopped recording so I have it for posterity!

That hit very strongly because he recently said the same thing to his aunt (before me!). I didn't tell anyone but I felt very jealous at that moment. I'm not feeling jealous anymore!