I love this guy, easily my favourite minor character.

My child treats this as the snack of champions. I’m about to find all those damn tops all over the goddamn house!

As I walked through the store, my toddler from the shopping cart asked, "Daddy? Music?" Which surprised me because she's really into princesses 👸 and I look at records last...then I see it. Lol My collection is now complete.

What is everyone listening to with their kiddos? Other than the obvious, she's been taking a liking to my blues collection.

I have two children (4 and 7)with my and Ive just been taking it one day at a time and just going though the motions, My wife on Sunday told me that she is has fallen out of love with me and she just feels sad and numb and she doesn't know if we can come back from this, my heart is obviously shattered and I have been an emotionally mess the last few days.

Her reasons were that she has been pleading with me to help more with the domestic load and to be present for the kids, Ive really been struggling with keeping off my phone and all I ever seem to be able to do is just go on my phone while i'm playing with the kids and not being present. She also has been doing the majority of the housework such as washing, making bed getting kids ready for school and all the admin work that comes with having kids at school.

We both work full times jobs and I suppose I have just become complacent and didn't put enough effort into our relationship as she has told me previously she didn't feel appreciated or seen.

We did have a conversation 2 months ago about the unevenness of the domestic duties so I made an effort to try and help take some of the load off her, which I know I should have been doing in the first place.

After our talk on Sunday I've deleted all social media apps and made a screen time lock which I don't know the password for. Ive promised I would wake up early to get the kids ready for school and also do as much work as I can around the house.

I fucked up and I will regret it for the rest of my life. I cannot believe I was so dumb and didn't recognise how serious it was.

I have booked up in to couples counselling this week but every time I try and ask her if she wanted this to work or could we fall back in love together again she just replies she doesn't know right now and she just feels sad and numb.

My mind is a mess right now and I just want someone to tell me that its going to be ok and we can make it work. I will try my hardest to not let me family down again. please some one tell me they've come back from something like this. I am willing to do anything to make it work. I hope I haven't left it too late and we can come back from this.

Thanks for reading everyone, I really needed to get that off my chest.

I know this definitely because its my 2 year old favorite at the moment and I've read this book like 200 times now, but everytime I read this book I hate the messaging more. It feels like the goal was a story with a wealth redistribution message but it comes across as "Hey, give me the part of you that makes you special and unique or I'll tell everyone to hate you". This one used to be one of my favorites as a kid and now I can't stand it. I know it ain't that deep but still.

Edit: just to clarify, I really am enjoying the discourse on both sides, ultimately it's a kids book and I know Im going very "Old Man yells at cloud" so I hope everyone is in that same spirit

my wife and i have a newly 3 year old and things have not been good for my wife and I for the last 6 months or so. she recently went out of town for work for a week and i cant help but feel like she actively makes life harder.

in our day to day my wife doesnt clean much or cook dinners. she also doesnt really like to soend solo time with our son.

- in the 3 weeks before she left i cook 4 days a week and do dishes 4 days a week. In that time she has not done dishes nor made dinner. She goes on these stretches alot.

- despite this she says things like , "uhh the house is a mess." or she told her mom, "we've been really bad about meal planning and cooking." like dude! if she did equal to me, we would be golden. and it makes me so mad. like Im trying my best to keep this family functioning and your just talking shit.

- she also really likes to sleep in so i often will take our son on solo outings on weekends to give her the ability to sleep in. over the last month ive done 30 hours of solo time with our son. She took him to target once for 40 min.

- anytime i get sick i still get up on the weekends and parent. if she gets sick its like she gets a freebie weekend.

- she goes through bouts of depression which require alot of partner support and reassurance. which is fine, but with everything else im doing its at a point where i'm like , "fuck there goes the freetime i might of had after the baby goes to sleep."

- i set boundaries with our son. he wants to climb in on the opposite side of the car and get in his seat that way. i tell him no and she lets him. i tell him no extra songs at bedtime when he tries to delay bedtime, she lets him. then those behabiors bleed over to him doing it with me also.

- whenever i bring up the uneven home duties, she completely denies. she tries to tell me she has been doing dishes i just didnt noticed. even though ive been keeping very concious track of the dishes.

- we get a babysitter for 4 hours a week. i usually spend that time doing yard/housework. taking our family laundy to a laundromat. getting both our cars oil changed/washing them. she usually goes to a coffee shop with her work friends.

- we are only having sex maybe once a month

- i think she gets jealous of me doting over our son. and i admit because of the above i havent felt much like doting over her.

- not that this matters to me much, but gives context to the situation. im the main income earner(300k) but she makes good money too(100k)

I'm just so tired and the week without her, though it was alot of work and all my time was still spent on my son, still just felt lighter. I get sad sometimes thinking i'm never going to have someone that takes care of me. my parents werent super helpful other than feeding me till i was 18 (which i know is more then some get). and now my wife feels like just someone that im taking care of too. I 100% believe if i ever became ill she would probably bounce. Im going to say this as a thought thats passed but not something id ever think of doing, and dont want this thread to turn intto that. but you hear of these guys that were great caring fathers that kill themselves. you think how could such a caring father do that. but lately i just kinda think, ya i guess i could understand. dudes were probably just so tired.

i dont want my son to have a broken family. and she is my best friend. i do love hanging out with her but man this last 6 months is changing how i see her. Anyone been here? is this just an endurance race and when the baby gets older will none of this matter? should we just throw money at it and get more babysitter time? i feel bad for our son cause he always wants to spend more time with us. is therapy worth it? i feel like it most things focusing and thinking about the bad stuff usually doesnt help, but maybe therapy is different? my only experience with it was after deploying in the military and it was kinda the worst. are my feelings for her too far gone? can i love her again after all this?

Found this interesting so I thought I would share, idk about you guys but growing up I genuinely thought my dad was the strongest man in the world, looked like he was built out of brick 6 ft 2 and strong, ex-military type of guy, sporty all round great dad to have he had his vices, but loved him, he passed away when I was 20 (now 37) I learnt enough from him but still missed out on heaps, have been a full time fire fighter for a number of years now and consider myself pretty strong and sometimes I’ve wondered if I would be stronger then him, I have 3 kids of my own and sometimes my kids have said the same thing “wow dad your so strong etc” anyway, he passed away in a motor vehicular accident and some of his belongings got put away by my mum, and just forgotten about (we keep his memory going but this one bag just got forgotten, and it was his belongings from the dad of his accident) , anyway I found the bag doing a clean up and had a look through it in there I found his omega watch his pride and joy,

Anyway I put his watch on and it doesn’t fit my wrist, it has about a 3rd of an inch gap at the bottom, that bastard must’ve had some massive forearms anyway. Just thought I’d share my dad was my hero and still is, it was his birthday yesterday he would’ve been 73 years old miss ya mate.

TDRL: I thought I was stronger then my dead dad until I put his watch on

Yes I know the title sounds bad, but hear me out.

I do not preach toxic masculinity here. If he’s hurt, or sad, or has a legit reason to be disappointed? He can cry all he wants. He’s 5, I know he’s going to be very emotional, and a good cry is healthy for any man/boy, and dad’s gonna comfort him and help him through it.

But he’s stuck in this mode of constantly, and I do mean constantly, giving up and collapsing to the floor to cry the minute he’s met with any challenge. I don’t mean he gave a good try and lost and he’s upset, I mean:

I put my shirt on backwards by mistake? Cry.
My twin brother is riding his bike faster than me? Cry.
I tried to catch a ball and dropped it? Stomp off crying.

Very small things like this set him off, which mystifies me because I have seen this child full on crash at full speed into a brick wall, cry for maybe 30 seconds and then get over it and go back to what he was doing. It’s emotional whiplash of the highest order.

I just worry that he’s in school now full time. I don’t want him to be socially isolated because he’s the kid that cries over every minor issue, or because he’s stomps off from games when he’s losing/other kids aren’t following his made up rules.

Am I overthinking this? Is there something I can do to help him get back on his feet and try again rather than give up every time it’s hard? Or is this a problem that will self correct as he is around his peers more. His twin doesn’t have this issue (or at least not nearly to the same degree). Any advice?

Your wife wants to remodel the living room or your kids want their bedrooms painted or remodeled? Or fixing toys, cars, appliances, etc? How do you balance the time to do complete the projects you were asked to do without over burdening the other parent?

Just like that wooden block xD

Hey dads

We have not always been the best about guarding the kids online habits. After a few incidents, we have stepped up our involvement with better parental controls and clearer rules for them.

But our 14yo was a big user of one of the character ai style chat programs. Basically a virtual friend that will roleplay with you. This is no longer allowed for a host of reasons: AI psychosis, stunted social skills, generative ai being bad in general, the list goes on.

But none of those reasons are really resonating with the 14yo child.

Does anyone have kid friendly resources or advice on how to respond to the consistent requests for us to allow the apps?

11 months ago, my wife and I experienced the worst moment of our lives with a miscarriage. One month later, I looked for support from this wonderful group, and you gentlemen did not disappoint! It gave me the confidence to support my wife the way she needed, and we got back on the horse the moment we were medically cleared. I am beyond happy to share my chair photo with you fine gentlemen this evening! Thank you all for being the best reddit has to offer!

I’m the dad of a pretty talented 11yo baseball player. A few days ago we were playing catch in the back yard when he asked me a simple question,
“Dad, do you know what my favorite part of baseball is?”
“No, what?”
“Playing catch with you.”

I just about lost it.

Any other baseball/softball dads out there?

Edit: added softball

Hi All,
Any experiences you can share on getting HFMD from your little one? My rash just showed up today on my palms and face, what am I in for.

Thanks fellas.

Well, he's not yet my future son-in-law, but he could be. My oldest daughter doesn't date a whole lot and she's gotten pretty selective with who she gets her time and attention. This is the first time she's had a steady boyfriend since high school. She's 22 and working on her graduate degree. The fella is a year older. I'm the last one of the family to meet him. Her mom, step-dad, and sisters have already met him. (I'm sure she's saving the best for last.)

I'm a 55yo, low-pressure dad, so I'm not going into this introduction planning to grill the guy. She's an adult and can make her own relationship decisions. This intro just feels kinda special to me. Like, this guy could indeed be my son-in-law one day. It's making me feel a way. A good way, of course. It's new territory for me. How do I behave? What questions do I ask and don't ask? How much do I need to talk up my daughter to him? I don't want to embarrass her, of course.

Whatcha got for me, daddit?

Daughter(7) has decided she's pursuing art. She asked me to teach her how to draw and I gave it an honest shot with a dinosaur. She looked at it for a long time and then said it's ok dad in the voice you use for a dog that just threw up. I want to be able to teach her more about art the way I taught her sports. Honestly I would love to get better alongside her. Any girl dads been through this? Books, YouTube, classes, anything we can do together on weekend morning?

I guess dad jokes and humors truly comes with age and being a dad….

Credits to beetlemoses from Instagram

I work full time, my wife is a stay-at-home mom. We have two kids, 8 (3rd grade) and 5 (starting kindergarten next year). The 5 year old stays home most days, but my wife brings him to various ECFE classes and speech therapy and other things during the week.

I’m trying to figure out what’s “normal” to expect outside of the time where I’m working.

Here’s a general idea of our routine:

When we wake up, we each help one of our two boys get ready (making sure they get dressed, brush their teeth, eat breakfast, school lunch packed, etc). Then my wife takes the kids to drive the big kid to school, and I head off to work.

When I get home, we trade off making dinner each week. So if it’s my week, I’ll get that started basically right when I get home. If it’s her week, I’ll relax a bit and veg out on my phone next to the kids while they play. Then after dinner, whoever didn’t cook does the dishes. Then we all-together try to tidy up whatever clutter has accumulated throughout the day, and then we trade off bathing the kids (same deal as in the morning: I take one kid, she takes the other, then we swap who we help each night). We get their teeth brushed, PJs on, and read to them, tuck them in, and stay with them until they’re asleep (or close to it). On Wednesdays, my wife has a book club she goes to so I manage bedtime w/ the kids solo.

On the weekends, we usually have some kiddo related activities. Swim class, soccer games, etc. we both attend the vast majority of these, but maybe once a month my wife has a thing with her friends so I end up doing something solo.

As far as other chores, I do all my own laundry, she does hers, and we try to split the kid’s laundry but she probably ends up doing 75% of it. We try to set aside one “deep clean” day a month where we scrub surfaces, bathrooms, etc, and I try to tackle whatever home maintenance tasks need tackling (light bulbs, fix broken stuff, unclog drains, etc)

My wife is usually the one to schedule stuff for the kids. She signs them up for camp, soccer, etc. dentist appointments, check-ups, and stuff like that.

When I explain all this to different friend groups, they tell me I’m doing too much, and my wife’s friends all tell her that I don’t do enough. I honestly don’t really care what our friends think, since we have something that is working for us, but it does make me wonder how different households handle this stuff. How does this compare to what you guys all do?

For the past 4 years, we’ve been having our son’s birthday party in the lounge at the top of our apartment complex. It’s a beautiful space and overlooks the city. It’s just fantastic.

Each year I set up the Nintendo switch on one TV and the PlayStation five on the other TV and then I put a little mini basketball hoop on the door and then board games on all the different tables. It’s a simple set up yet super effective.. or at least it used to be.

This year he is turning 13 and in 7th grade.

Similar to last year he had about 30+ friends show up. Quite a few of them never RSVPed and I had no way to talk to their parents because I did not have their numbers which made part of this hard.

On top of that, I did not account for puberty and how big and extreme these kids would be. It was so loud, the kids were running so crazy and doing way too much. Screaming their hearts out and just being absolute chaos.

They did not care for the board games. They only wanted to trash talk each other on the video games, which was pure chaos. And they also wanted to wrestle which carried its own set of issues.

One kid left the party in tears because other kids were making fun of him and upset him while another kid recorded it. I had to shut it down walk the kid to his car and then come back up and make the other kid delete the videos off of his phone.

A little bit later, two kids got a fist fight altercation and were calling each other derogatory names and being extremely violent with one another. Kid 1 tried to leave the party and walk home and I had to physically hold him and keep him there until he calmed down. I took him back to my apartment and let him pet our dog and just talk to him until he felt better.

Then after all the kids left, I ended up calling three different parents just to talk about the situation making sure everybody was OK and apologizing. Luckily all of the parents were really cool and kind of chuckled at the situation.

All kids are gone, my son had a fun time in his own eyes, but he could tell I was stressed. He said the craziness stressed him out too.

He also said to me later at the house, “I know you told me puberty would make me feel a lot of emotions, but I didn’t really believe it until I saw how chaotic and aggressive all my friends were in the party.”

I made him text his friends that got in fights and wish them well and sorry they had a rough time.

Overall, stressful day, good birthday party? Next year, 5 kid limit and a more involved activity like an escape room hahaz

Edit: My son has had almost every single one of these kids at his party the past 4 years which is why we did a 5th. Its never been as issue. Very reasonable and fun. This year was just different and I am chalking it up to puberty hitting hard. Most of all of these kids I know by name. Typically we have atleast 5-8 adults helping monitor.

The two kids got in a fight ending up finding each other at the end of the party and hugging and saying sorry to one another. They've been friends since 2nd grade with my son. They are extremely sweet typically so this was obviously a surprise

My world is getting smaller and I seem to have forgotten how to sustain friendships. How do you do it, fathers? What, if anything, has worked well for you?

I thought I knew math but 3 kids is twice as much as 2. It's too many kids and it defies the laws of nature.

Long time reader, First time poster.
Me (33) and my girlfriend (30) have a 9 month old son with a second son expected in January.

I’ll try to summarize this as best as possible.
Il struggling mentally fellas. When she was pregnant with our first son the rage from her was on a daily basis. When he was born it was blaming everything on me. I took two months off work and she took 6. I did everything under the sun for both of them, didnt sleep, didnt eat, did every chore/duty possible, was always the one that changed him and put him to sleep. When it was time to go back to work for me her rage towards me ramped right back up to a 10. She made claims like i was never home and i got to escape and relax at work. I struggled to find a balance getting home (being tired) and still doing everything, mind you her mother moved in with us to help out.

Fast forward all the arguments and her saying she is leaving me with our son, we find out she is pregnant again. At this point i literally erase everything that makes me a person and for months till today i pump out 10 hr work days, 1hr commute each way, get home and clean, dishes, cook, bake, trash, etc. Everyday.

AFTER ALL THIS, im still met with rage all the time. Everyone in her life is put on a higher priority than me. Everything in her life is blamed on me. I do everything she asks and more on a daily basis but nothing is ever good enough. Our relationship has become a rollercoaster of like 2/3 bad days to the point of her talking breakup, then 2/4 days of manageable days.

She always tells me i dont get it, ill never understand, i dont know what she is going through but yet she always refuses to communicate anything with me. When i communicate when she lashes out and says hurtful things to me, she turns it around to make her the victim.

Other than being intimate occasionally, i legit have no idea who this person is. I feel like im giving 1000% of me and its never enough. And all i hear is im the problem.
Now she is talking about quitting her job and taking my son to her friends house in a different state.

Im so lost, nothing i do matters, its like her default setting is hating my fucking guts no matter what i do.

EDIT:
I work as an aerospace mechanic and she works from home on the computer all day. Her mom watches our son from 8-5pm. i leave around 5am and get back around 4:30ish. by the time i sit down for the first time its around 8/9pm