excerpted from
by Michael Mitchell
105. Let her steal your nose from time to time. I promise she’ll give it back eventually.
(photo: guzi4real)
104. Staring contests are a great way to pass the time. Making faces at her will give you the advantage in more ways than one.
(photo: unknown)
Continue reading A Weekly Dose of Life Lessons for Dads of Daughters
excerpted from
by Michael Mitchell
109. Teach her to appreciate a good book. “Children are made readers on the laps of
their parents.“ -Emilie Buchwald
(photo: to kill a mocking bird)
111. Teach her to shoot a gun… even if it’s just a Nerf gun. A girl with the confidence to
fire a weapon can accomplish anything in life.
(photo: life magazine) Continue reading A Weekly Dose of Life Lessons for Dads of Daughters
I’ve been reading a lot of books and blogs lately on fatherhood and raising girls. From what I’ve read, there seems to be at least five common threads (probably more) running through most of the stuff that really speaks to me. Maybe they’re not really rules. Maybe they’re more like tips… tips, hints, suggestions, guidelines, or something like that. Whatever you call them, in no particular order, here are five:
1. Love her mom. Treat her mother with respect, honor, and a big heaping spoonful of public displays of affection. When she grows up, the odds are good she’ll fall in love with someone who treats her much like you treated her mother. Good or bad, that’s just the way it is. I’d prefer good.
Continue reading Five Rules for Dads Raising Daughters
“We’re like bookends,” I thought. “Michael’s musings over how sweetly tender a small moment like blow-drying a baby’s hair can be; my musings over my bowl of peanut butter cookie dough at 7:30 a.m.”
The bowl of peanut butter cookie dough was the “last batch of school cookies” I would be making my youngest. I was baking them yesterday, as she got dressed for her last official day of instruction at the Academy of Hair Design. And, I was working very hard on trying to force-feed my memory embedding system with some sort of signal that would capture this moment and freeze it, or perhaps bronze it, for posterity.
I reached down to grab my heavy duty, several-ply stainless steel half baking sheet that I love so much. I hesitated, and instead opted for a small, flimsy baking sheet I knew had come with a toaster oven from a marriage gift twenty-five years ago. I wanted to make sure that the equipment I was using honored the entire nineteen and one-half years of my daughter’s existence. Continue reading Rylee’s Last Batch of School Cookies: The Art of Embedding an Essential Memory
Editor’s Note: If you are just now catching Michael’s Man Cave series on N.U.T.s, please note the guide to all previous posts at the bottom of this essay ~ Thanks.
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What does it mean for a man to be involved in the life of his children? A book I’m reading right now called, “The Heart of a Father,” by Ken Canfield offers a pretty good description:
My friend Paul is an involved father. He works forty hours each week, and in fact chose a job that allows him to be home each night and each weekend. At home, he likes spending time with his daughter Susan. They play Chutes and Ladders on the living room floor, and he reads her a story before bed. Cindy is a bit older. With her, involvement means driving her to gymnastics and cheering at her meets. It means sitting down next to her at the kitchen table when she lays out her math homework.
Sometimes Paul has his own work to do, his own errands to run. “I’m going to the hardware store,” he announces. “Anyone want to come along?” Occasionally Cindy or Susan will join him. The youngest child is Jacob. Among all the things that involvement means for this toddler, it also means changing diapers. Paul participates in the daily activities of his kids.
Call me boring, but I read those two paragraphs and I can’t wait to be able to play Chutes and Ladders on the living room floor with my little Izzy in a few years. Continue reading N.U.T. #4 – I’m involved in the life of my children