This post is sponsored by Tide and Downy, who made it possible for me and my sons and a group of our friends to create a great Father’s Day weekend memory. All opinions are the author’s.
Brooker Creek Preserve, Pinellas County, Florida.
Nature conspired against us Saturday morning – scattered rain showers, suffocating humidity, searing UV rays, buzzing mosquitos and deer flies. Really, you’d think we could take the hint. Nature just wanted to be left alone.
Sorry, Nature. We couldn’t stay away. A little sunscreen, a little insect repellent: science, victorious! Temporarily, of course. Nature always wins. Always. That’s why we’re drawn to it. Everybody loves a winner.
Brooker Creek Preserve is an 8,000-acre expanse of wilderness left intact among the suburban sprawl of northern Pinellas County on Central Florida’s West Coast. It is a cross section of everything beautiful about wild Florida: freshwater marshes, cypress domes, pine flatwoods and sandhills. It is home to white-tailed deer, wild turkey, eastern diamondback rattlers, river otters and hundreds of other species of plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates.
The pine flatwoods at Brooker Creek Preserve.
It was all there to savor, Nature raw and spoiled only by good intentions. And savor it we did.
Part of my compensation as a Dad’s Way ambassador for Tide and Downy was the opportunity to hold an event for Tampa Bay area dads and their kids, an event that would celebrate the unique way we dads do what we do. After consulting my sons and my own boyhood memories for ideas, I invited a group of my dad friends and their kids for a hot, humid, buggy, sandy, muddy and unbelievably rad guided hike and a picnic at Brooker Creek Preserve.
As you might imagine, it gets a bit steamy in the Florida wilderness in June. It’s Nature’s sauna. Sweat happens. And on a hike with kids through swamps and along sandy trails, dirt happens. It’s all good, though. Dad’s way means you make a mess, you clean it up. Messes certainly were made, and so were memories. Here’s a video of our adventure, and what had to be done afterward to get ready for the next one:
Father’s Day Memories at Brooker Creek Preserve
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Everyone has a story about how his or her dad is truly unique. If you would like to help Tide and Downy celebrate dad’s way this month, tell that story about dad on Twitter using the hashtag #DadsWay. Was there a time when your dad was strong, like Tide on stains? Or gentle, like Downy? What were your dad’s “Tide” moments and/or “Downy” moments? What Father’s Day memories are you making this weekend?
For every tweet sent using #DadsWay until June 23, Tide and Downy will donate $1 to the National Fatherhood Initiative. The celebration continues Thursday at 8 p.m. EDT with a Dad’s Way Twitter party (check back here or keep an eye on @DadScribe for details).
This post is sponsored by Tide and Downy, who have made it possible for me to plan a very cool Father’s Day event Saturday for my sons and a few of our friends in the Tampa Bay area.
After a nature walk and picnic in the hot Florida sun Saturday morning, it’ll be time to bring up these heavy hitters to clean things up and get ready for the next adventure.
As a #DadsWay ambassador, it is my privilege this Father’s Day weekend to be able to help Tide and Downy celebrate the unique way each dad does things. I like the analogy they’ve shared, the idea that dads can be as strong as Tide, as gentle as Downy and sometimes can show both of those sides simultaneously.
Let me pause here to provide full disclosure: Long before Tide and Downy ever offered me the chance to participate in this campaign, my family used Tide detergent. And during the course of writing these sponsored posts, I learned that when my father was a boy, his mom used Tide, too. So, you might say it’s a family tradition.
Only, these days, it’s not just the mom who does the laundry. Modern Day Dads share in the housework far more than their dads did 30 or 40 years ago. So, once we’re done with our incredible Father’s Day weekend nature walk and picnic at Brooker Creek Preserve on Saturday, you can bet that many of the participating dads — including me — will be heading home to wash a load. It’s just dad’s way of doing things these days. You make a mess, you clean it up.
This is Brooker Creek itself. There’s an alligator hidden in that algae bloom. How could any kid (or dad) resist? It’s going to get messy out there, though. (Good!)
And I’m pretty sure our kids are going to be a mess by the time we’re done with Saturday’s big event. You see, we live in Central Florida. It gets hot here in June, even in the morning. We’re going to walk through the woods along dirt trails for a couple of hours, then play games and eat picnic food. My kids will run and rip. They’ll sweat, they’ll fall down, and they’ll get as dirty as 7- and 5-year-old boys tend to get under those circumstances.
No problem. We’ve got Tide and Downy. When we’re all through for the day, our clothes — and our kids — will be ready for the next adventure.
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One thing I like about working with Tide and Downy on this program is the opportunity to share well-done videos and ads depicting dads in authentic situations with their kids. It’s an important issue for some of us. Earlier this week, I shared my thoughts on the matter and showed how it should be done with Tide’s the Princess Dress spot. Below is another offering from Tide, and it might be just the thing to get you in the mood for a great Father’s Day weekend! (Seriously. Watch this. It’s very well done.)
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Everyone has a story that describes how his or her dad is truly unique. If you would like to help Tide and Downy celebrate dad’s way this month, go tell a story about your dad on Twitter using the hashtag #DadsWay. For every tweet sent out using #DadsWay, Tide and Downy will donate $1 to the National Fatherhood Initiative.
I would also personally like to thank Tide and Downy for making it possible for DadScribe to make a donation of $100 to Brooker Creek Preserve, which is run by incredibly dedicated and helpful volunteers who love nature as much as we do (probably even more).
What adventure lies around the bend for us this weekend? We can’t wait to find out!
This post is sponsored by Procter & Gamble, parent company of Tide and Downy, who have compensated the author to explore the concept of dad’s way of parenting during the week leading up to Father’s Day. Today, I take a look at why it’s important for dad’s way to be portrayed authentically on TV and in movies. All opinions and inaccuracies are mine.
This dad’s way means being there, and making sure my sons know that the sometimes-inauthentic portrayals of fathers they see on TV and in movies are just not acceptable.
I have never burned a batch of cookies. And even though I’m a seasoned traveler and fiercely proud of my innate sense of direction, I would without hesitation ask a local resident the quickest route to my destination on the off chance that I ever got lost (and if the battery life ran out on my iPhone).
My sons are long since potty trained, but by the time they got out of diapers for good, I could make the change with one hand. In the dark. On the backseat of a two-door Civic. Without making an even bigger mess. Yeah. That actually happened.
When my wife gave birth, I was there. Not just in the room, either. I helped with the delivery, and not merely for moral support. I saw both of our sons born, and I held them within seconds of the cutting of the umbilical cord, and I beamed like a thousand stars and cried tears of joy both times. In short – I was not about to be shunted to the periphery during the two biggest moments of our lives.
This is not bragging about my refusal to be a cliché. It is, rather, to provide context when I say this: I really don’t like it when I see fathers portrayed as cookie-burning, no-directions-asking, too-squeamish-to-be-diaper-changing, non-assertive-sideline-sitting buffoons and idiots on TV shows or ads. It just doesn’t jibe with my experience.
Even though I can’t say I’m all that offended when I spot another tired, lazy caricature of the Doofus Dad depicted on a mass media stage, and even though parents confront more pressing issues today, I will admit to being a bit more than annoyed when I see a dad depicted inauthentically simply for effect.
This is the fifth The Force For Fun video for DadScribe, “Don’t Hold Your Breath.” It was made by Matt Sklar and Colin Duffy, who go by the collective name, “Norman Invasion.” This one tells a story that any office dwelling drone who longs for fame and adulation can identify with. One man’s hidden talent carries him to a career made for the tabloids, a career as incredibly meteoric as any former Disney child star’s. Only, when this guy’s career flames out, there’s a twist from the Dark Side.
Here is the video:
This is one of seven finalists in a competition put on by Tongal, Pringles and Star Wars. The winning filmmaker receives $25,000 and a chance to be part of an actual Star Wars themed Pringles commercial. In truth, all seven are worthy of being part of a Star Wars/Pringles campaign. In fact, anyone who is a hard-core Star Wars fan (not to mention Pringles fan) will enjoy the videos, and would certainly enjoy going in-depth with the filmmakers during this Google+ hangout with all of them.
And if you’re in the mood to win some Star Wars-themed gear and delicious Pringles, click this link to the DadScribe giveaway: an incredible, not-spooky-looking-at-all Jawa doll with light-up eyes! Only residents of the United States are eligible for the giveaway (sorry, Canada! I’ll make it up to you … somehow!).
Yes, the eyes of this Jawa light up. How awesome is that?
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Pringles, which partnered with Star Wars for Tongal’s The Force For Fun contest. DadScribe was chosen as a The Force For Fun influencer and was compensated to provide a platform for The Force for Fun contest videos, as well as the giveaways. The giveaway is available for residents of the U.S. only. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
This post is sponsored by Procter & Gamble. The author is responsible for all opinions, fading memories and overly sentimental reminiscences.
Where the Neuse River brushes against our family’s ancestral land. There’s a lot of mud back in there.
The Neuse River rises from the North Carolina piedmont north of Raleigh and winds its muddy way to the Atlantic Ocean, emptying into the Pamlico Sound at New Bern. The Neuse is the longest river fully contained within the borders of my home state. It is an especially crooked river, as if it took its own, sweet time carving a path to the sea, meandering where it would across the millennia, taking in the sights along the way.
With a C-shaped turn of the river between the small Eastern North Carolina towns of Grifton and Kinston, the Neuse brushes against a particularly lush and green 100-acre plot of land. Upon this land once wintered members of the Tuscarora tribe, which dominated the region until the early 1700s brought European settlers and their diseases. Somewhere nearby, maybe even right in the woods that run down to the river’s edge, Union and Confederate forces skirmished for control of this strategically vital waterway throughout most of the Civil War.
And in 1918, my great-grandfather, George Tebo McArthur, bought those 100 acres and the antebellum house on them and began to scratch a living out of the rich, loamy North Carolina soil. My dad, Tebo’s Dayton-raised grandson, spent his summers on the farm, his mother’s childhood home, in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. That kid from Ohio learned to put in tobacco, prepping the smooth, golden, gummy leaves for hanging and toasting in the cavernous barns that used to dominate the Southern landscape. He traipsed through the woods with his younger brother in tow, pretending to lead Lee’s cavalry at Fredericksburg, marching under the cypress trees, dodging hidden cypress knees and deadly water moccasins. He learned to call those mean, nasty snakes cottonmouths, which is all they’d ever been to the people of Eastern North Carolina. His people. His place.
My people. My place.
In 1976, when I was 7, we moved from Raleigh to the farm where my father used to spend his formative summers. Those tilled fields and dense woods became my playground. I traipsed through the woods with my younger brother in tow, pretending to lead Lee’s cavalry at Antietam, marching under those same cypress trees and keeping a very close eye out for the descendants of the cottonmouths that terrorized my father 20 years earlier.
There are definitely water moccasins in there. I can’t believe I used to PLAY in those woods.
When we visit the farm these days, the highlight is always our family walk back into the woods. We grab some walking sticks off the back porch, wander down past the old potato barn, and cross the railroad track into the world of soil and undergrowth and fresh deer tracks. My 7- and 4-year-old sons thrill to the novelty of a hike into the “wild.” To these two children of the Florida suburbs, the open fields and dense forests of my childhood are other-worldly. Around every bend is a bear. The rustling leaves all are cougars. Every stick on the ground is a cottonmouth. (OK, that could be real. Ugh. Cottonmouths still give me the shivers.)
The boys come back from those hikes tired, but excited. Just as I was when I came back inside after my long, carefree adventures on the farm, the woods and at the river when I was a kid. Just as my dad did before me. And yes, we were all usually a bit dirtier than my boys are today when they come home from our community pool in Florida.
Which gave me an idea.
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The boys have their sticks and are off on an adventure. That could be me and my brother. Or my dad and his brother.
As you saw above, this post is sponsored by Procter & Gamble, parent company of Tide and Downy. As Father’s Day approaches, I have the privilege of working with Tide and Downy to bring attention to “Dad’s Way” of parenting.
I can only speak for one dad’s way of parenting – mine. So, when given the chance to plan an event for dads and their kids to have a fun time together with little or no regard for staying neat and clean, I started thinking about what we do as a family that falls into that category.
This is Florida, so I thought about the beach. Then I thought about a fishing pier, or a charter vessel on the Gulf of Mexico out of John’s Pass. Maybe we could get a bunch of us together and take an air boat ride through the Everglades, or go kayaking on the Weeki Wachee River.
Then it hit me. Not far from our home in the Tampa suburbs is a hidden gem of a public space, Brooker Creek Preserve. They have guided nature walks on Saturday mornings, and there is ample space for a picnic. I would invite a bunch of dads and their kids to get together the day before Father’s Day and just have a great time.
Which is exactly what we’re going to do, and I couldn’t be more excited. The boys are fired up, too. It’s not Disney World, but that’s the point. We are going to have fun, we are going to get dirty walking in the woods and playing and eating picnic food, and we are going to have an absolute blast with our friends. We can’t take them all to the farm in North Carolina, but this will do. This will definitely do.
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As a bit of an epilogue, I want to share one of my favorite new dad-focused commercials. It happens to be for Tide and Downy and – hey, this is a nice happenstance – our family has used Tide for years. You might have seen this one: the Princess Dress. It’s nice to see a major brand portray a father as competent instead of as a buffoon when it comes to parenting and household responsibilities.
If you enjoy the video, let the world know by tweeting about it with the hashtag #DadsWay. Me and some of my favorite dad writers around the country will be checking in on that hashtag quite a bit over the next couple of weeks, too. And as we get closer to our event at Brooker Creek, I’ll be writing more about the things that shaped me as a father – why I am who I am as a dad, and what that means for my wonderful sons.
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During the month of June, Tide and Downy are celebrating the unique way each dad approaches his role as a parent — Dad’s Way. Because they know that everyone has a story about what makes his or her dad unique, they’re encouraging the sharing of those stories on Twitter with the hashtag, #DadsWay. Every time someone uses that hashtag, Tide and Downy will donate $1 to the National Fatherhood Intitiative.
My Week 4 The Force For Fun video is “Darth Visits,” by filmmaker Steven Houser. It is basically a video instruction manual on what not to do if you’re sitting at home watching Star Wars and eating Pringles and Darth Vader suddenly breaks the fourth wall and tries to get some of those delicious crisps using the Force through the screen.
Here is the spot:
And here is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of “Darth Visits.”
This is one of seven finalists in a competition put on by Tongal, Pringles and Star Wars. The winning filmmaker receives $25,000 and a chance to be part of an actual Star Wars themed Pringles commercial. In truth, all seven are worthy of being part of a Star Wars/Pringles campaign. In fact, anyone who is a hard-core Star Wars fan (not to mention Pringles fan) will enjoy the videos, and would certainly enjoy going in-depth with the filmmakers during this Google+ hangout with all of them.
And if you’re in the mood to win some Star Wars-themed gear and delicious Pringles, click this link to the DadScribe giveaway: an amazing R2-D2 folding chair (pictured)! Only residents of the United States are eligible for the giveaway (sorry, Canada! I’ll make it up to you … somehow!). (Side note: If I was eligible to win one of the great prizes Pringles is giving away during this promotion, this would be the one I’d want! So cool, and so useful.)
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Pringles, which partnered with Star Wars for Tongal’s The Force For Fun contest. DadScribe was chosen as a The Force For Fun influencer and was compensated to provide a platform for The Force for Fun contest videos, as well as the giveaways. The giveaway is available for residents of the U.S. only. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Esquire taught me how to be a man. Not the deep, esoteric definition of manhood. The practicalities are what I’m talking about. I used to have it delivered every month when I was in my 20s. I read it cover to cover. There was brilliant writing to be found there, and I wanted to be a brilliant writer. Plus, it smelled good. Esquire used to come with page after page of cologne samples, those scratch-n-sniff type things with the glued fold-over. I’d go through each edition and pull open the samples, just to learn what I was supposed to smell like. You know, as a man.
So, I was wandering through the supermarket doing the grocery shopping Saturday (as you do) and came across the magazines. There was Esquire, with Brad Pitt’s greasy long hair and bug-eye aviator glasses and rugged man-of-the-world glare on the cover. The tag line was something of an Esquire institution: How to be a man 2013. Also on the cover (what made me pay $5 to buy it) was this: In Defense of FATHERHOOD, a manifesto for the 21st century.
OK. They got me. Nostalgia for my 20s wasn’t enough, but Esquire found the sweet spot of my 40s.
After I stopped to sniff the sample of l’homme by Yves Saint Laurent (“A magnetic, sensual fragrance, both elegant and intensely fresh”), I found Stephen Marche’s 1,000-word essay called Why Fatherhood Matters. I would normally link to it here, but it apparently isn’t available yet online. If I find it later, I’ll add the link. For now, I’ll sum it up. Marche outlines fatherhood in the context of losing his own dad, giving the institution double weight. Some become a man when they become fathers, Marche writes, and some become a man when they lose their fathers. Oh, and fatherhood creates the last meaningful bond between men and women. In short: Fathers are indispensable.
In the same edition, I found Richard Dorment’s piece called Why Men Still Can’t Have it All. I wrote about the topic myself on Friday, and I realize we can’t have “it all,” whatever that means. But, as I wrote in a comment on that post, it’s important for us to aspire to that. Otherwise, why try?
Anyway, Esquire. The magazine has a slogan: Man At His Best.
A man at his best means what, exactly? How does one achieve bestness? I mean, it’s all I can do sometimes to summon the energy to be just OK. Every now and then, though, it happens. All of the fog of life falls away, and I find myself experiencing the sublime clarity of the Best of Me. These moments are few and fleeting, but they almost always are associated with being a dad.
And hey, there’s yet another thing Brad Pitt and I have in common. Based on what I read in Tom Junod’s Pitt profile in this month’s edition, his best moments also are associated with fatherhood. I loved this quote, in particular, because it’s exactly how I feel:
“There’s a constant chatter in our house, whether it’s giggling or screaming or crying or banging. I love it. I love it. I love it. I hate it when they’re gone. I hate it. Maybe it’s nice to be in a hotel room for a day — ‘Oh, nice, I can finally read a paper.’ But then, by the next day, I miss that cacophony, all that life.”
I was not going to miss this. No way, no how. Dads want it all, and that means being there. Actually, physically there. Is that too much to ask?
I want it all.
I want to be there – actually, physically, there – for my sons. I want to be a life partner and best friend for my wife, and I want her to be those things for me, too. I want a career that pays me what my work is worth and provides the kind of personal and professional gratification that comes from making a meaningful contribution, whether from a business perspective or culturally.
I want all of that.
And I want this, too: I want to write fiction that resonates with someone. I want to write short stories like O’Connor or Fitzgerald and novels like Irving, Chabon or Russo. I want readers. I want readers that want to buy my work in order to read it.
I want that, and I want to play FIFA soccer on my PS3 while I drink cheap red wine or expensive English beer. I want to watch Mad Men and enjoy a nice glass of bourbon every now and then.
I want to play softball again, and I want to go on dates with my wife. I want to go to Walt Disney World every other weekend, and I want to fly to Cape Cod every August.
I really, really want to go back to London. Paris, too. And I’d like to see Rome and Florence one day.
I want it all.
I’m a dad. I’m a husband. I’m a writer.
I want all of the things behind those three curtains.
What? I have to choose?
Says who?
Here’s the problem. I do have to choose, just as men and women have had to choose since the rise of the original American middle class. That began about a century or so ago, when technology and progressive ideas about how the working class should be treated combined to thrust this country into an unprecedented era of relative ease and prosperity. It wasn’t always easy. Not everyone prospered. But on the whole, the world has never seen a society like ours, wherein individual aspirations are – in theory – paramount, and we are free to shape our government in order to create an atmosphere conducive to the pursuit of those aspirations.
A fiercely independent spirit – that’s the American ethos. That’s why we want it all. But who am I kidding? The past three generations – the Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y – have collectively believed they are owed it all. We aren’t.
We are, however, owed the freedom to pursue happiness. The freedom to conduct that pursuit is an inalienable right, I believe.
So, what would make me – a dad, a husband, a writer – happy?
I want … it all.
Is that too much to ask?
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There’s been a lot of public discussion lately about this topic, along with another subject that is directly related to our family, women as primary breadwinners. I think those two topics are connected.
Here is a piece on the Pew research study that concluded that in 40 percent of American households, a woman is the primary breadwinner. That’s how it is now in our house, and I could not be more proud of my wife. Breadwinner Moms.
And here is a link to the blog of an online friend of mine, Scott Behson, an academic from Cornell who researches and writes extensively about family work-life balance issues. There is a lot of good stuff there on this topic, including a guest post by yours truly about why I asked off the baseball beat in 2005. Fathers, Work and Family.
I hardly ever ask for comments, but I would love to know how you do it. How do you make life’s pursuit of happiness work for you? How do you decide what to sacrifice and what will absolutely never fall by the wayside? Our family doesn’t have any big secret. We just do it day by day and work hard to stay on top of all of our responsibilities at home and at work.
Sometimes it’s great. Other times, it feels like our heads are going to explode.
There’s been some backlash lately about the term “work-life balance,” but for us, it really is a balancing act sometimes. For instance, we both took today off in order to attend Jay’s first-grade class play and Chris’ preschool graduation ceremony, which began a half-hour apart and took place a mile apart this morning. There was no way either of us would miss those events, but we had to sacrifice a precious vacation day to do it.
What sort of decisions have you had to make in order to strike that balance? What have you missed? Is it even realistic to think about “having it all,” whether you’re a man or woman? I’d like to think so.
Jay, 7, to MomScribe: Do you know that song, Proud to be an American?
MomScribe: Yes.
Jay: Can you sing it for me?
MomScribe: No.
Jay: Why not?
MomScribe: Because I have a terrible singing voice, and I don’t know the words.
Me, from downstairs: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Jay: Why is he laughing at you?
MomScribe: Because I’m funny.
My subject for Week Two of the Pringles/Star Wars the Force for Fun video contest is the Delectable Weapon by filmmakers Ryan O’Rourke and John Griese.
The premise is simple: A beleagured office worker wants to leave for the day and watch a Star Wars marathon with his buddies, but his Vader-like boss wants him to stay late. A light saber duel ensues, and the worker triumphs with the help of his favorite snack food (hint: the snack’s name starts with “P” and ends with “ringles”). Here is Ryan and John’s full-length video:
And here is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Delectable Weapon:
This is one of seven finalists in a competition put on by Tongal, Pringles and Star Wars. The winning filmmaker receives $25,000 and a chance to be part of an actual Star Wars themed Pringles commercial. In truth, all seven are worthy of being part of a Star Wars/Pringles campaign. In fact, anyone who is a hard-core Star Wars fan (not to mention Pringles fan) will enjoy the videos, and would certainly enjoy going in-depth with the filmmakers during this Google+ hangout with all of them.
Finally, here’s where things start to get real interesting in the giveaway department. This week’s prize is a talking plush Ewok (pictured) and two delectable cans of Pringles. To enter, click on over to the DadScribe Facebook giveaway page and follow the instructions. Best of luck!
This could be yours; just follow the link to the DadScribe Facebook giveaway page and follow the instructions to enter.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Pringles, which partnered with Star Wars for Tongal’s The Force For Fun contest. DadScribe was chosen as a The Force For Fun influencer and was compensated to provide a platform for The Force for Fun contest videos, as well as the giveaways. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
