Tonight was the weekly Farmers Market in my little town, and we always go up and walk around with the kids.  Alex, our son, loves going in the large, air filled, bouncing room with attached slide, which tonight was a giant horse.  We spent quite a while in there together, bouncing around, climbing up the stairs and sailing down the steep slide.  After that we made our usual rounds uptown, and saw several people that we knew.

I want to tell you that I wore my brand-new (Brown) eagle logo, Dad For Life shirt tonight, and I had 2 ladies and 1 gentleman stop me and compliment me on the shirt.  It was the “Dad for Life” slogan, and the fact that I was pushing our stroller that caught their eye.  One of the women called a friend of hers over to look at my “great” shirt.  The man stopped me later and said, referring to my shirt, ”That’s so true.  Even when your kids are grown up like mine, you never stop being a Dad.”  I thought that was a successful debut of the new shirt design!  Get yours at the www.dadsworld.com store.  They are the coolest.

While uptown, we stopped and listened to an amazing little 13 year old girl who regularly plays the guitar, keyboard and sings on the stage they have set up every week.  Her name is Natalia Malo, and she is fantastic.  I spoke briefly with her ever-present Dad, and complimented him on his daughters talent.  She has her own website which I encourage you to visit: www.myspace.com/nataliamalo  She writes her own songs, sings them, plays the instruments… everything.  She is dynamite.  Some of her songs are available to listen to at her website, so check them out. 

 Here is her own bio directly off of her site: Natalia Malo was born in Portland, Oregon. She has written over 45 songs and has been playing the guitar for almost 4 years. You can hear a few of Natalias songs on the home page. Natalia was invited to come down to Los Angeles, California for many gigs and recording opportunities. She started out when she was about 7 in the arts. She started dancing at 7 with Maralees Dancers. When she was 9 she saw a performer at the open mic that her parents ran. Elke Robitaille. Natalias parents, Katalin and Tom asked Elke if she would give Natalia guitar lessons. Elke did and Natalia, 13, took off from there.

After listening to Natalia, we ate dinner at the local sports restaurant, Lil’ Cooperstown and enjoyed the evening.  It’s neat to see a family support their young daughter and help her develop her innate talents.

After we got home and put the kids to bed, my wife and I watched the Biggest Loser, which we DVR so we can watch after the kids are in bed.  Tonights episode really struck me.  2 of the couples won care packages from their families back at home who they hadn’t had contact with for 2 1/2 months.  It was very emotional listening to the 1st couples’ recordings from their young kids.  My wife and I both cried, imagining that it was our son who we hadn’t seen in 2 months and he was talking to us, telling us he loved us and missed us.  I can tell you from personal experience, having kids opens up a whole new world of emotion that if you don’t have kids, you don’t even know exists.

The personal experience I am referring to is when I left home after just 6 months of marriage to travel on the road with a Sales Training company.  I headed up the road team for a famous Personal Development speaker, and we traveled all over the country, living in different major cities for 3-4 months at a time.  The first time I left, I went to Los Angeles and didn’t see my wife for 73 days.  Most of the next 1 1/2 years I saw my wife only 1 week out of every 2-3 months.  I know what it’s like to be away from your loved ones for extended periods of time.  But I will tell you this… as hard as that was, and believe me plenty of tears fell and there was tremendous heartache, it is insignificant compared to the emotion of even imagining leaving my young children.  After having kids, I look back on that and think, “Yeah, it was tough, but we were both adults and we knew what the sacrifice was.”  If I imagine myself leaving for 2-3 months now, with a 2 year old son and a 6 week old daughter, the emotions are dramatically more intense.  Your child is so dependent on you, so innocent and pure.  I can’t describe with words what my children mean to me.  If you have children of your own, you know what I’m talking about.  If you don’t have children, you won’t really get it.

Your kids change your life forever.  I take my role as a Dad very seriously, and truly believe that a Dad is for life.  I hope you do too.

The shirts display the ’seal of the United States’ logo, (adopted by congress in 1784) an eagle with shield, olive branches and arrows.  The slogan is “Dad For Life.”  I chose the eagle logo for a couple of reasons.  1- It looks really cool on a shirt.  2- The slogan on the eagle, “E Pluribus Unum” means: ”out of many, one,” which is a great slogan for Dads.  There are all kinds of different Dads out there… married Dads, single Dads, divorced Dads, widowed Dads, etc. but we all have 1 thing in common.  We love and raise our kids.  We are all Dads… Dads for life.  The sad fact is that relationships may come and go, but being a Dad is forever. 

The shirts come in 3 colors: Black with light grey printing, Chocolate Brown with brown printing and a new color for us, Military Green with black printing.  The shirts are sharp.  Really, you will be impressed with them.   I am excited to wear mine, which I do almost every day!

We distressed the logo to give it that aged, hip look.  The Black and Green shirts are Gilden 6.1 ounce, 100% cotton heavyweight tees.  The Brown shirt is the same as the Map design, Hanes tagless Beefy tees, 100% cotton. 

Get yours today and proudly proclaim your status as a Dad for Life.  Thanks for supporting Dadsworld.com, have a great day!

With the frequency that major film stars seem to leave their lovers, it hardly seems like a good lifestyle to bring a child into.  Maybe Vin Diesel will live up to his claim of wanting to be a better person.  I sure hope he does. 

Of course that’s just my opinion.  I am sure there are plenty of people who think it’s wonderful to bring a child into a short-term, non-committed relationship.  What’s wrong with the nanny raising the child while the “parents” are out shooting movies and dating other talented, intelligent and likeminded stars?  Maybe we can find this kid a better mommy or daddy, after all, I didn’t know your real daddy that well anyway…

On the bright side, at least Vin Diesel does diapers and is involved in his daughters life.  That is truly what the little girl needs.  Good for him, and I hope he follows it through and stays with her mother so they can raise her together to become a healthy and well-adjusted adult.

Having a child is serious business, and I hope our celebrities will start doing a better job of setting the example for the young and impressionable people out there who idolize them.  Just because two stars are good looking and infatuated with each other does not mean they should have a child.  Creating a family is serious business, best left to those with the fortitude to see it through and the skill to make it work.  Maturity, self-control, patience, long-term thinking ability, selflessness and committment are key elements to a relationship that can successfully raise a child.  MANY celebrities are severely lacking in one or more of these categories, and thus not ideal parents. 

I hope Vin Diesel turns out to be one of the good ones, we need more of them. I enjoy him as an actor and am rooting for him as a Father.   

My wife and I both nearly fell off the couch!  We don’t watch much news in the first place, but then to see something actually TRUE and meaningful on the news, well, we were impressed.

Here is the proof that television philosophy like this affects children: 54% of teenagers today agree with the statement, “Having a baby without being married is a worthwhile lifestyle or not affecting anyone else,” compared to only 37% in 1976.  Former President Bill Clinton made the following statement: “The real source of the welfare problem is the inordinate number of out-of-wedlock births in this country.”

The truth is that Marital Status is the strongest predictor of father presence/father absence.  Compared to children born within marriage, children born to cohabitating parents are three times more likely to experience father absence, and children born to unmarried, non-cohabitating parents are four times as likely to have an absent father.

So, we had better get back to teaching our children the value’s of commitment, marriage and family if we want to solve our out-of-control welfare problem, poverty, drug abuse, violent crime, lack of education, suicides, behavioral problems, etc.  ALL of these have close ties to father absence.

In an analysis of data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, a national  sample of over 13,000 households was conducted, it was found that the most important determinant of whether a father lived with his children was marital status at the time of the child’s birth. Fully 80% of men who were married to the child’s mother at the child’s birth were living with all of their biological children, compared to only 22.6% of men who were not.

According to a Gallup Poll, 85% of Americans say that “the number of children being born to single parents” is either a “serious” or “critical” social problem.

Former Vice President, Al Gore had this to say, “Promoting responsible fatherhood is the critical next phase of welfare reform and one of the most important things we can do to reduce child poverty.”

Robert Sampson had this to say in Race Specific consequences of Family structure and Crime, “Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations of urban violence across the United States… all else equal, in cities where family disruption is high, the rate of violence is also high.”

I could go on and on, but I encourage you to read the statistics section of our www.dadsworld.com website.  Dads matter.  Dadsworld.com is committed to strengthening families by promoting involved Dads.

I invite you to go to our forum to comment on these topics and many others!

Have a great day!

I have talked about my Dad in several of my previous blog posts.  He was and still is a very family-focused man.  That is where I get my desire to be very close to my own family.  We always did things together growing up.  He worked for U.S. Bank for 33 years before becoming a builder, but his focus was always his family.  We spent evenings together talking about our day and what was going on at school and his work.  We always ate dinner together as a family.  We spent weekends together driving around looking at the sights, snow and water skiing, going to U of O Trackmeets and Football games, and we spent vacations together as a family, camping and fishing and being outdoors.

My Dad was and still is always there for me.  We have always had good talks, and we still enjoy working together every now and then.  He is a General Contractor, and all around handy-man.  He has always been good at building and fixing things.  He remodeled or built many of the homes we lived in while I was growing up.  He built many homes in the Bend area, and does remodels, decks and fences in the Portland area now.   I still get him business from my Real Estate contacts, and we work on some jobs together.

I have always admired my Dad in several ways.  First of all, he and my Mom have been married 43 years, so he taught me the concept of faithfulness and commitment.  My Dad always wanted to do stuff with my Mom, brother and me.  He didn’t hang out with friends at work, or spend his vacations or weekends doing stuff for himself.  He taught me how valuable and close a family can and should be.  My Dad is a very intelligent, logical problem solver.  He is left brained, and very good with numbers and math problems.  He is usually the first to figure out the brain teaser puzzles that you get at the Discovery store and places like that. 

He encouraged me to stick with college, when I was weighing other options.  He values knowledge and education.  He would send me articles he thought I would find interesting when I was away at college, and he would give me motivational books and tapes when I was just a kid.  He is the reason that I like to listen to so many personal development speakers, because he likes them himself and encouraged me as well.

I am very blessed to have the family that I do.  My childhood was excellent, and we are still very close to this day.  One thing that I am going to make sure I do with my kids, something that my parents did for me, is to be a model of the right behavior.  That way your kids grow up respecting you, like I respect my parents.  I have talked about this before, but not wanting to disappoint my parents kept me out of a lot of trouble.  That is a much more effective tool than the threat of punishment.  This only works though, if the parents really have the kids respect.

Thanks Dad, for being the kind of man that is worth modeling.  You’re the best.

I hope you enjoy his interview.  He recently went to Hawaii with my Mom and my brother and his family.  During that trip he had a picture of himself taken at a beautiful location with a Dadsworld.com shirt on!  He’s getting prepared for our coming photo contest.  Be sure to get your Dadsworld.com shirt, and take a picture of yourself somewhere interesting.  Email me a copy of the picture, and I will add it to our archive.  Soon we will have a section of Dadsworld.com member pictures from around the world!

Have a great day, and don’t forget that this month is Father’s Day.  Be sure to contact your Dad this month, and while you are at it, tell him about our great website.