Fathers day

With fathers day just around the corner I am reminded of how I learned what a real father was. I spend most of my  life knowing there was a difference between the words Dad , Daddy and father, but didn't know what a real daddy could be .Like most women I knew, I  thought the men they showed on movies as daddies were some made for tv type of person that didn't really exist. Dads like Danny Tanner, Bill Cosby and Tim Taylor didn't exist in the world I grew up in except on TV. The men in my life would be  compared more to fathers like Al Bundy and  Homer Simpson. 
         The Fathers I knew  were not care givers, They didn't make bottles or change diapers, They didn't go to school functions or know what their child was allergic too. They "Baby Sat their own kids on occasion but looked at the child as part of the woman's job. No I didn't grow up in the 1940's where this type of behavior  was expected. I grew up in small town USA where Men worked and woman raised children.  I had never met a stay at home dad before. Sure I knew plenty of men who didn't work, but they weren't stay at home dads they were drunks and lazy bums.  The women, even the ones working were still responsible for caring for the house and children. 

   A father was what you became when your child was born, A daddy was a man who stepped up and  provided for his family and  a Dad was when you got to old to say daddy .  My own father was a great daddy, the best Daddy in my eyes of course. He provided for his family, took me fishing and taught me to shoot a gun.  As great as he was he wasn't involved in my life the way my Mom was.  My mom made sure I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, told me all about life and taught me right from wrong and kissed my scraped knees.
 
          When I had children of my own, I fell right into being a stay at home mom like there was no other option. I raised the children and My husband worked long hard hours to pay the bills.  We had a system and it worked great, until my husband lost his job.  Suddenly My whole world was flipped upside down. I have never thought about my husband being around 24/7 and having his input on everything with the kids. I only needed his input when the kids weren't following my rules. " Don't make me call your daddy!" My husband was a weapon that I used to make my kids listen because he was rarely home.  Our system was now broken and I felt like he was over stepping his boundaries. The house and kids were my place that's who I was, I was the mother.  Suddenly all my rules were being broken and I felt out of control.   I didn't know who this man was but he wasn't my husband. My husband had a job and couldn't even tell you what my kids done that day. This man who was playing babies with my daughter, talking to my oldest son about girls and shaving,  and helping my middle son wash his hair, was a man I had never met before.   I felt like I was losing my spot in the family, my spot  as mother. If I wasn't a mother than who was I?  Who was this man, who was trying to undo everything I had done?  My marriage became very rocky as we tried to find our new places with each other. My husband seemed to settle right into being a mom like man. I on the other hand was falling apart inside. I had put all my eggs into the basket of being a mother and giving my kids 100% I didn't know how to do anything else. I became embarrassed over my husband taking care of and playing with the kid all day. I would lie and say he was working because I didn't know what else to say  What do you even call a man who pretends to be a mom?  Even though we still had money coming in there was talk about me going to work.  The thought of me working while my husband stayed at home with the kids was unsettling to me. I didn't want everyone to think my husband was lazy and wouldn't work.  Luckily My husband came into a opportunity to go back to work before that thought got too far.  As soon as he went back to work I regained the reins over my family, I set down all the rules again and felt like queen on my mother throne.
                       A couple months after regaining my motherly power I found a facebook page called The Madness of Mommyhood.   The Madness quickly became my go to page. I loved everything about the page, The laughs, the stories, the advice and even the trolls.  One day something came across my news feed from The Madness of Mommyhood called Dear Dad. I cant remember the exact question but it had something to do with a father not doing what the mother wanted him to do.  I hadn't never seen Dear Dad before so I was confused when I seen the name Brian at the bottom . A man  giving parenting advice to mothers, ha ha  I laughed  to myself (sorry Brian).  Then something happened when I read his advice. .  He had without even knowing it, wrote his advice straight to me.  I read every word knowing I was the type of mother he was talking about. I used words like "My Kids"  " Mine" I made decisions for "My" children and just excepted my husband to follow in suit.  I was so hung up on what I thought a mommy was I never stopped to ask or even allow  my husband to be the kind of dad he wanted to be.   The more I read advice from Brian the more my eyes opened to what a dad could be.   Then I seen other names begin to  pop up in my news feed. Names like Chris, Adam, Brent, Brandon, John, and Jeremy.  These were all dads who were giving parenting advice to women just like me. Women who felt like being a mother gave them some type of control over their family and it wasn't long until I was following every post.   
                 One day I was asked to join the Madness of Mommyhood team as a administrator  and with that I  had the pleasure of getting to know these men on a personal level.  I started liking each one of their pages and learning more about their lives. These were men who were sitcom worthy fathers. They were openly setting a example of  what a daddy should be. As the amount of daddy pages I liked grew, so did my opinion on what made a man a daddy.  A daddy wasn't a man who stepped up and paid the bills A daddy is the man who will watch frozen 10 times because his daughter wants to or a man who will make motor sounds for his sons match box car. A man who stands up and does what is right for his child even if that means letting a bunch of boy scouts camp in his yard or making  little lunch box notes to just brighten their day. A good Daddy is any man who does what he needs to do for his child with a smile on his face.
               My husband is a good daddy I just needed a few dads to show me that is was okay to let him be one.!
 This fathers day  go check out some daddy pages and give them the credit they deserve  and introduce your child's father  to some parenting  pages, let them see the person they are capable of being and let them be it.......


here are some of my favorite daddy  pages 
The cook at Home Dad -https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=401581083213284
The Funny Conversations -https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=585012461516616

DadNCharge- https://www.facebook.com/DadnCharge?fref=nf

Fodder4Fathers- https://www.facebook.com/fodder4fathers?fref=nf

Dad on The Run-https://www.facebook.com/DadOnTheRun?fref=nf

Designer Daddy-https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=159917914026713

Parenting by the Beard-https://www.facebook.com/BeardedParenting

The Daddy Files-https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=217264381619325

One Funny Dad-https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=175736639147326


True Confessions of a Stay at home Dad-https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=327885347257096


Confessions of a Bad Mom- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=264338933731200