Nobody hands you a scorecard when you become a dad.

There is no performance review. No quarterly check-in. No one pulls you aside at year three and says you are doing great or that you are quietly losing them. You just show up every day and hope the accumulation of it means something.

But some dads do figure it out. Not perfectly. Not without hard stretches. But their kids grow up and want to be around them. They call. They come back. They say things like “my dad taught me that” in a tone that means something.

What those dads have in common is not what most people think.

It Is Not About Being Present

You have heard it a thousand times. Show up. Be present. Put down your phone. And yes, that is the floor, not the ceiling. The dads who actually figure this out are not just physically in the room. They are genuinely interested.

Interested in what their kid is building, watching, obsessing over, afraid of. Interested in the weird phase and the bad week and the question that doesn’t have a clean answer. Not performing interest. Actually having it.

That is harder than it sounds, especially when you are tired and the thing they want to talk about is Minecraft for the fourth consecutive evening.

The dads who get it right are curious about their kids the way they are curious about things they actually care about. Not managing them. Not monitoring them. Genuinely wanting to know what is going on in there.

They Give Themselves, Not Just Their Time

There is a version of fatherhood that looks good on paper. The game attendance. The school pickup. The vacations. The financial security. All of it real, all of it necessary, none of it sufficient on its own.

What separates good dads from great ones is that the great ones also give themselves. Their actual attention. Their honest reactions. Their real opinions when asked. Their presence in the conversation, not just the room.

A kid can feel the difference between a dad who is there and a dad who has shown up. They always know which one they are getting.

They Do Not Bluff

Kids are better lie detectors than most adults give them credit for. They clock hypocrisy early and file it away. A dad who preaches patience and then loses it in traffic. A dad who talks about honesty and then makes excuses. A dad who says family comes first and then consistently proves otherwise.

The dads who earn lasting respect are the ones who own it when they are wrong. Who say “I don’t know” when they don’t know. Who apologize to their kids the same way they would apologize to anyone else. Directly, without the qualifier that undermines it.

You do not have to be perfect. You have to be real. Your kid is not looking for a flawless man. They are looking for an honest one.

They Lead Positive, Not Negative

The dads who figure it out are not the ones running a tight ship of rules and consequences. They are the ones who make the right thing feel good.

Not through bribery. Through genuine enthusiasm for the things that matter. They make work feel like something worth doing. They make honesty feel like the obvious choice. They make being a decent person feel like something to be proud of rather than something that is forced.

The old instinct is to correct. The better move is to build. “Let’s do this” lands differently than “don’t do that.” Every time.

They Respect Their Kids

This one gets skipped in most conversations about fatherhood, and it is one of the most important.

Good dads treat their kids like people. Not small problems to manage. Not projects to optimize. People with their own interior lives, their own preferences, their own reasonable need to be taken seriously.

That means listening when they talk about something you do not care about. Knocking before you enter. Asking what they think and actually waiting to hear it. Admitting when they have a point.

Kids who are treated with consistent respect grow up knowing how to demand it from the world. That is not an accident.

Respect is not something you compel from your kids. It is something you earn. The way you earn it is by giving it first.

They Have a Clear Idea of What They Are Building

The dads who figure it out know what they are trying to do. Not in a rigid, controlling way. But they have thought about what kind of person they want their kid to become and they use daily life as the material.

The boring Tuesday is not an interruption from parenting. It is the parenting. The way you handle frustration in the car. The way you talk about people you disagree with. The way you treat the server, the neighbor, the person who cut you off. All of it is instruction, whether you mean it to be or not.

The dads who get this right are intentional about the small moments, not because they are performing for their kids, but because they understand that character is caught more than it is taught.

They Know the Difference Between Driving and Guiding

One of the most persistent mistakes in fatherhood is confusing control with influence. Driving your kid toward an outcome: the grade, the sport, the career, the version of themselves you have decided they should be. That tends to produce one of two results. Compliance without conviction, or rebellion. Neither is what you were going for.

Guiding looks different. It means introducing your kid to things and letting the interest find its own shape. It means asking more than telling. It means having standards without making your love conditional on meeting them.

A broken will, as one writer put it nearly a century ago, is a greater misfortune than a crippled body. The goal is not an obedient kid. The goal is a kid who has learned to direct themselves.

Your job is not to produce a specific outcome. Your job is to raise someone capable of choosing their own.

They Stay in the Game

The dads who matter to their kids long-term are not the ones who peaked during the Little League years. They are the ones who stayed interested through every phase. Including the phases where their kid did not particularly want them around.

The teenage years are not a wall to get through. They are the years when everything you built starts to get tested. The relationship you made when they were eight is the credit you spend when they are fifteen and don’t want to talk to you. It either holds or it doesn’t. And whether it holds depends almost entirely on what you did before things got complicated.

Stay in it. Stay curious. Stay available. Not in a suffocating way. Just in the way that communicates: I am still here, I am still interested, and that is not going to change.

The Thing Nobody Talks About

Here is what does not get said enough in conversations about what makes a good dad.

The dads who get it right are not the ones who sacrifice everything else to be a father. They are the ones who take their own life seriously enough that their kids have something to admire.

They have interests. They have standards for themselves. They do things that are hard and they do not hide that they are hard. They care about their work, their health, their friendships, their own growth. Not instead of their kids. Alongside them.

A dad who has given up everything for his family is not a model of selflessness. He is a cautionary tale. Kids do not want to be the thing that cost their father his life. They want a father who has a life. And who makes room for them in it.

That is what they will remember. That is what they will try to become.

The boys, and the girls, always know.

What It Actually Comes Down To

You need to be someone worth knowing. Someone your kid can read clearly: who means what he says, shows up when it counts, and takes his own life seriously enough that there is something there to inherit.

The dads who get it right are not the ones who tried the hardest. They are the ones who stayed honest the longest. With their kids, with themselves, with what actually matters.

That is the whole thing. Everything else is detail.

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Your kid isn’t the problem. The internet is just very, very good at its job.

It was designed by the smartest engineers on earth to hold attention for as long as possible. It works on adults. It absolutely works on kids. And if you don’t have a plan, the algorithm does.

Here are 10 family tech rules for kids that hold up in the real world.

Rule 1: Phones Sleep Outside the Bedroom

This one is non-negotiable in our book. The bedroom is for sleep. The phone is not. When a device lives on a nightstand, it doesn’t just disrupt sleep. It becomes the last thing kids think about and the first thing they reach for. Neither of those is good.

Get a cheap charging station in the kitchen or hallway. Everyone plugs in before bed, including you. Make it the norm, not the punishment.

Rule 2: The Internet Earns Trust, It Doesn’t Start With It

New device means limited access. As your kid demonstrates judgment, access expands. This isn’t about distrust. It’s about building a track record. We do this with cars. We do this with curfews. We should do it with the internet too.

Start narrow. Widen with time and evidence.

Rule 3: You Know the Password to Everything

Every app. Every account. Every platform. This isn’t surveillance. It’s the same reason you know where your kid is going on a Friday night. They’re not in trouble. You’re just in the loop.

If an app doesn’t allow parent access, that app doesn’t live on your kid’s phone. Simple math.

Rule 4: Screens Don’t Come to the Table

Meals are one of the few moments in a day where a family is in the same room with no agenda. Don’t give that up for TikTok. This means everyone, you included. The research on this is clear: one of the strongest predictors of a child’s screen time is a parent’s screen time. (NPR) You can’t ask them to put it down if yours is face-up next to the salt.

Set the standard. Then live it.

Rule 5: Boredom Is Not a Screen Emergency

When your kid says they’re bored, the answer is not a device. Boredom is where creativity lives. It’s where kids figure out what they actually like. When we fill every quiet moment with a screen, we rob them of that.

Let them be bored. They’ll figure it out.

A house that cares about what food goes in the body should also care about what media goes in the mind.

Rule 6: Content Has Consequences

What goes into the brain matters. This isn’t about sheltering. It’s about standards. A house that cares about what food goes in the body should also care about what media goes in the mind. Talk about it directly. Ask what they’re watching. Watch it with them sometimes. You can’t shape what you don’t know about.

Rule 7: Screens Off One Hour Before Bed

Children age 8 to 18 in the United States average seven and a half hours of screen time per day. (AACAP) A good chunk of that is happening right before sleep and it’s wrecking their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. Sleep-deprived kids are harder to parent and harder to teach. The one-hour wind-down isn’t optional.

Read. Talk. Decompress. Then sleep.

Rule 8: Real Life Comes First

Homework done. Chores done. Time outside. Then screens. This order matters. When screens are available before the other stuff, the other stuff never gets done with any intention. You’re just waiting for it to be over.

Flip the sequence. Everything changes.

Rule 9: We Talk About What We See Online

The worst thing that happens to kids online usually isn’t the thing they stumble into. It’s the thing they feel like they can’t tell you about. Create a standing policy in your house: if you see something weird, uncomfortable, or confusing online, you bring it to dad. No judgment. No phone confiscation. Just a conversation.

Kids are more likely to follow rules they help create. (Center for Online Safety) Include them in this one. Ask what they think the rules should be. You might be surprised.

Rule 10: Model the Life You Want Them to Have

This is the one that hurts. Because most of us aren’t setting great examples. We pick up the phone at dinner. We scroll before we get out of bed. We half-listen to our kids while checking email. And then we wonder why they can’t put it down.

You can’t outsource this to parental controls. The most powerful thing you can do is let your kids see you choosing presence over a screen. Not perfectly. Just consistently enough that they know what it looks like.

That’s the whole job.

Before You Close This Tab

Here is where most dads stand. Check the ones you have locked in. Start on the rest this week.

  • ☐ Phones out of the bedroom
  • ☐ Internet earns trust, it doesn’t start with it
  • ☐ You know every password
  • ☐ No screens at the table
  • ☐ Boredom is allowed
  • ☐ Content has standards
  • ☐ Screens off one hour before bed
  • ☐ Real life comes first
  • ☐ Open door policy for what they see online
  • ☐ You are modeling it
  • ☐ Daily time limit is set
  • ☐ No hiding screens from each other
  • ☐ Tech-free day is on the calendar
  • ☐ Rules get reviewed every year

If you checked five or more, you are ahead of most. If you checked fewer than five, pick one and start there. Progress beats perfection every time.

We send practical stuff like this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to 50,000 dads who are figuring it out as they go. No noise. No fluff. Just the good stuff.

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Nobody warned us.

They told us about the sleepless nights. The diapers. The feeding schedule. The way your life would “change forever.” We heard all of it. We nodded. We thought we understood.

What nobody told us is that you might look at your newborn for the first time and feel… not much.

Not the movie version. Not the flood of emotion and instant bond and tears streaming down your face while a nurse hands you this perfect creature and everything suddenly makes sense.

Just. Not much. Maybe a little shock. Maybe some relief that it’s over. Maybe a vague, bewildered sense that this screaming, purple, cone-headed stranger is apparently yours now.

And then, underneath all of that, a question you’re too afraid to say out loud:

What is wrong with me?

Nothing Is Wrong With You

Let’s get that out of the way first.

The instant bond story is real for some dads. It hits like a freight train the second the baby arrives and they’re done. Completely gone. Overwhelmed with love they didn’t know they had.

That’s great for those guys.

But it’s not the only story. And it might not be yours. And if it’s not, you are not broken, you are not a bad father, and you are not alone.

What we don’t talk about enough is how foreign a newborn actually is. They don’t know you. They can’t see you clearly. They don’t smile yet. They don’t respond to your voice in any way that feels personal. They cry, they eat, they sleep, and they need constant care from a person they have zero relationship with.

You are, for all practical purposes, a stranger to each other.

Connection takes time. That’s not a flaw. That’s just how it works.

The Biology Nobody Explains

Here’s something worth understanding.

For moms, the hormonal surge of labor and delivery triggers an immediate biological attachment response. Oxytocin floods the system. The bond gets a chemical jump start. It’s built into the process.

For dads, that doesn’t happen the same way. We don’t get the hormonal runway. The connection for us tends to build differently. Slower. More gradually. Through doing, not just holding.

Every diaper changed. Every 3am feeding where you’re half asleep and functioning on autopilot. Every bath. Every time you figure out the one specific way to get this specific baby to calm down. That’s how it builds.

It builds through repetition. Through proximity. Through time.

The dads who feel it immediately aren’t doing something different. Their brain just fires first. The dads who take longer aren’t doing anything wrong. Their brain fires later. Both are normal. Both end up in the same place.

What It Actually Feels Like

We’ve heard from a lot of dads on this. Here’s what they describe.

The first few weeks feel more like a job than a relationship. You’re solving problems. You’re executing tasks. You’re learning an entirely new skill set under extreme sleep deprivation. There isn’t a lot of room for feeling in between the feeding and the burping and the desperate attempt to get two consecutive hours of sleep.

Somewhere around week three or four or six something shifts. You’re not sure when it happens exactly. You just notice one day that when the baby cries, something pulls at you in a way it didn’t before. That you’ve started looking forward to the moments they’re awake. That the face that used to look like every other baby now looks unmistakably like your baby.

Then around two or three months, when they look up at you and actually smile for the first time because they see you specifically, because they know your face and they’re happy about it, something cracks open.

That’s usually the moment for dads. That’s when it lands.

It just takes a while to get there. And the wait doesn’t mean the love isn’t coming. It just means it’s loading.

The Danger of Faking It

Here’s the thing we want to say clearly.

Don’t perform the bond you don’t feel yet. Not for your partner. Not for your family. Not for anyone.

Performing it creates distance. It makes you feel like a fraud in your own home, in what should be one of the most significant periods of your life. And it prevents you from actually being present for the real thing when it arrives.

What we’d say instead: show up for the work even when the feeling isn’t there yet. Change the diapers. Do the night shift. Hold the baby even when they’re screaming and nothing is working and you’re not sure why you’re even doing it.

Because the feeling follows the work. It almost always does.

The dads who disconnect, who check out in those early weeks because they’re not feeling what they expected to feel, those are the guys who look back years later and realize they missed the window. Not because the bond never came. But because they weren’t there when it did.

The Part Your Partner Needs to Hear Too

If you have a partner reading this alongside you, here’s something worth saying out loud.

Dads who don’t immediately lose their minds over a newborn are not indifferent. They’re not cold. They’re not going to be bad fathers. They’re just wiring differently and on a slightly longer timeline.

The worst thing that can happen in those early weeks is a dad feeling like something is wrong with him, pulling back out of shame or confusion, and the distance becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Give him the grace to get there. He’ll get there.

It’s Coming

If you’re in the middle of it right now, here’s what we want you to know. The love you’re waiting to feel is real. It exists. It’s on its way.

It’s just getting built right now, one 3am diaper at a time, one bottle at a time, one completely unreasonable crying session at a time.

Keep showing up. Do the work even when the feeling isn’t there yet. Stay in the room. One morning you’re going to look at this kid and it’s going to hit you like a truck and you’re going to wonder how you ever didn’t feel it.

That morning is coming.

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Most parents tell their kids: “Don’t talk to strangers.”

Scott Galloway does the opposite. He forces his kids to talk to strangers. Seriously. And sometimes it takes an hour.

Watch the Clip

The Big Idea: Confidence Is a Repetition Game

Most adults struggle with one simple thing:

Talking to people they don’t know.

  • Networking
  • Job interviews
  • Asking for help
  • Starting conversations

For a lot of us, those situations trigger the same feeling: social anxiety. Galloway’s idea is simple. Confidence comes from exposure. Not theory. Not lectures. Reps. The more uncomfortable conversations you survive, the less scary they become.

Why This Matters for Kids

Here’s the trap modern parents fall into. We engineer friction out of our kids’ lives.

We order their food. We talk to the coach. We schedule the playdates.

But every time we do that, we accidentally send a message: “You can’t handle this.”

Kids don’t need protection from every awkward moment. They need practice navigating them.

The 30-Second Challenge

Galloway’s rule is brilliantly simple. Before leaving somewhere, his kids must talk to one stranger.

That’s it. Not a speech. Not a long conversation.

Just something small like:

  • “Can I pet your dog?”

  • “What kind of dog is that?”

  • “Is this line for coffee?”

Tiny reps. But powerful ones. Because those reps stack.

Why It Works

Kids feel the same fear adults do. That tight chest. That hesitation.
That voice that says:

“This might be embarrassing.”

When they push through that feeling once, something clicks. Nothing bad happens. The stranger smiles. The dog gets pet. Life moves on. And their brain rewires:

“Oh… I can do this.”

What This Looks Like for Dads

You don’t need to copy the exact Starbucks rule. But you can borrow the principle.

Look for small opportunities to nudge your kids out of their comfort zone.

Have them:

  • Order their own food

  • Ask the store employee for help

  • Introduce themselves to another kid

  • Thank a server directly

It might feel awkward. That’s the point.

The Long Game

One day your kids will have to:

  • Ask for a job

  • Introduce themselves to a future spouse

  • Pitch an idea

  • Make a friend in a new city

Those moments all require the same skill: Talking to people you don’t know. It’s not talent. It’s practice.

Dad Day Takeaway

Confidence isn’t something you teach. It’s something kids earn through uncomfortable reps. So next time you’re in line at Starbucks…Don’t speak for them. Let them sweat a little. Then let them go ask if they can pet the dog.

There’s a subtle mistake a lot of us make on family adventures. We become the cameraman.

The hike starts, the beach day unfolds, the birthday candles get lit, and we’re behind a screen trying to capture it all. We tell ourselves we’re preserving memories. And we are. But we’re also missing pieces of them. There’s a better move.

Buy your kid a camcorder. Then make them the official family documentarian. It sounds simple. It is. And it changes more than you’d think.

The Problem With Dad Holding the Camera

When Dad runs the camera, Dad disappears from the footage. You get great clips of your kids jumping off docks and chasing waves. What you don’t get is you — laughing, wrestling, cannonballing, being fully present.

And if you’re honest, when you’re filming, you’re only half in the moment anyway. You’re adjusting angles. Checking focus. Making sure you “got it.” Hand the camera over, and something shifts.

You stop managing the memory. You start living it.

A Camcorder Changes How Kids See the World

Give a kid a camera and a normal Saturday becomes a mission.

They don’t just walk through the woods, they look for shots. They notice light coming through the trees. They film the dog shaking off water in slow motion. They zoom in on things you’d never think to capture. It trains attention. It builds awareness.

Instead of passively consuming the day, they start actively observing it. That’s a skill most adults are trying to relearn through meditation apps and productivity books. Kids can build it with a camera.

You’re Not Buying a Gadget — You’re Giving Responsibility

This isn’t about tech. It’s about trust.

When you hand your kid a camcorder and say, “You’re in charge of documenting today,” you’re sending a message:

  • I trust you with something valuable.
  • Your perspective matters.
  • You’re part of telling our story.

That’s a different level of ownership than just tagging along on a trip Dad planned. Kids rise to responsibility when we give it to them. Not perfectly. But meaningfully.

The Hidden Win: You Get to Be in the Frame

Here’s the part most dads don’t realize until later.

If you’re always filming, you’re rarely in the footage. Years from now, your kids won’t care about 4K resolution or cinematic angles. They’ll care that you were there…in the water, on the trail, at the table. When they’re the one holding the camera, you get to wrestle in the grass. You get to jump off the dock. You get to sit back at the campfire without thinking about storage space and battery life.

You get to be Dad, not the production crew.

Watching It Back Is the Real Magic

The best part happens later.

You sit down together and watch the footage. It’s shaky. The framing is off. There are 30 seconds of someone’s forehead. And it’s perfect. Because you’re seeing the day through their eyes.

What they chose to film says something about what mattered to them. What they ignored says something too. It’s a time capsule of their perspective at that exact age, something no perfectly edited highlight reel can replicate.

A Few Rules So You Don’t Ruin It

If you try this, keep it simple.

  • Don’t micromanage the shots.
  • Don’t critique the footage.
  • Don’t turn it into a film class.

Let it be messy. Messy is honest.

If they drop it or forget to hit record, that’s part of the learning. The goal isn’t perfect documentation. The goal is participation and ownership.

The Bigger Lesson

Modern parenting often swings between control and anxiety. We try to manage every detail, optimize every experience, preserve every memory. Giving your kid the camera is a small act of letting go.

You’re handing over control of the narrative, just a little. And in doing that, you gain something better: presence. You’ll end up with a collection of imperfect videos. But more importantly, you’ll have been fully inside the moments they captured.

And one day, when you watch those clips years later, you won’t just see what your family did.

You’ll see how your child saw you.

Growing up, my dad had a handful of sayings he’d repeat to us before school, parties, or big events. Whether it was “read the damn problem” before a test, “proper planning prevents poor performance” before a speech or game, or “the hurrier I go, the behinder I get” when we rushed through something and made it worse — they were endless.

And, in my adolescence, admittedly annoying. But one that’s always stuck with me is: “Remember who you are, and where you came from.” That one usually came out before dates, going to a “friend’s house” (aka party) in high school, or leaving for college.

It was my dad’s simple reminder that our actions reflected not just on us, but on our family — and that first impressions are what reputations are built on.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to see that phrase differently. Whether it’s in a job search, finding a spouse, or becoming a dad, the best thing you can do is know who you are, be proud of that, and stick to your values. When something doesn’t sit right, have the courage to speak up — but also the humility to listen and respect a different perspective.

Now, as a new father, that saying hits even deeper. It makes me think about how I want my kids to remember me — how I make them feel. I want to be the kind of supportive dad mine was: someone they can come to with anything.

And while discipline has its place, love and understanding should always lead the way. For others, “remember who you are and where you came from” might mean something entirely different — maybe it’s a promise to never return to a painful place or mindset. And that’s just as meaningful.

In the end, that phrase can mean many things to many people — and that’s the beauty of it. But I do believe it’s one of the most important lessons we can pass down to the next generation.

I’m assuming most of the dad’s out there had a pretty similar experience to learning as I did growing up. From elementary school to high school and any schooling thereafter, they all had a certain rhythm—the teacher or professor gives a lesson, you take notes (or, like me, you don’t), maybe you ask a question or two (or, like me, you don’t), then there’s a quiz to check progress, and finally The Big Test to see what you’ve learned. 

It’s predictable—you study, you prepare, and you take the test. In theory, you know what’s coming (or, like me, you don’t do any of these and simply hope your guessing game is on point on test day). 

But fatherhood? Oh man, fatherhood completely rewrites that playbook. 

  • In school, you learn the lesson, then take the test. 
  • In parenting, you get tested and then learn the lesson. 

There’s no syllabus for this parenting thing. No heads-up before a pop quiz. No cramming for The Big Test. 

In school, there’s consistency. Two plus two equals four, every time. The War of 1812 happened in 1812 every time (right?). 

But parenting? Every child and situation is slightly unique and hardly anything is consistent. It’s almost impossible to prepare or know what’s coming and when. 

Rarely, if ever, are two similar situations even remotely the same when you’re dealing with kids’ personalities, temperament, age, etc. When it’s time to take a bath, one kid may throw a temper tantrum while another may happily sprint to the bath to play in the water. That could all be completely different the next day. 

There’s no consistency. 

One day you’re coasting, thinking you’ve finally figured out this whole dad thing and the next, your toddler is having a meltdown in Target because you picked the wrong color of sippy cup. 

Test administered. Lesson pending. 

There’s No Study Guide for Fatherhood

Fatherhood is a lifelong series of pop quizzes and surprise tests. You don’t know when they’re coming or what subject they’ll be covering. Some are small—like realizing too late that nap time is sacred and should never, ever be disturbed. Others are bigger—like figuring out how to stay calm when your child says something hurtful or when your teenager makes a mistake that genuinely scares you. 

These tests don’t come with a study guide. You can’t tell your toddler mid-tantrum to hold still for a second while you review the lesson plan for Tantrums In Target. And, unlike school, there’s no clear right or wrong answer. Sometimes you get it right by instinct, and sometimes you don’t. 

So, as you’re standing in the middle of Target and after the tantrum finally gets to be too much, you lose your patience and say something you shouldn’t have, and you inevitably feel the sting of guilt afterwards. 

Test failed. 

Or, you get tested in a different way, one that on the surface seems like an easy A—your child is having a problem and you fix it. I mean, you’re Dad, right? You’re the parent who tries to fix every problem for your kids. That’s great until you realize later on that in order for them to succeed, they need to stumble a bit on their own. Although you had good intentions and a soft heart, you ended up taking the accomplishment away from them. 

Another test failed. 

(I’ll be the first to admit that this test is difficult for me to pass.) 

In both cases, unlike school, the lesson is learned after the test. 

You can’t mentally prepare for every situation because rarely will it happen how or when you thought it would. You just experience them as they happen, mess up, and grow from them. 

Failing The Test Is Okay 

Not all failure is equal. 

In school, failure feels like a fixed trait. You bombed the test, your grade drops, your confidence takes a hit, and you live the rest of your days believing that History just isn’t your subject (or mine, in this case) and never will be. But in fatherhood, failure doesn’t feel so final. If used properly, it feels more like growth. It’s like you already know failure is part of the deal; it’s part of the curriculum. You’re expecting it but just hoping you don’t fall on your face too hard. 

You fail, you reflect, you repair, and that is the learning. 

You learn patience by losing it. You learn empathy by forgetting to show it. You learn the power of words by saying the wrong ones.

The test comes first. Then the lesson. 

Who Needs a Study Guide Anyway? 

As I’ve been on this dad journey for nearly two years now, I’m slowly realizing that this backward way of learning may actually be better. School prepared me to get the right answer. Fatherhood is teaching me to keep trying even when I don’t have it. 

So, if you’re feeling like you’re constantly being tested and don’t have the right answers and are failing the tests—it’s okay. With each failure, you’re learning how to pass the next time. 

And remember, we’re all learning as we go. Nobody has this dad thing figured out beforehand. 

Oh, and don’t forget to suck up to the teacher (read: your spouse). If you do it right, it can help improve your grades (read: your life).

Legendary snowboarder Jeremy Jones returns to Tahoe, but this time he’s not chasing first descents. He’s watching his kids drop into them. Jones Family Day is a masterclass in legacy, risk, and raising kids who catch your passion instead of your fear.

Watch the Video


Video courtesy of Jeremy Jones and Teton Gravity Research.

The Big Idea

For Jones, snowboarding has always been sacred — equal parts freedom, fear, and focus. But this time, the stakes feel higher. Watching your kids chase the same high you did is a different kind of adrenaline.

He admits it’s harder to watch than to ride. Every turn they take tests his trust — in their skills, in his parenting, in the lessons buried under decades of powder and risk.

The clip isn’t just about big mountain lines; it’s about the narrow ones we walk as parents. Protect or let go? Push or pull back? Jones’ answer is pure wisdom: teach them well, then step aside and let them ride.

The Takeaway

Jeremy Jones’ latest chapter isn’t just about conquering peaks, it’s about connection. Your kids don’t need to copy your path. They just need to see you living it fully so they’ll have the courage to find their own.

Imagine your kid turning 18 and already having a retirement account — one you opened before they could walk. That’s not a fantasy. That’s FutureMoney. They’re the first company to offer a Junior Roth IRA, a tax-free investment account that grows with your kid from day one.

The Big Idea

Phil Barrar, founder and CEO of FutureMoney, joined us in the Dad Lab to talk about something every dad cares about: giving your kids a financial head start.

Because here’s the stat that should make every parent perk up: 80% of parents believe kids should have a retirement account from birth.

Now they can.

The Problem

Parents have always wanted to save for their kids, but the system made it messy.

  • 529 Plans: Great if your kid goes to college. Not so great if they don’t.

  • UTMA/UGMA Accounts: In your kid’s name… which means they control the cash at 18 (good luck with that).

  • Taxable Brokerage Accounts: Flexible, sure. But zero tax advantages.

Until now, there wasn’t a clean, parent-controlled, tax-efficient way to build long-term wealth for your kid.

The Solution: The Junior Roth IRA

FutureMoney’s Junior Roth IRA changes the game.

It’s a hybrid between a cash account and a 529 plan that automatically converts into a Roth IRA when your child reaches adulthood.

Key perks:

  1. No earned income requirement — anyone can contribute.
  2. Tax-free growth — compound interest working from day one.
  3. Withdrawals for major milestones like a home down payment.
  4. Penalty-free access to contributions anytime.

That’s real generational wealth-building, not handouts, not hype. Just smart compounding and modern tax code working in your favor.

Bonus: The Custodial Roth IRA

For older kids with “earned income” (babysitting, lawn care, family chores, etc.), FutureMoney also offers a Custodial Roth IRA with higher contribution limits and tools to help parents properly document that income.

Translation: your kid can start learning the earn → invest → grow loop before middle school.

Quick Note: The $1,000 “Trump Account”

Separately from FutureMoney, the federal government recently approved a $1,000 “Trump Account” program for babies born between 2025 and 2028. Each eligible newborn will receive a one-time $1,000 deposit from the government — a national “baby wealth starter” meant to kick off lifelong saving.

FutureMoney’s Junior Roth IRA is independent of that program, but the two can work side-by-side to supercharge your child’s financial foundation.

The Dad Takeaway

You don’t have to be rich to give your kid a rich future. You just need to start early and use the right tools. FutureMoney makes that simple, and they’re the first to make it possible from birth.

So yeah, you can keep buying toys that end up in the garage…or you can open an account that could fund their first home or even their retirement.

Your move, Dad.

📥 Get started with FutureMoney: futuremoney.co
💸 USE CODE: DADGOOD for $50 funded.

Bonus:

Watch Phil Barrar, founder and CEO of FutureMoney below.

How often have we heard: 

– “It’s okay to fail as long as you try.” 

– “It’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you pick yourself back up.” 

– “Trying and failing is better than never trying at all.” 

(Or some version of these.) 

We all know how important failing is for kids—it’s like their full-time job. It’s an inevitable part of life that is critical for their development. 

As dads, we stress the importance of failing for character building, skill acquisition, and just overall life lessons. Whether it’s our little ones striking out in little league baseball, or spilling the milk when trying to pour themselves a glass, or, when our kids are teenagers and failing stings more, when they forget their lines in a school play, or get shot down by their romantic interest. Or when they’re adults and the failures can be more life altering after a failed marriage or losing their job. 

Failure is bound to come at some point if we keep pushing our kids—and ourselves—to try new things and “be in the arena” (which we should). 

But we also know that no matter the failure, we’re always there for our kids to pick them up. We’re in their corner with words of encouragement, letting them know that failure happens and everything is going to be okay, and then pushing them to get back out there. 

But if we’re being honest, how often do we dads give ourselves this kind of grace? 

Failure seems easier to forgive in others—especially our mini-mes—than it does in ourselves. As dads, we want to be the fixers, the problem-solvers, the steady hands that hold down the family, and a role model for our kids on how to navigate life. We can handle failure in everyone else (some moments we handle this better than others), but we need to give ourselves grace in the face of failure as well. 

As a first-time dad myself, fatherhood seems to have failure as a built-in feature. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve shamed myself for losing my patience with my toddler that’s pushing every button (figuratively and literally) or beaten myself up for the times when I’ve plopped him down in front of the TV so I could get a little work done or plopped myself down in front of the TV instead of playing with trucks or building blocks with him. 

The list goes on.

But it’s not that we want to fail but pretending that we aren’t going to at some point and then shaming ourselves for not being perfect doesn’t do anyone any good. Especially when we showcase this disappointment externally, our kids can and will pick up on that. The expectation to be perfect will make us not want to try and certainly not want to fail. 

Which is exactly what we don’t want—for ourselves and for our kids. 

Conversely, it’s more important when we fail that we can admit, “Hey, I messed that up,” and we correct the action or apologize for the inaction and vow to do better in the future (and, most important, take action to do it). In this way, we model something powerful for our kids: humility, accountability, and growth. 

That trying and failing doesn’t have to be so bad. 

It’s one thing to tell your kid to apologize when they’re wrong or out-of-line, and it’s another to show them how it’s done. Saying, “I shouldn’t have snapped at you earlier. I was frustrated and that’s not your fault. I was wrong and I apologize.” (I’ve had to say this exact phrase to my kid and to my wife.) 

Having your kids witness this teaches them more about integrity than any lecture could. 

And when we try something new—like coaching their team, or attempting to learn guitar, or finally getting around to learning that foreign language that you promised yourself you’d do this year—and it inevitably goes sideways (and it will—I know this from personal experience), it’s a chance for them to see you struggle, fail, regroup, and show them that perfection was never the goal anyway. 

When that failure comes, it simply means we’re trying something new. Or it means we’re navigating new territory. Or it means we’re pushing past what’s easy. Or, sometimes, it means we erred because we’re human. Or, more likely, it’s a little bit of all of these combined. 

And just as we teach our kids to try something new, to navigate new territory, and to push past what’s easy, or that as humans we err, we’re there to pick them back up when they fail because we know the importance of trying and failing for their growth. 

As dads, we just need to make sure that we have the same amount of grace and understanding with ourselves when we fail as dads because it’s equally as important for our growth. We should hold ourselves to high standards—which is also important for our kids to witness—and not lower the bar in order to appear perfect. 

It’s better to aim high, miss, and course correct than it is to aim low and always hit. The former is destined for growth while the latter is destined to stay the same. 

And where’s the growth (or fun) in aiming low?

Our kids don’t need to see us being perfect (don’t try, it’s not possible anyways). They need to see us be human. To see us try, fail, and how we go about bouncing back and righting the situation. 

So, don’t be so hard on yourself, dads. Our kids will be always watching and waiting to see how we react when we succeed and when we fail.

It’s important to show them that succeeding is the goal and achievement is great but failure is inevitable and that there’s learning and growth to be had in that. 

It’s not just for kids. It’s for us dads, too. So go out there boldly, dads, and when you fail, fail boldly. Let them see what it’s like to fall down. Because every time we do, we teach our kids how to rise.