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One of Many Annas's avatar

Tangentially ... If my White Midwestern dad were still with us, it would have been his 100th birthday this past Sunday. So I've been thinking about dads, and my particular dad, a lot. He was Fun Dad until I hit puberty with all its turmoil and confusions, and then he became Ghost Dad. I must have been close to 40 before he ever said "I love you" to me (we both cried). In one of the last conversations we had, when dementia was turning him back into Ghost Dad, he told me about coming home from the Pacific in WWII, landing in Seattle on New Year's Eve, having been ripped from his rural family, witnessed death, experienced dengue fever, been far away for far too long, been aged beyond his young-adult years. Mom said it was the only time she had ever heard him talk about his wartime experience out loud. He didn't know a sparkplug from a server, but he sure would have loved Wordle. He would have reveled in this political moment. He would have hoped with me. He would have gone door-knocking with me, if I asked him to. What a blessing, to know that about my nerdy progressive dad.

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Nathaniel's avatar

Watching all the memes and tweets about Tim Walz has been really funny, but you bring up a great point, Garrett, about the connectivity of dads.

I heard an NPR story several years ago about the epidemic of male loneliness and it resonated big time. I have one really good friend. We grew up together, talk or text at least daily, have been there for every one of our big life events, the whole nine yards. Other than him, it’s crickets. I have acquaintances, but not friends. Then I looked around at other men I know and saw the same thing. I started making an effort to initiate purposeful connections with other men I know. I started texting randomly to grab a beer or dinner. Sometimes it’s just two of us and sometimes we need a bigger table. It’s been pretty great overall, but I learned something very quickly. Purposeful connection is hard work. I go too long between sending out invites and often find I’m sending them when it’s convenient in my life which suggests that I’m not prioritizing this as much as I’d like to believe I am.

Regardless, I’m determined to keep it up. We need to be talking to each other and sharing thoughts about being dads, parenting kids, being husbands, masculinity in general, and how to do all of this. We might as well just admit that we’re all scared to death pretty much all the time and work together to get through it. It sure beats an epidemic of loneliness.

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