“The Dad Is Not A Person; It’s A Lifestyle”: 50 Pics That Scream Dad Energy, Shared By Facebook Page
Nothing changes a man's life like becoming a father. Being entrusted with the responsibility and care of another person is a huge task.
You need to help your child's development, which includes playing, being a good role model, and being warm, loving, and engaged.
But all of this effort is insanely rewarding. Not only do you see your kid grow into an adult but you also get an automatic pass to make all the dad jokes you want.
But don't just take my word for it. There's an online project called The Dad and it's dedicated to illuminating this joyful journey. One of the ways it does that is by tweeting and retweeting spot-on takes on family life and parenting.
More info: thedad.com | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
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We managed to get in touch with Joel Willis, the founder and executive editor for The Dad, and he was kind enough to have a little chat with us about his own parenting journey.
"As a parent, the only thing you can be certain of is that you will be constantly surprised by what happens. What To Expect When Expecting should just say 'Who knows? But you'll figure it out, probably,'" Willis told Bored Panda.
Every kid, family, and the experiences they share are so different, and Willis thinks it's precisely the reason why raising a child is the best challenge you can have. "Every day is a clean slate full of endless possibilities for tragedy and triumph."
"Parents should keep that in mind, and not be too rigid about what they expect to happen or how they think their kid must behave," he said. "Go with the flow and embrace the craziness. If everything went as planned, wouldn't that be boring? I'm seriously asking, wouldn't it? Please let me know. I have no idea because nothing in my life has gone as planned since my first kid was born 12 years ago."
"While every journey is different, all parents are on the same unpredictable rollercoaster. That's why The Dad content resonates with so many, because we get to laugh at the shared absurdity of it all," the man added.
Going through these tweets, the idea that a man can possess parenting instincts and is not just suited to be a provider or a hapless sidekick looks natural, but it is actually relatively new. Just a few generations ago, it was highly controversial. In the '70s, for example, the expectation that men should do more was picking up steam, but they were still considered a poor substitute for moms.
"[The mid-'70s] was the heyday of attachment theory, which, as it was incarnated then, was very much focused on the critical importance of the attachment between an infant and its mother in the first years of life," Michael Lamb, who became a forerunner of fatherhood research at the time and continues to study it at the University of Cambridge in the UK, told Today's Parent. "That went along with the assumption that it was the only [primary] relationship kids could form."
But at the turn of this century, researchers discovered an incredible detail about men: our bodies transform when we become fathers. Turns out, our hormonal systems alter dramatically when we become parents. And it doesn't matter if we're talking biological dads or adoptive ones, heterosexual or queer, the same applies for everyone.
This amazing revelation basically implies that despite the narrow role fathers have put themselves into for so long, our internal chemistry may have always been nudging us toward more involvement.
We know that oxytocin (the love hormone) plays a role in a mother's initial bonding with her child after birth but researchers have observed that the same spike in oxytocin occurs when fathers hold and play with their newborns too.
I was about 5 - so, 1960 - when I asked my mom what it was like to ride in a covered wagon.
When that love drug floods a new father, his testosterone level typically drops, making him less likely to take risks and more able to nurture his newborn. Furthermore, he registers an increase in prolactin, which is a hormone best known for helping women produce breastmilk.
University of Notre Dame anthropologist Lee Gettler explained that the presence of prolactin goes back hundreds of millions of years to our animal ancestors, even before mammals (and breastfeeding) existed. Over the past decade, Gettler has determined the connection between the hormone and modern-day dads. "Fathers with higher prolactin play with their babies in ways that are beneficial for their babies' learning and exploration, and the fathers also seem to be more responsive and sensitive to infant cries," he said. This ancient hormone increases a dad's desire to be close to their little one!
That should come as a relief to those men who are worried about becoming a father. If you put in the time and effort, you're going to be fine. You're a natural!
The householder described the decision to disconnect his electricity on aesthetic grounds as "blatantly unconstitutional"
"Don't try to be perfect," Joel Willis of The Dad said. "There's no such thing as a perfect parent. We all make mistakes. Our kids will grow into adults, and even if they're happy and successful and independent, they'll certainly resent us for something. I tell my kids this sometimes and you know what? The thing they'll resent me for is probably telling them they're going to resent me for something someday."
Willis divides parenting mistakes into big and small. According to him, if you try to avoid the big ones as best you can and don't worry about the small ones, you should be fine. "They build character," he said.
For more similar content, follow The Dad using the links in the introduction. "I just want to mention that while I am the founder and editor-in-chief, The Dad is made up of a team of talented, creative, hilarious folks who create the best parenting content on the web, day after day," Willis added. "They are the best."
Set him straight or he'll never have a profitable career in insurance fraud
And if there's a world record for fastest time to fully unclothe yourself, a toddler that can barely crawl will shatter it.
it was the best of times , it was the worse of times . but in all in was complete anarchy , there where no rules , first come first served
I realize that this is going to be shocking to most of you, but we actually wrote letters on paper and mailed them in a mailbox. After waiting for an eternity, we would get an actual letter....IN. THE. MAIL....it was awesome.
Oh now i remembered i had a pen pal from another country and i was also collecting letter papers!! Who remembers the colourful ones with cartoons on them and a special smell??
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Kinda weird that it's an almost antique memory nowadays, but when I was in elementary, you'd just put on your shoes, walk a couple streets to your friend's place, ring the doorbell and ask their mom "if *insert name here* may come out to play" - half the time you got "I'm sorry, but *name* still has homework to do", so you'd just utter a sad "okay, thank you, Mrs. *name*", turn around and walk back home.
I miss those days. I loved playing in the street with cardboard boxes, cans, whatever. When I was giving private English-as-a-foreign-language lessons, one middle-aged man asked whether we could meet in the park so his kids could come along and play as we worked. I thought they'd climb trees, swing on swings, or at least run around. Instead, they sat on the bench beside us, playing with little computer games.
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We lived above my parents' shop. Every time we were on the phone and they needed to process a card payment they'd yell at us to get off the phone.
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🤣🤣🤣🤣 we mostly played outside. Back then the phone was just for talking to people and was connected to the wall. If we were stuck at home all day we might be on the phone with our best friend all day. Then video games became a thing.... Colecovision here we come 🤣🤣🤣
There are these things called papers and pencils. We used them to manually write what we wanted to say. We would give them to the people we wanted to say those things too. This is called "passing notes". Sometimes we would even write these notes in cursive!
AND we couldn't make those calls when we or someone was on the internet in the house! That's why we are tough, bad ass and can look at people in the eye when talking to them!
When I was a kid we had a party line, which was actually 3 or 4 households sharing the same line, so if the neighbor was using the phone you were out of luck until they were done.
Yes, but if you were a nosy kid who could breathe quietly you could eavesdrop on the neighbor's conversations and find out all kinds of grown-up stuff that wasn't your business. It was a precursor to social media.
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You know what was nice about it, though? If someone called you and you didn't answer, they just assumed you weren't home and left a message. With cell phones, if you don't answer, the caller sends increasingly agitated texts until you respond. Don't be like this. Everyone sleeps, showers, shits, has sex, makes dinner, does dishes, and other things during which it's inconvenient to answer the cell phone. Also, why were you calling in the first place when you could text? Just text. Once. And when I have a moment, I'll get back to you. I'm not sure why this is so difficult to comprehend.
Outdoors. Books. Magazines. Radio. Conversations with actual people IN PERSON.
I miss that. You'd get to talk to various members of your friend's family or your nieces and nephews. Now you get the one you called. Life got more narrow.
Either a call on the phone or you would just go knock on your friend's door. In school, we passed notes.
Funny story. Me and my siblings have the same initials (yes silly parents). Love letter arrives in the post. Result: much embarrassment all round.
I'm from a very small town, but there were 2 others with my first name. One was the girl's PE teacher, the other a minister's daughter. I got a letter just addressed to Harriett. The give-away was what else was written on the envelope."The moon the earth, the sun, the sky, are you as high as I." My mother was not amused. This was 1972.
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@cameron_kasky. When I was little, we made phone calls by dialling the operator and asking to be put through to the number. Three figure numbers back then. 👵 "Helsby 390" lol.
wow, did you ever see like, world war news on TV as well? or was it not that long ago?
Load More Replies... The best part was if someone was "online" NO ONE COULD USE THE PHONE! And if they did, it would kick you off the internet!
...in the middle of a three day download of a movie you wanted that ended up being in a foreign language anyway.
Load More Replies... I still find it really wasteful that we went to all the trouble of inventing a way to have long distance voice communications when today we really just want to have really fast texts.
I feel they each have their place. As an introvert from an area where the custom is to have really long hellos and good-byes, I highly appreciate the quick ability to communicate small necessary bits of info without feeling rude.
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and you had to remember the number. that s**t was wild...now, I can't figure out who the f**k is Danni. is it that a guy from work? or some of my kids friends dad? i can't remember
What I love is I have no idea of anyone's number now, but I still remember both grandparents' numbers, my best friend's number, and my own phone number for childhood.
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And then dial up came. Me screaming at my sister to GTFO the phone because it's my turn to use the computer and she already talked to her dumb friend for the last three hours.
My dad acted like the local version of facebook. He would call one of his siblings or friends, ask them about their day, the weather and temperature, see if they knew the words in the crossword puzzle he didn't know and then hang up. Then he would call the next person, ask the same questions and report on the information from the previous caller and they might give information they had gathered. He would then hang up and call the next one and the next one and sometimes get through 10-15 calls a night and sometimes make a second round if he got some really juicy information or gloat if he found out that word he didn't know to the keen crossword people. And yes, he really did this almost every night. When he died my mom was shocked how the month after his death when she had called anyone and everyone several times over she still had a much smaller bill than usual and which was then cut down further when she went back to her own normal. Welcome to the ancient world!
It was the time when human still had full freedom, privacy, real social life, and time for yoursef to enjoy, while still had technologies and gadgets as your slaves not the other way around like today. The best of the best time
This is how I learned to hate phone calls in general. So random and annoying. But at least phone was settled at home on a landline, you could just run away from it. When people started to walk around with those damn cellphones in their pockets in the late 1990's, I was like "what the f**k is wrong with you people ?". Only got one like ten years later, and because I was obliged due to work.
We didn't need to communicate our thoughts all the time honestly
Ah cam, let me explain something called a rotary phone. You see, you are supposed to dial a 5, but no your finger says 6 instead. Guess what, hang up junior and start all over.
It wasn't sheer chaos until dial-up came into play. Have seen family's get into instant fist fights from that.
It could be so much fun. My sister and I sounded alike on the phone. I'd talk to her boyfriends, if they didn't ask if it was her.
I remember the anticipation when the phone rang...was it a boy I liked?
Not just phone calls, but phone calls from the only phone in the house and it was on the kitchen wall (I won't go into party lines or having to talk to the operator and have her connect you)
Oh wait. That's when people had real conversations instead of inane exchanges of TMI.
And then there were those of us who lived on the farm ... party line!
A phone call was EXCITING!!! Getting a phone call from a friend asking to meet somewhere was a rush like Christmas morning.
My mum, my daughter and I all sounded the same on the phone. It made for some interesting interactions!
If you had four teenagers in the house the fight to get to the phone first was epic! Sometimes you could hear the person on the other end of the line saying "hello? Hello?" But the fight would still be going on so nobody paid attention. I was the youngest and got to witness this all the time. Very entertaining.
Kids were a primitive answering service. When the phone rang my old man would yell, "I'm not here, take a message."
Um no because there was only One phone in the house so there wasn't a second line
I've heard this point made before, that if we had grown up texting alone, we would have thought voice calls were just amazing, you just have to talk! No hands!
Should have seen us calling in for the radio contests or to request a song to be played. You were a God if they used your voice clip.
When I was little, there was no call waiting. If you called and someone was on the line already, you got a busy signal. Answering machines started to be a thing when I was in my teens. Before that, when you called and no one was there to answer, it just kept ringing. There was no way to leave a message unless you paid for an answering service where you could forward your calls and an actual live person would answer them and write down your messages.
Yeah, and now young people are afraid to call to get something sorted, and instead send emails wait for a reply.
Letters S.W.A.L.K.ed to the max. Secret notes hidden in friends backpacks. Communication may have taken a lot longer but holy s**t it was so much more exciting. Tin cans and MILES of wire.
And we all became pros at how to fold those secret notes in so many fun/interesting ways. I haven't thought about that in decades!
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Even worse: "This idiot once got so drunk he kissed the maid of honor"
My husband on 1st January: Hey, we have to go for a run, because the previous run we did was last year...(yesterday)
Honestly I quite often feel like a last-century kind of dinosaur, and I'm not even 40
And this is why some people think f***y packs are cool...never mind how old the picture is.
Increasing the costs of our weekly grocery shopping with at least €100 is why I got to stay at home.
'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a device was in use, not even the mouse. The phones were all hung up with chargers galore, while a 3d printed wreath was displayed on the door.
My FIL used to snap his fingers before sneezing because he sneezed to loud. I jumped so high the first time I heard him sneeze because they forgot to warm me.
.... and then wake up early for work for another 50 years... and then when you are retired and don't need to wake up early any more, you can't sleep any more and still wake up early!
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