fatherhood
-
25 Questions for the Random White People Who Try to Touch My Baby in Public
1. Why do you think it’s cool to try to touch my baby? 2. Do you realize that my baby is 2? 3. And that she literally just learned the concepts of “yes” and “no” a year ago? 4. Which means that even if she says “yes” when you ask her if you can touch…
-
How the Book of Ryan Became My Therapy and Helped Me Understand Fatherhood
When I’m in the studio, I sometimes have these visions of conversations I’d like to have with my father. It leads me to think what it would be like if he and I could communicate on a higher level because there’s always been this barrier between us. Not even just us—everybody in our family. In…
-
The Best Way to Battle Internet Trolls Is to Treat Them Like Ice Cubes Dropped in the Dirt
“I dropped it, Daddy! I dropped it!” my daughter exclaimed while sitting on my lap, as the ice cube she held in the palm of her hand slipped from her grasp and crashed on the cement stoop outside our house. Determined to retrieve the wayward cube, she crawled off of me, stood over the ice…
-
We Can Now Add Schoolchildren to the List of People Forced to Clean Up the Mess White Men Made
The biggest surprise of being a parent so far is how often my daughter surprises me. She’s a little over 2 years old now, and it seems like every week she does or says something new that I had no idea she knew how to do or say. Yesterday morning, for instance, she noticed me…
-
Negative Parenting Milestones They Don’t Tell You About in Baby Books
I don’t remember the first time I bumped the back of my daughter’s head on the top of the passenger-side rear door when attempting to put her in the car seat, but I remember the last time I did it—Saturday afternoon. We were on our way to Whole Foods (whose hot bar is a surprisingly…
-
These Portraits of Dads in Madagascar Offer an Intimate Glimpse of Black Fatherhood in Other Parts of the World
With an endless array of pristine landscapes and animals that are native to no other region in the world, the country of Madagascar—located in the Indian Ocean—draws in hundreds of thousands of tourists every year from nearly every country in the world. But beyond the images of lemurs and baobab trees that were made famous…
-
I Played 2-Hand Touch Football This Weekend. I’m Probably Not Doing That Shit Again
On Saturday, Sept. 30, 2017, I engaged in a lighthearted game of two-on-two touch football with a couple of my closest friends and the 11-year-old son of one of them. We played to a tie (we were playing to 2). One of my friends is in phenomenal shape; he’s contemplating competing in USA Track &…
-
I Want Kids, but I’m Absolutely Terrified of Having Them
When I look in the mirror or at pictures of myself these days, the first thing that catches my eye is the patch of gray hair taking residence on my chin in my beard. The patch is like the White Walker army—slowly growing in follicle count until it surrounds the dark hairs in my beard—serving…
-
Meet the Detroit Mentor Who Inspired That Emotional Father-Son Scene in This Is Us
Like a lot of young men today, Jason Wilson, CEO of the Cave of Adullam Transformational Training Academy in Detroit, grew up without his father around. Struggling with his emotions and resentment toward his mother, Wilson turned to the martial arts. Today he’s turned his childhood struggles and his passion for martial arts into an…