In my business life I spend a lot of time thinking about and talking with people about purpose. Â In business, finding and being able to articulate purpose is (or should be) an essential piece of the complicated puzzle that leads to a successful company. Â We hear a lot about “culture” in business talk, but what …
Continue reading Parenting Is PurposeParent
We are broken. There is no other way to explain it. Â As parents it is our innate need, our deepest mission in life, to provide for our children. Â To keep them safe. Â To raise them in a better world than we were raised in… But it is not a better world. When I went to …
Continue reading We Are Broken…Is creativity a result of genetics or environment? Â I have no idea. If you know the answer, please share it. What I do know, is that I grew up in a household where creativity was generally celebrated, and I have always considered creativity to be one of my strengths. My mother always drew and painted, …
Continue reading On Passing Along Creativity To Our KidsFather’s Day is around the corner, but as both a dad and a son, I know (and I know that YOU know) that fatherhood has little to do with one “hallmark” day in June.  While it is nice to set aside some dedicated time to celebrate paternity with pride, it is also important to remember that truly, …
Continue reading 5 Things That Shouldn’t Wait For Father’s DayAs I have now watched my three kids grow, evolve, morph and mature from helplessly adorable infants to helpful and independent young adults, I find myself thinking a lot about my own evolving role as a parent. Â As much as our kids change, so do we, and so do the strings we have attached to …
Continue reading On Parenting, Kites and BalloonsAs parents we are in a special club when it comes to being thankful. Â We are in a club that knows, firsthand, from within every cell, every molecule, every essence of our being, what it means to have something to be thankful for. Â To have children to be thankful for. Â This is because there …
Continue reading Parents Are Lucky When It Comes To ThankfulI had dinner with two of the three Sasslets the other night. It is hard to still call them “Sasslets” as my daughter, the youngest, just left her teens behind by turning twenty. Yes, she’s been Daddy’s little girl for twenty years, and that’s how long I’ve been wrapped around her finger. While I still …
Continue reading What I Learned Having Dinner With My KidsI am pretty sure I am in the minority here (here being Dadomatic). I am likely one of the few dads with grown children and an empty nest. In the three years I have been writing for Dadomatic I’ve gone through both High School and College graduations and have seen my three kids go forth …
Continue reading Giving Your Kids The BusinessIt is June. Notable for the official start of summer, hurricane season (for those of us, like me, based in South Florida) and of course, Father’s Day. Like many dads, I am both a father and a son, roles that are intimately intertwined. We are all someone’s children, and as such we assume that who …
Continue reading The Real Father’s Day Gift
Dropping a cross post from my Dad the Single Guy blog because I think this audience would have some thoughts on this too: I’ve never been one (or at least I hope I have not been one) to look for help unless I am truly out of options and just can’t figure out a problem …
Continue reading Looking Inward for Solutions
Just a word of warning to regular readers-this post will likely get more than a little sappy, and I can not guarantee the readability. Since the beginning of last summer, I’ve been trying to instill a sense of extended family in my girls.  To let them know that while we see each other all the time, grandma …
Continue reading The Extended Family Plan
This is cross-posted from Dad The Single Guy because I think the audience here will have a different take on this one: While it sounds simple, for the last 18 months or so I’ve tried to focus on getting day-to-day for me and the girls, and along the way doing the best I can to …
Continue reading Making Today A Better Day Than YesterdayKids: You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them! Â Granted, that expression may have originally been coined for someone (er, some gender) other than kids, but these days I’d like to think it has ample applications to our offspring, for, as challenging and frustrating as being a parent can seem at times, …
Continue reading Visiting Day At The Kids’ House (and Dinner for Dad)
Today was a planned work from home day for me.  It’s a day I can have dinner with the girls and just make sure I am around.  Lately I’ve been trying to schedule two of these a week and try to give them a chance to talk or just hang and not have to worry about …
Continue reading The Daddy Dating GameSo here it is the first year I am officially a single parent, and no one told me about Single Parent Day-I completely missed it.  (For those like me who are uninitiated to this Hallmark moment, its the third Sunday of March). I did spend my  Single Parent Day out being a single parent, juggling …
Continue reading Hallmark and the Single ParentFor the last two years (maybe even longer) and ongoing struggle in my house is getting the girls (both of them) to do their chores. Â I don’t think I have given them a huge burden to take on-washing dishes, vacuuming once/week, cleaning rooms, putting laundry away and taking out the garbage (nightly). Â There are two, …
Continue reading When Chores are Done, But They Aren’t Chores
I put this over on my Dad The Single Guy blog this morning, but wanted to add it here because its one of those relationship issues that people on this blog seem to like. One of the semi-corny things you hear about a marriage is that its a partnership-we all have things we don’t do …
Continue reading Daddy WrappingToday was one of those days. Â I needed everything to line up just right, and for the most part it did, but there were some very tense moments where it looked like the daily pyramid was going to crumble. I probably missed the early sign. Â I had to catch a train this morning no later …
Continue reading The Fragile PyramidIts great to be able to contribute to this blog and perhaps find others who are trying to take on life’s challenges one day at a time, and in some cases one crisis at a time. By way of introduction, I am a recently widowed father of two girls. Â There’s tons of background about it …
Continue reading Life’s Journey, One Day At A TimeBusiness travel can be hard on a dad (or any parent) and being away from your kids can add stress to an already hectic travel schedule. Â That said, traveling dads who are also closet geeks often find ways to leverage technology to keep in touch with the kids at home. Â Thanks to the kismet of …
Continue reading Travelin’ Dads Talk Kids & Travel Tips(Note: I originally posted this on my personal blog, but felt it was also relevant here on Dadomatic.  I hope you don’t mind the repetition if you are a visitor to both.) Last night I went to a Memorial Tribute arranged by a co-worker and friend whose father passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago. …
Continue reading Don’t Wait For The Memorial…If you have more than one child at home do you find that they often “tattle” on each other? I have written about digital tattle tales before and on a recent trip to San Francisco I was thinking about it again, and how, in my case, counting on one or more of my kids to …
Continue reading Checks And Balances: Is It OK For Your Kids To Be Tattle Tales?Unlike FIGHT CLUB, when it comes to the rules of Fatherhood, it is ok to talk about them freely, especially here at Dad-O-Matic.  But are there really any rules of Fatherhood, or Parenthood for that matter?  I’d argue that there are no rules except for one: Never do anything that could harm or endanger your …
Continue reading The First Rule of Fatherhood: There Are No Rules!Image via Wikipedia Today I had to have a difficult conversation with my daughters. It was made harder because we live apart, they in the UK me here in the US. So over the phone I had to break the news that I had received only a few hours earlier, that their Grandmother, my Mother …
Continue reading Difficult Conversations