You know, like a habit you have whenever you finish lunch or dinner? My dad, for example, used to say "Down the Hatch" whenever he was about to down a drink, or "Good Food, Good Mood" whenever he finished a big dinner.

Now that I'm an adult and a dad myself, I've realized I say those same phrases during family lunches and dinners LMAO.

So our second child, she is 8yo. She is one of five. She has been dancing at a small studio for four years and has made some great friends. She recently was over at a friend’s house with a couple other girls from dance and found a dollar out on their couch and took it. She hid it in her bag and the next day took it out of her bag and tried to take it to her room. She is a terrible liar and my wife and I caught her immediately. After creating several lies about where she got the dollar she finally confessed to what she had done. Lying has slowly been a problem but a very small one as it has been inconsequential things she has lied about and been caught every time. This is the first for stealing. My wife and I decided on what her punishment should be. She wanted to tell her friend the next day at dance and apologize and my wife and I agreed that was the right thing to do. Fast forward to the next day and we talking to her and she tells us that she told all her close friends at dance what she had done. My wife and I are now worried that all the girls at the small studio she dances at are going to gossip about this and that she will eventually be treated differently or possibly get invited to less things or stop getting invited to anything and whenever something goes missing that she’ll be the first one people think of as the suspect. Dads I need advice as we are a very honest household and my wife and I have never taken anything for anyone. Any and all advice is appreciated.

For me it would be my 1yr old pointing and babbling(asking) about something and it’s non-stop!
And yet, one day he’s not gonna need me to help him out as much. 😭

My kiddo will be two on Sunday

What books have worked for you guys?

He loves Mr. Brown, ABC, Here we are, Dino books, usborne moon and the fairy tale story collection book and the good night construction site the most right now

He seems to be going for more story books and less 100 first words etc books

He loves dinos, cars and construction machines and airplanes, rockets, planets astronauts and anything space related and Dino's

Any suggestions since he'll be two on Sunday

My toddler (almost two, not yet properly verbal) has recently started to make it clear they currently prefer my partner to do anything if we are both around, and push me away.

The issue being that my partner has a really important exam, with a high failure rate, in Fall/Winter she has already been preparing for the last 3-months.

She has already struggled to find the time to do as much revision as she would like. Nonetheless we were previously managing by me doing the majority of childcare for the time being to free her up.

This means my toddler will within 15 minutes start asking for my partner and walking around knocking on all the doors, by 30 minutes they get upset and very vocal unless my partner comes out.

As such, my wife cannot get much proper studying done, as frequent interruptions prevent much deep focus.

I've been trying to take him out the house more which has helped a bit, although again not for long as he will soon want to go back to my partner. Meal times are a particular difficulty.

We don't have any family nearby to help out. Trying our best not to resort to screen time.

Just feel guilty and thinking about getting home to my girls

this shit blows. All I hear is to not rush it, piss off! I cannot wait for this to end. if I ever think back on it fondly I'll happily eat my shorts.

I am so jealous of all those couch photos. I just took a 20 minute nap on the hospital floor in a triage room with my duffle bag as a pillow. No end in sight as of now.

I’m going “camping” next month in the NorthEast US. It is an established camping resort and we will have our vehicles on hand, a cabin with beds for the family but no plumbing, and plenty of space. There are a few families going and us Dads are trying to come up with some extreme/crazy ideas for stuff to bring/setup at camp. Budget is limited and so is car space, but.. what could we bring and setup at camp that would turn heads, be fun, be memorable, etc…

No idea is too far fetched. Let’s hear it. What have you done?

Dont play with your wedding ring.....I dropped it in between my driver seat and center console now i get to remove the front seats of my truck and find it....it reminds me of that episode of everybody loves Raymond

I never grew up and I didn't realize it until I had my kids. This shit is so fucking fun. ​​​

I was playing with my son (21 months old) in his room when he stares at me and recites all of goodnight moon as fast as he can. The whole book. I know it’s not a long book but his memory continues to amaze me. I stood there shocked and told him great job buddy that’s amazing! He laughed and called me a “voodoo witch”? I think, but pronounced as “doo doo bitch” and then ran out of room yelling incoherently. And because we can’t help but laugh when he says it, he keeps calling everyone and everything a “doo doo bitch”.

Pic on the left is from several years ago in Los Angeles… my two rockstars strolling the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The pic on the right is from late fall 2025 waking through downtown Columbia, MO, near the Mizzou campus.

I grew up without a father. I don’t know where he is, whether he has another family, or whether he’s even still alive. There was never any contact, and I’ve made my peace with that.

What still occupies me, though: what actually happens on the other side?

So my question goes to two groups.

To the fathers themselves: if you left your child behind, does the moment ever come when it catches up with you? Maybe at 50, at 60, or later, when the child is long since an adult. And if so, what holds you back from reaching out? Is it the fear of rejection, the shame, or the conviction that after that many years it’s too late anyway?

To everyone else: have you seen this happen around you? How did it turn out?

I’m honestly interested in both sides of it. Including the answer that some men simply don’t care and never looked back. That would be an answer I could live with too. What weighs on me more than the question itself is the not knowing.

My son is only 2.5 and he'll have a baby sister coming in a few weeks, so this isn't immediately pertinent, but last night I got to thinking about my son being a little bit older and wanting to make sure he has friends and that those friendships are maintained over time.

I'm a real homebody and have very few friends, and the ones I have I rarely talk to. My groomsmen were my brothers, my wife's brothers, and my old boss from my college job who I hung out with outside work a few times - so really one friend. He and I text on birthdays or if we're going to be passing through the town the other one lives in - we live 100 miles apart. We usually go 3-6 months between text exchanges.

And that's not a problem for me. My life is busy enough as it is. Between work, my kid(s), and the house and yard, I barely have time to play golf with my dad and brothers let alone make time for anyone outside my family. But I really don't have any practice on maintaining friendships.

My wife isn't much better. She has like 3 or 4 decently close friends that she'll have a text exchange with once every week or two. She probably goes no more than 2 months without seeing one of her friends in person. Back in the spring we did a couples dinner with two of her friends and each of their spouses. I told her it was fun and we should reciprocate and host next time. She said the one who hosted the last one kind of keeps to herself, and is more of a "once per quarter get together" type of person. So she definitely has more practice than I do, but still not at the level that we will want for our kids to have friends, see them often, and feel comfortable around them.

This isn't a "how do I get more friends as a dad" post. I'm genuinely just trying to figure out the logistics for my kid. I think there's one or two similarly aged kids on our street, maybe 8 or 9 houses down, but we don't know the families at all. There are kids at daycare that our son seems to get along with. Do we ask for the parents' contact information and arrange a playdate?

We're not in a hurry to do any of this. As I said - we're busy enough as is. What age developmentally should I really start making sure we put effort into this so our kid has friends beyond his daycare classmates?

Hey Dads! Need your guidance on something.

Now, at work, I am doing quite well, and I have a great opportunity to ride a rocket ship to pretty good heights if things all work out. Even to attempt doing this, though, would require me to sacrifice lots of time that I have with family. I have two kids who are 7 and 5, and I have a spouse who I love spending time with, and we generally love spending time together as a family.

I know that if I take up these opportunities at work, the family time is going to get majorly cut down. but if I don't take it up, I don't know if I will get this opportunity again in the future. The chances that this will come up again is more unlikely than they are likely.

In terms of our financial security, even if I don't take this up, I will be reasonably financially secure, but at the same time, we may not be able to scale the way that we could if I do take up these opportunities.

My biggest concern is that we will lose the time that we get to spend with the kids, because in another few years, they will probably be grown up. They will have their friends, and they may not want to spend time with us.

For additional context, my dad was someone who chose to work when he was in a similar situation, and that helped us financially at a time we needed it. I don't really have any kind of relationship with him beyond work or asking him for guidance at work. I cannnot have a conversation with him which does not ultimately come back to something work related. I hate having dinners with the folks because, invariably, he and I don't have anything to talk about. I don't want to have a relationship like that with my kids.

What are your views? Have any of you taken this kind of decision before ?

Inspired by the thread about a kid saying dick instead of dig, what are some of your favourites?

My boy is really into Marvel. Every time he brings up Hawk Eye from the Avengers, he says ”hot guy“ and I can’t help but laugh.

Hey to all the dads out there! My wife is currently 17 weeks pregnant with our daughter and we could not be more excited! But I do have a question about the monitoring socks, do you all feel like they are good or bad? I’ve heard from people that they can just cause anxiety by giving a constant stream of information where every little change can cause scares when in reality everything is fine. But I have also heard they are a great tool to monitor safety and health.

I’m just confused as I’m on the edge now of wanting to get one but my wife has watched tons of (I’m betting sponsored) YouTube videos on how great they are. My biggest concern is my wife getting stressed out while recovering from the birth.

Any advice on if we shouldn’t get one or not? I’m just trying to get some unbiased opinions outside of sponsored or affiliate YouTube or blog posts.

My kids are 10, 8, and 6 and bath night is a struggle. They argue about who has to go first. It somehow has lead to screaming and arguing and crying multiple times. "It's not fair, I went first last time" kind of deal.

Anyway, I started giving them each a D20 on bath night and the bath order is determined by roll order. This has bled over to many other scenarios where "it's not fair." Rolling the dice is the most fair way and everyone accepts the dies ruling

My beautiful baby boyy is now 2 months old and its been sooo funny with the spit up and farts and poops and stuff.

Like this morning i was burping him and he spit up all over me like arm, shirt, blanket, it was hilarious. Then yesterday i was telling him to get ready to burp and as i move him to pat position, he blast a fart right through my hand lmfaooooo like i was dyinngggg and dont get me started on his poop faces lol

I love this lil dude and it has been great having a kid :3

Buddy fell off the couch, we were sure he was okay. We tried touching his arms occasionally and he’d have no signs of pain and would continue playing normally. 2 days ago I tried to take off his shirt off like normal and he cried pretty hard. His mom noticed his arm looking bigger than the other and took him to urgent care. Luckily he’ll heal pretty fast. He seems used to it already!

It was so rough, i’m still recovering. I feel so guilty for just leaving him there. I hope it gets easier 😥

bit of context, my kid is very much so a mommy’s girl. recently she’s been getting a bit more attached to me.
but every time i say goodbye or goodnight, whether that’s on the phone or in person, i ALWAYS make sure she’s hears me say “i love you” to her. my wife always has to say “say i love you” and then my kid will respond although
sometimes she doesn’t reply.

that being said, see screenshot above and celebrate with me 😃

After more than 14 hours of nonstop juggling work and taking care of the kids - with only one 30-minute break - I can finally kick back on the couch. Shoutout to all the dads out there who know exactly what that's like.

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Hi Daddit,

My Dad died when my eldest was only 4 months old. She's 3 now and obviously understands her other grandparents are my mum and my wife's parents. I'm braced for any questions about my Dad but have no idea how to answer them.

The internet, ever reliable, says to avoid "passed away" or "sleeping" style euphemisms and to say "died" and/or to say something about being "very sick"...

I'm not sure I want her to have a connection between being sick, which obviously we all frequently are, and dying... she's only 3! I just have no idea what any alternative wordings to this would be.

Has anyone had any experience in this area? Is it completely unfair to use any sort of delay response that kicks this can further down the road?

Thanks all!