Welcome to the debut episode of Sage Dad Life! Join Rob, a father of three—including a toddler daughter and two adult children—as he dives into the joys and challenges of being a present dad. In this episode, Rob shares the inspiration behind the podcast and the lessons he's learned through his unique fatherhood journey. Discover how raising strong, independent daughters requires intentional guidance, creative approaches, and a focus on life’s meaningful moments. Rob discusses fatherhood with special guest Paul Kizmann who shares his journey, From teaching life skills to fostering confidence, this episode is packed with wisdom, personal stories, and actionable insights for parents. Whether you're a seasoned dad, a new parent, or someone who loves inspiring stories, this is a must-listen!"
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Sage Dad Life. I'm Rob, a dad who is on a unique journey. I've raised a
(00:08):
wonderful son and daughter now in their 30s, and at 55 I find myself facing and embracing
fatherhood again with my two-year-old daughter, Sage. I've learned many lessons. Being a father
isn't just about time, it's about intention, and I intend on being the best dad that I can be.
(00:28):
Here we break the mold of traditional fatherhood, embracing the joy, challenges, and wisdom that
come with raising children to be equipped for this ever-changing world. If you're a dad looking to
lead with love, confidence, and hopefully a little humor, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
(00:50):
This episode of Sage Dad Life could be sponsored by your brand. Just like fatherhood, the best things
in life come with support, guidance, and a little wisdom. Help dads navigate their journey with
confidence. For your quality brand, we're proud to present engaged and empowered fathers. Visit
(01:11):
www.sagedad.life or email rob at sagedad.life for more information. Hello and welcome to the very
first episode of Sage Dad Life. I'm your host Rob, and I am so excited to have you here as we
embark on this journey together. This podcast is about something deeply personal and meaningful to
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me. Fatherhood. Not just fatherhood, but the joy, the lessons, and yes, the challenges of being a
present and intentional dad. To give you a little personal background, I am the father of three
wonderful children. Two of them are grown and have lives of their own. They're in their thirties.
And I also have a two-year-old daughter who keeps me on my toes every single day. At 55 years old,
(02:01):
I've had the unique opportunity to experience fatherhood at different stages of life. And let
me tell you, it has been the most rewarding and humbling adventure of my lifetime. I really hope
that Sage Dad Life becomes more than just a podcast. I'd like to build a space where we
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explore what it means to be raised strong, confident, and compassionate children in today's crazy
world. It's inspired by themes like the Girl Dad Movement, which celebrates fathers taking on
non-traditional roles and embracing the unique challenges of raising daughters, partly because
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my youngest is a daughter. And I have those challenges. And it is a different world today for
our daughters than it was yesterday. And that's just a reality. It's not a political statement.
And it's just a reality. And fathers will play an important role on building that next generation
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of women who will have to live in this world that we're leaving them. I hope that from this,
you can expect practical tips on teaching life skills and independence, honest conversations
about the joys and the struggles of parenting, insights into how to build strong father-daughter
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bonds, and most importantly, creating that legacy of empowerment for the next generation.
I'm going to cover things like teaching resilience and instilling confidence,
fostering creativity, and navigating tricky waters of modern parenting. My goal is to share
stories, tools, and inspiration that help us become better dads, ultimately, better humans.
(03:58):
Let's talk a little bit about why I started this podcast. My journey as a father hasn't been
exactly linear. I had children early in life and I had children late in life. Two very different
perspectives. When my older kids were growing up, I was very much focused on building a career,
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being a provider. While I was there for them, and I've always wanted to be a dad, I've always
thought I was a good dad, there were times where I wish I was more present, where the external
factors of the world were more important than the internal dynamics of my family, and just
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being real. With my youngest daughter, I have had this opportunity to slow down and really soak in
the experience. This time around, I'm determined to be that dad who shows up, not just physically,
but emotionally and mentally. I am all in. The real aha moment for me, well, I had a lot of aha
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moments, but when I started really engaging with my daughter and trying different things, trying
different activities, I think that the idea that it was okay for me to spend an afternoon baking
bread with my daughter. In fact, it was probably one of the most meaningful things that I did all
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week. I have just tried this time around to be there. In fact, when I found out that my daughter
was on the way, I talked to my older kids and I said, tell me, what did I do good, and what did
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I not do good as a dad? Was I a good dad? They're nice people, so yeah, they said I was a good dad,
but it was really, it was the memories of doing things together that were most important to them.
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They didn't remember the long hours that I worked. They didn't remember my paycheck getting bigger
and bigger as my career grew. They remembered the little things that we did. Then I look back and
I, it was my first marriage and we spent so much time building our life. We probably spent too
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little living it. I got to think that that's common when you start out at a young age.
You have so many things that you have to accomplish to stabilize your life. I can be proud of some
of the things that I did and even quite accomplished in my career. But when I changed, when my life
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shifted, but the things that I miss the most were the Christmas ornaments that we collected every
year. Things that had memories of my children and things that I could look at and say, I remember
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that. I remember that moment with my child. None of them had anything to do with my career.
And it's like many people, it really was the onset of COVID that sent my career into a death
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spiral as a 55-year-old in technology. You can imagine that the jobs were not there.
And I've had to reevaluate everything about my life and what is important and what is not
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important. And that process has been painful, but also incredible. It's just absolutely incredible.
The fact that my daughter came along and the journey that we've had so far just makes me
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a different person. I don't know how else to explain it. I want to be a different person.
I want to be a great dad. I want her to look back at time we had together. I want her to measure
every future relationship by the quality of love that I'm able to give her
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because she deserves that. And I think that will be my greatest accomplishment, okay with that.
In fact, I'm more than okay with that. I think that that is more than anyone can hope for.
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And I'm sort of done with the making money for other people and long hours and not because
I'm lazy. I work very, very hard. It's because it's not worth it. The material things that you get,
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the paycheck that you get, it can all go away quickly. You can be discarded very, very quickly,
but your family, your children, they don't discard you. There what's important.
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And I hope that this podcast really lives up to that. And I think fathers deserve credit
too often. I think fathers are sort of relegated to the breadwinner role.
Mothers are the caregivers. Mothers are the teachers.
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Fathers have so much to offer. And good fathers already know this. And there are lots of good
fathers out there, lots of better fathers than I am, I'm sure. I will invite them and I will
talk to them and hopefully we'll all get some ideas from their experiences. I'm going to focus
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probably on mostly older fathers who have lived it, who have made the mistakes and who have done
the things. Nothing against newer fathers, but you guys are still learning. And
you'll get there. And if you're listening to this podcast, I think that just the idea that you want
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to be a better dad is phenomenal. These special guests probably won't include a lot of
quote unquote parenting experts. I've heard some of those podcasts and there's quality stuff out
there and there's crap out there too. I have the requisite 10,000 hours to be an expert at parenting.
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They're real hours in the trenches doing the job. I don't need a college diploma that focuses on
children's studies or anything else that to be a good dad. And there have been good dads throughout
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history who never had any of that. And those dads, I think their story needs to be told. I think you
need to hear what is in on their minds and what they remember and how they remember and what's
important to them. I might throw a mom in there once in a while, share insights and experiences
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about the role that their partner or whatever relationship to the father figure that they
have for their children and their perspective on. We're going to keep it real. Parenting is not
always picture perfect. I'm not going to spend hours virtue signaling about what a great person I am
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and how I have every answer because I don't. I do know a lot because I've done a lot. I've had a
career. I've had a top tier income and I've worked at hourly rate and I've done both. I know technology
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but technology doesn't do much for older people and it's not something that it's talked about a
lot but I'm sure there's others out there like me who are facing this sort of second life.
And let me share a quick story about Sage and I and I just really wanted her to
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get involved with preparing family meals and understand what it takes to put food on the table
and put dinner on the table. And so this fall I planted a garden with her. We went out. We watered
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it every day. I'd never done a garden before. We ended up doing pretty good with the tomatoes.
We got lots and lots of tomatoes so made sauce, made salads, everything you could possibly think of
with tomatoes. Pumpkins, they did okay. Like I said it was my first gardening experience
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and I hope to do better this spring. But it was so much fun to do it with her and we'll talk about
that a lot in the spring as we take lessons learned from this past fall and we'll apply those and
she's a little older and can participate a little bit more. And I think that we'll have a lot of fun
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doing that. But after the garden kind of ended I wanted to keep doing this and it really started
I think with the tomatoes. We had planted and grown these tomatoes and they were delicious and
I wanted her to see the sort of completion of that. So we made dinner a couple of times and
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we made a beautiful quiche and I made my first pie crust ever from scratch and then
we made this quiche and everybody loved it. It was delicious and we had fresh cut tomatoes. We
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made pizza which was a little bit of a fail because I got this outdoor pizza oven and
I kind of burnt the pizza. It was charred beyond recognition. My mother-in-law graciously
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ate it anyways and said she likes burnt stuff so you know go figure. But the process of rolling the
dough and putting the toppings on the pizza that was something that Sage was really really engaged
with and we just kind of built from there. We've been on this baking cake lately and
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been making everything from Amish pretzels to sourdough bread and it has been just
mind-blowing how much fun it is to do that with her. And so just looking at those activities I
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thought you know I want to share this with somebody and I want people to have ideas and to do their
things with their children and yeah. So, Podcast Born I guess and it's going to evolve I'm sure.
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And like I said this is the first episode and I hope to catch your attention enough to get you
to subscribe and to follow my progress as I get better and better at this. So one of the things
that's important to me I think is that I try and have a guest with each of my episodes in some
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different perspective from another father. Somebody who has lived their own truth and
understands what it is to raise a kid and these are just normal people. I don't have any particular
poll with any star power so you're not going to get you know Taylor Swift's dad or anything like
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that at least not right away. But you'll get your next door neighbor and you'll understand
you know what they're thinking and what they're proud of and what they wish they did differently.
And maybe that gives you a couple of ideas on how to be a better dad and that's not a bad thing. I
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think arguably men in general don't talk enough about this stuff. They leave the talking to
the moms or at least I did. Yeah maybe I'm just old. Maybe this new generation is a lot more open
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about what they do. I think that that would have done a lot for me if I had had you know a support
group or a support network of other dads to talk you know to strategize about different approaches
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to take to encourage me. You know I think that would have made a difference. So if I make a
difference by sharing these stories I think that that's a valuable thing and I really hope that I do
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and I hope that I keep it you know upbeat enough to keep your attention.
You know I'm always going to appreciate feedback. My email is rob at sagedad.life
so reach out to me for really any reason. A couple of housekeeping things. I'm going to share
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activities that I do with my daughter. I'm going to share some photos but for the most part you'll
get the back of her head. I'm not here to hold her up as some kind of trophy and expose her on
social media. This is about bothering and being dad. Not about look at how cute my kid is or
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living through them or anything like that. But I do want to share activities so I've experimented
a little with doing some video of our baking experience and so I'm going to share that and who
knows this will evolve. I promise you that. So again my email is rob at sagedad.life
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and certainly any feedback that you might have any ideas for future episodes would be great.
Also any dads that you know who have interesting stories or who are particularly proud of their
parenting legacy or just you know willing to talk. Certainly make an introduction. Let them
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listen to the podcast and if they're interested reach out and it's again rob at sagedad.life.
I plan on doing you know an episode at least once a week. I think consistency is important
and I think there's enough to talk about. Certainly enough in my daughter's activities to keep everyone
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entertained for once a week. I think that's fair. I will share you know bits about me about my life
and but I'm you know for the most part going to try and keep you know anything that could personally
identify my my daughter out of the the experience. It is not her this is my thing the idea of
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share-inting which is the new sort of thing where you just overshare your your child.
I think that that is not healthy for anyone. There will be people who hear that and go oh
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you're sharing photos all the time. Those are people in my network and I do have a
Facebook account and a Instagram account which are private. I have less than 100
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brands. I think it's down to about 70 and those are people who are important to me. People who
have shown an interest in you know keeping up to date with what is going on with my life or
with my daughter's life and I will share things on there that I will not share in the on the public
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Sage Dad life sites and you know I expect them to respect that and and likewise not share
the photos and things that I share on the private channels outside of those channels
but I do share and I'll kind of rewind for a minute. Let me tell you a little bit about
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when Sage was born. Sage was born about two and a half years ago and she was born
early, couple months early and her mom spent about a month in the hospital before she was born.
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She had this thing where your ambiotic fluid leaks kind of like the early water breaking
and so as soon as you know they discovered that she was in the hospital until she gave birth
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and she was able to stay there for several weeks and those weeks were critical in my daughter's
development and most likely my daughter would not have made it without that extra time and medicine
and medicine steroids to help her develop quicker but she was born and she was two and a half pounds
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two and a half pounds and went you know directly into the NICU and I spent the next six weeks
visiting the NICU every day. My wife and I were the only ones allowed you know to interact
with our daughter. We had to you know scrub up every time we went in the room and
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ask permission to hold our child. You know those are tough things.
Sitting there and listening to the monitors beep and watching the oxygen level of my daughter's
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blood and watching you know alarms go off, watching her little toes turn blue because of the central
line. All of those things were life-changing. During that time I had faith that she was going
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to pull through, that she was strong and I also wanted to share this beautiful beautiful little girl
with my family, with friends, with my wife's family. So every day I would visit
mostly three times a day. I would go have my private time with her at about 4 a.m.
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I let my wife sleep but I would drive over and I would sit with her from day one
and I would stay with her and I would talk to her and I would just be. And then usually around
lunchtime I would run over, deliver whatever milk my wife was able to collect and just check on her.
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And then in the in the evenings I would bring my wife over and my wife would spend her time with her.
And each one of those visits was very special. And I took photos and I shared them with my family
every day on, it was text message. I had this group and I would just text photos, new photos every day
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and it became the way that my family got connected with my daughter. And when we were able to come home
and when we had her and we were taking care of her and we were facing things like a formula shortage
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and just crazy stuff. I started instead of doing the text message I started sharing on Facebook.
And to do that I reduced greatly my circle and unfriended a lot of people, people who I had had
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contact with over the years. But they weren't family, they weren't really close friends or
anything like that. I just wanted to be able to share and yes, overshare with people that
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you know it really mattered too. And so I've continued that and I have tried to keep it in that world.
And you know there are there family and friends on there who probably think I'm like crazy for
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sharing as many photos as I do but it really does come from a place of wanting to keep
everyone connected. I have family everywhere from Oklahoma to Switzerland and those people
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want to stay connected and sometimes it's the little things that get posted that they'll go
in and they'll like it right away because it made them feel a certain way or they
felt particularly connected to that image or that comment. And I don't know, it's just I don't
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regret that. I don't regret all the photos I have. I have a real timeline of her history to date.
When I decided to do the podcast, I realized that I was probably going to share outside of that
circle and so I really thought a lot about what I was going to share and how I was going to share it.
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And you know I made some conscious decisions and I'm not saying that those will be
the way it's going to be. I'm going to kind of see how it goes and I want to share
my daughter and what she's doing and what's working, what's not working and everything else but not.
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I would be mortified if I took an embarrassing moment and put it out there in the ether for her
to live with for the rest of her life or you know I want to be that respectful person.
I want her to look back at the history of this podcast and of things that she did with her dad
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as real moments and there's a certain level of privacy to those that I want to try and maintain.
And so as I experiment with this, just you know, bear with me. Anyway, I'm just sort of rambling.
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So I want to get to my first guest and we're going to talk about his journey as a father
and I hope that you enjoy it. And again, I hope you subscribe and if you have a father that you
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think would be a good guest, let me know. I'm accessible. It's Rob at Sage Dad Life.
Rob at Sage Dad.life. And I'll get back to you best I can.
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Welcome to Sage Dad Life. Today I have a special guest with me, Paul Kisman. Paul,
welcome to Sage Dad Life. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey so far?
Well, I started out in a very traditional upbringing for our family life. Back in the 60s and the 70s,
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parenting rules were very specific in a lot of ways. Father went out to work, bring home the
paycheck, mom stayed home, raised the family, raised the kids. In my mom's case, she was in
she was in charge of five very active boys and no sisters, no daughters. And dad had to work
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kind of six and a half days a week just to support us. That's a lot of mom's feed. Oh yeah,
a lot of them. We were hungry boys too. And in fact, we never ever saw the inside of somebody
else's house. We never invited to other people's house because of that. Mostly, you know, the rules
rules of parenting were set by them. My mom, who now I realize had the unfair portion,
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literally worked 10 days a week compared to my father's six and a half to keep going with us.
So it was definitely a challenge. So now that I'm older, had one daughter of my own,
you know, my life started out with a significant amount of education. I went through a little
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way through a couple years in college. I did go to art school. But through the opportunities afforded
to me, I was able to learn how to work on heavy equipment. It was a heavy equipment
technician for about 15 years. And then I've actually worked my way into equipment management and
ended up as a caterpillar branch manager for caterpillar dealership. Recently retired a few
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years ago. Now I didn't want to sit around. So I became a school bus driver, which I'm enjoying
the interactions with the kids. And I think you've mentioned it to me in the past that
we see a lot of the similarities. I see a lot of the similarities of these kids with my own
daughter. And I'm enjoying it a lot. So it's been kind of an interesting experience to go from
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full time management to watching and driving kids to school. Can you tell me a little bit about your
daughter and the person she's become? Yeah, she has been the light of my life, basically,
from day one. She is an extremely sociable person. I think the last time I checked her
Facebook, she had almost 2000 friends on just her Facebook account. One of the jokes that we have
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is that anytime we would go out to a restaurant, she would inevitably run into one of her friends
that she either worked with or went to school with. So it's kind of a running joke with us. But
her education, very similar to my own, a couple years of college. But her work ethic, her drive,
and then must have come from my father, who worked very hard to get where they were. She
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has eventually worked her way into management. And she's the type of person that works well
with people, likes to see their personal growth. People enjoy working for her. So I think there's
a lot of similarities in our experiences thus far through working life. Nice, she sounds pretty
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special. She does, she is. Not because she's mine, but because she is. Can you take us back to the
moment when you first found out you were going to be a father? What kind of emotions ran through you?
You know, being a young, you know, growing up in a house of old boys, never really had the sister
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aspect, learning how to deal with emotions. And it was a pretty, I think it was pretty calm about
it in the beginning. I was very happy. What made me feel good about knowing that I was going to
become a father was the idea that I was going to achieve something that my parents did, that I became,
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I would become someone who was dependent on and, you know, hopefully become a leader within my own
family. But that's pretty much what I remember. It didn't seem like there was this epiphany of,
oh my god, what am I doing? It just was, seemed like a very natural aspect of life.
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Nice. Did you have any fears or doubts? Did you feel ready?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was not young. I had my daughter when I was around 28. So it wasn't like I
was really, you know, really 20s or even late teens. So I was ready. I was definitely ready and looking
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forward to it. Was there anything, you talked a little bit about the vision you had of what a
father was and what you wanted to be? Anything in particular that influenced your vision?
Well, I think the fact that my vision was of a traditional, one of traditional rules would be
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for 1960 and 1970. I saw my dad working a lot of hours, bringing in a lot of the paycheck,
come home and just basically be dead tired, eat his dinner and go to bed. Whereas my mom was
was the sole center of the family. I looked at it as well. There's something seems to be
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along with that, with that whole setup where, you know, one parent has to be almost, you know,
absent in a lot of ways. So the do's that I learned from him was, you know, to work hard and
support your family, but the don'ts or try to be more involved. And that's what I think my success
is. And if it going into my relationship with my own daughter is that I was very active in her life.
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What was the biggest change in your personal identity when you became a dad?
Well, I went to somebody who only cared about themselves to a great extent, to becoming a
person that looked upon the responsibility and has been a protector for my daughter. You know,
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the cliche of you would take a bullet for somebody, that's exactly how I felt. And, you know, it
didn't, wasn't something I felt before becoming a father. You know, I cared about my mom and,
you know, probably would would do the same. But openly, I felt I would protect her too.
To the extent of my own life.
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Can you share just a moment from early childhood where you really felt like you were stepping
into a brand new world?
Yeah. And I think part of this is my early upbringing. Again, being a family of all boys
and having a lot of boy guy friends that we used to hang around with and, you know, playing baseball
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and doing what boys do. My biggest thing was that my perception of what girls were and who women
were were very narrow, to say the least. And I have to say that a lot of it was because of the
influence of media at the time. You know, I hate to say this, but stolen magazines from
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one of my friends father's collection of mail is definitely, you know, definitely had
made me think of things in a different way. So one day when I was pushing the cart or shopping
cart with my daughter in the supermarket, Christie was in, you know, sitting in that seat on the front
or on the top, grabbing candies out of the trying to throw them into our grocery grocery pile.
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So I looked at the magazines and I looked at and I saw, you know, popular mechanics, field and stream,
magazines that were slated for men and boys. And then I saw the other side of that with Christie's
magazines for it. They were magazines that, you know, how to make yourself beautiful to attract
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a man and how to, you know, what fashions to wear. And a lot of magazines had sexy covers on the front.
I'm thinking to myself, wow, my daughter's not going to have the same influencers that I did
when I grew up. And that was very eye-opening. And you feel like it's gotten any better?
(42:55):
Today? No, I don't. I don't, I think it's, I think people are more aware of it. I think it's more
out in the open, but quite frankly, not to get political, but I don't see it having a positive
effect yet. Yeah. And it's been a while. How did becoming a father change kind of your day-to-day
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life, relationships, priorities? Obviously, she became a big priority, but it had to change the
dynamic of day-to-day living. Well, I think my own maturity was an issue. But my feeling to become,
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to be her protector was so strong that it clouded my ability to parent the way probably I should have
100%. Not to say that she, I mean, she turned out wonderful. It's like I said, in spite of me.
But my, I remember that her mom, who is now my ex, we did not have a united front. Now,
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I don't know if I would ever have agreed to some of the parenting tactics that she had,
but we definitely caused a problem and a rift within my relationship with her. And it also,
it also made it tough for me to be a parent who wasn't more of a friend to my daughter than somebody
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who is more of a, somebody who can give out reasonable discipline and make her, you know,
give her good guidance. So there was a little bit of issue with that. So her being my priority and
me feeling that I needed to protect her at all costs definitely had some negatives, not all
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negatives, a lot of positives, but some negatives in relationships. What was the most challenging
moments you faced as a father and how'd you get through it? As I said before, learning to be tough,
learning to be a father when I needed to be a father instead of just a cool dad or whatever you
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want to be, it made, it made my, I don't think it was good for her. So that was, that was really
the challenge is, was to get from that point. Eventually I did, but it came later in life where
was a lot tougher with her. And I think about, you know, maybe if I was tougher in certain
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instances in her early eight days, maybe her ability to, to finish college or do certain
things might have been, it might have happened instead of, you know, not happening.
Yeah. Have you ever doubted yourself as a dad? How'd you handle that?
Yeah. Well, I think, I think going, this is probably the part where I go into how I kind of
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changed our relationship. When she was, when she first started driving, the, she was not a good
driver. She, she had several considerable accidents with her cars. And I worried a lot about it,
especially with, with the use of her cell phone, text messaging, you know, constant worry,
(46:20):
but I couldn't get that across to her. One day or one evening, and this is after I'm
separated with, with her mom and living in, in another place, I received a phone call from her.
It was probably about two o'clock in the morning. She goes, hi dad. Don't worry. I'm at the hospital.
They just wanted to get checked because I, I had an accident on the parkway and half asleep.
(46:44):
I kind of like said, okay. So then I'm like waking up after that, after I hung up and I'm like,
wait a minute, she had an accident. What's going on? Fortunately, she called back and I asked her
a little bit more probing questions. I said, Christy, what, what happened? She goes, well,
I kind of rolled the car on the parkway. I'm like, what? So then I got in, I ran up to
Overlook hospital. And I was just seeing her with her, with her mom, leaving the hospital
(47:10):
and asked her about it. She seemed to be okay. She seemed a little bit, you know,
cavalier, nonchalant about the accident, but I waited maybe an hour or so for the,
for the lot that her car was towed to. And I went to go see it. And I said, oh my God,
this car looked like it went through, looked like cement mixer. Well, every part of it was,
(47:35):
was dented in. Her side of the car was okay, but the passenger side was completely crushed in. And
I literally went to peace at that point. And a few days later, I, I talked, I talked to her on the
phone. And I just lost it. I was both angry, crying, telling her, I don't want to lose her.
(47:55):
I couldn't, I couldn't bear it if she, she died before I did. I told her she had to stop doing
what she is doing. She's going to, she's going to hurt herself and she'll, she'll, you know,
in the end of May for sure. And I think that period of time, that conversation on the phone
had to have some kind of a change in her life because she ended up not having any more accidents.
(48:17):
She would always say, I'm not on the telephone when we're talking or she's not texting on the,
you know, she was very adamant about not doing the things she did before, which by the way,
she, she told me that she had the accident because a big plastic bag blew across the road and she
avoided it. And when I actually went to her car, I found her cell phone and exactly the same time
(48:39):
that the police call went into and police was exactly the same time she was texting. So I knew
so I knew, knew she wasn't and I confronted her about it, which she didn't deny.
Yeah. That's every parent's worst, worst nightmare. Yeah.
Glad it worked out and kind of snapped her out of that. These unexpected struggles,
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they come up a lot as a parent. How have they shaped you as a father?
Well, they made me, they made me understand where I was, my lack of maturity. I think not
having sisters, not understanding, you know, what, what give and take there is, you know,
(49:23):
being with all boys, you basically punch your brother in the arm and then you go play baseball
here. But, you know, dealing with relationships and, and, and that is something that I needed to
learn how to do. And my first reaction was to, to baby her and to be half-her, be my, you know,
(49:44):
daddy's little girl. It was a wonderful thing, but being, being tough was, was, that was the
biggest struggle I could recall. It still is. It never ends, does it? No. No. Who's, who has been
your biggest mentor or anyone who kind of guided you through fatherhood and, and how did they help
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you? Well, again, I think my, my father was, was my biggest mentor, along with my mom, not on
necessarily fatherhood, but family and things like that. But my father's hard work ethics was,
you know, undoubtedly he did that out of love. That's the way he was able to, to really show
(50:30):
his love. The unfortunate part of that is that, you know, he, he was not around enough. But what
he was, he is, his level of patience for us was astounding. He just, you know, in a, when he did
get older and could free us time up, my younger brother has benefited a lot from, from his being
(50:53):
there. He was a, he was a parent that was always there when he could be, even if he was dead.
Did he share any advice or wisdom that had a significant impact on you?
Not sharing verbally, because he was a very quiet man. He, he was, he didn't have a lot to say.
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In fact, there was, there was times when I remember riding in the car with him, when usually there's
a gaggle of kids in the car. But, but just one time he and I were, and I was sitting in the front
seat and he was driving. And I felt like I was with a stranger. He, we had nothing to say to
each other. I didn't know how to talk to him. It wasn't until later in life that he started to open
(51:40):
up and, you know, and talk about things and family and things that I didn't even know that he had
his own troubles. I thought, you know, that dad was Superman and just could do anything.
Yeah.
Have your kids ever surprised you or would it become your mentor in some way?
Well, that's, that's a good question. Cause, you know, Christy has over the last seven to 10 years
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has, has become more and more involved with my life and kind of being my reminder to make sure I go to
different doctors appointments or when it came to family, family issues that I might have with my own
brothers or whatever, she would be the one I would tend to call and she would give me the advice that
(52:28):
she would give me. Yeah. So it made me feel really good. And even, even when she was talking about,
while I was working full time for, for caterpillar and going through my own struggles, she would be very
supportive and I would do the same for her in her role. So we, we basically were mentors for each other,
but it was amazing how much she turned into a very good mentor for me. And that was, it was just wonderful to
(52:56):
see them, they start teaching you things and pointing you in the right direction. It's, it's a pretty amazing feeling.
Yeah. Anytime I need help with my Apple watch or Apple phone, I think that she's always there too. So I should have
thrown that into. That's awesome. Have you ever experienced a moment in fatherhood where you felt completely lost
(53:19):
or just overwhelmed? How'd you find your way back? You know, I would say not really. I think that I would seem to
have a very high confidence level of things that, you know, things will always work out the way they do.
You know, obviously at the time when my daughter had the accident, that was, that was pretty trying and it made
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me feel lost. And the fact that my relationship was strong enough with her that I could actually, you know, express how I
felt. And, and that's probably the only time, but for the most part, my bond with my daughter has always been rock solid.
So I never really felt like I had to make my way back. I just needed to sometimes get aggressive or get tough.
(54:11):
And that's kind of where it landed. Yeah. How about a really tough decision you had to make as a dad? Any of those pop up?
Yeah. When my my ex and I were, were not, I don't think we were suited to be married together from day one. But from a very
young age, I knew Christie Christie small enough to be rocked in my on my shoulder to fall asleep small was I realized that this was
(54:42):
going to be tough. This was going to be tough because, you know, the vastly different with lifestyles and how we reviewed family and the
way it came from compared to where she came from was very different. And when, you know, it was more like when she Christie was like 16, almost
(55:04):
17 years old is when we, her mom and I decided to split. That was a tough decision because I knew, especially back in that time, parental fatherly parental
rights were not as strong as the rights that women had. And I didn't want to lose the time I had with Christie from that time going forward.
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Fortunately, Christie was already starting to, you know, have a life of her own friends. And when we did split, I ended up getting in an apartment, which was about a
mile away from the house. The apartment had a room dedicated for Christie when she stayed over. So I was able to keep a lot of good contact with her.
And plus, I was also very much involved with any activity she she had, what she did at school, I was always there, but she needed to ride somewhere
(55:59):
before she was able to drive herself. I would always be the parent to take her.
So how do you handle the weight of the responsibility that comes with shaping a child's life? Is there anything wisdom you can pass on in that regard?
Well, I think at first, when she was very young, you know, most of the tasks and shaping are mostly functional, like, you know, making sure she's fed, getting her to preschool, picking up her up after
(56:29):
aftercare, being, you know, being the one to make sure that she is healthy and whatnot.
Where the challenges came is when she started to be a team. And I became obsessed with making sure when she was at a school activity or needed a ride somewhere that I was going to be the one there.
(56:54):
You know, I would read stories about, you know, these horrific accidents that happened at school events. And I wanted to be the guy outside that would run into a burning building to make sure she was going to be safe.
I would, I would, I would look and basically look into the doors and windows of schools and things like just to make sure she was still there.
(57:18):
And unfortunately, a lot of her friends used to kid her about me being a stalker dad, but I just, I just couldn't be, I just couldn't be anywhere else.
You know, I was one time she went to, she was at a high school event. She wanted to go to, I think it was one of the local chain restaurants with her friends after a school event.
(57:42):
And I said, okay, I'll drive you over there. So I drove her over there, sat out in the parking lot. And I watched her come out of the restaurant early and get into a van.
So I drove after the van, and they pulled up into a diner. And as she, as she got in, I called her on her cell phone and I said, I'm sitting right here. Come to me, you're grounded.
(58:09):
So she got in and she goes, good God, we have the other restaurant. She gave me all kinds of stories. But actually, that was one that her, her mom, or my ex was, was kind of saying, boy, that was pretty tough on her.
But I just felt like, you know, I had to be there for everything, you know.
And of course, if we're very readily, I was always, I never held anything against her.
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Yeah, absolutely. It's nothing can get in the way of that relationship.
How has fatherhood changed you as a person?
Well, without hesitation, growth and maturity, personal growth and maturity was, was something that changed me from this carefree young guy who didn't have any responsibilities other than to make sure, you know, he can work a part time job or do something like that.
(59:03):
And it really, really changed me to the point where, you know, even, even how I conducted myself with other people, you know, it was, it was a huge thing.
You know, it might be corny, but my daughter made me a better man.
No, not at all. Not corny at all.
And I think true of most of us. What's something that you kind of went into this whole parenting experience thinking and then you completely changed your mind about.
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Well, for sure. I mentioned before, traditional parenting roles.
Back in my days, you know, we would, we would go out. Dad would be already gone for work.
We would go out all days long. Mom would be home doing mom things and making sure that there was dinner on the table for us and him, my dad, and, you know, I saw that as, as the way of life.
(01:00:04):
And I think it was that for, for many people that, you know, the mom dad relationship was so standardized that when I had Christie, which was probably when I was 28.
I still felt that should is the way that it should be. But life and people have had changed. And they, you start seeing more of dual parenting roles between parents where sometimes parents, others were stay at home dads and, and mothers were brought in the big paychecks and
(01:00:43):
all those things and I, I thought that that was so wrong at the time. How can that possibly be good for a family unit to have that kind of, you know, have that kind of set up between the parents.
And I think, you know, there could be an arguments to say that there, there is some issues with, you know, with the growth of children and seeing that that parents are not there.
(01:01:08):
And Christie basically, once, once I did, once we did establish that, that my, my wife was going to work full time, became a after school kid, which kind of hurt her, I think, in a lot of ways.
So it, it, you know, it, those changes were pretty hard for me to accept to go from one wall to a parent.
(01:01:36):
I know the accident sounds like a pivotal moment, but is there, are there any other moments where you really felt like you, you leveled up as a father?
Um, yeah, I would say, see, I would say that having my daughter, who would, would call me, once she's, once I saw that she was no longer a little child or immature adolescent, and I can see that she became mature and made me feel like,
(01:02:11):
hey, I think I, I accomplished bringing up a decent human being in this world.
And it made me feel as if, you know, I really did something and my fears of her going down the wrong path were no longer there.
So it did feel, it did feel good knowing that she probably going to be okay.
(01:02:37):
So if you could go back in time to your younger self before becoming a dad, what would you say, what advice would you give yourself?
Well, for me, in particular, my preconceived ideas of women, men and girls would be a would be a huge thing.
I think that, that even in today's society is something that, that young men should be aware of should be taught by their parents, that they, you know, their, their ideas of what, what women are is wrong in some respects, and is tainted by the visualizations and the things that we read and hear about.
(01:03:25):
And, and I think that one of the major issues that I think about some of the stories my daughter told me personally, how she, you know, being a waitress one time how, you know, a drunk painter, painter, male male painter, painter, would, you know,
grab her or smack her on the blood or something like that and I'm like, oh my God, this is happening today. You know, it's just very sad to hear that and from when I'm hearing from other women, including my current wife is that this is very common.
(01:04:01):
And, and I don't think a lot of men understand that. So we need to start changing how we look at things like that early on in a young man's life.
Absolutely. And, you know, I struggle with this a lot, myself, but when, when you think about how your children are going to remember you, what do you hope that your children remember most about you?
(01:04:26):
I want, I want, I want Chrissy to remember that I want her to remember how much I loved her, how much I love her today and how much she means to me and, and I think she, she does feel that way that, that I am totally totally in her fan club and, and want her to succeed and, and I think that she carries that with her,
(01:04:53):
always carry that with her. You know, it's, it's because she is my world and I think I've accomplished getting her to understand that.
Are there anything else in the legacy you want to leave behind, not just for your kids, but potentially other fathers who are looking for guidance?
(01:05:23):
Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of people out there that have different opinions on how to be a father, how to be tough. I think that from, from my case, that I might have been a little bit easy to, to, to Christy where I should have been in tougher and in some instances.
So to figure out that perfect balance kind of depends on the child also with what they need.
(01:05:49):
Christy turned out to be a wonderful human being. So maybe, maybe I'm putting too much too much on my, my own shortcomings but, but I think that being the best person you can be the best parent and understanding no one's perfect.
Love your kids more than, than yourself. And most importantly, be human and be when appropriate, be ready to say you're sorry when you mess up and understand that they're looking at you to, to be loving enough to care when you, when you make a mistake to say you're sorry.
(01:06:33):
I think that's, that's so important. Of course, I've only been sorry once in my life, but.
Of course, just, but yeah, it's, it's, they're human beings, they're little human beings with, with feelings and they understand more than you think and if you are unfair, or if you are caught with something that you did wrong, and not able to man up and, and, and say that you were wrong.
(01:07:02):
They're going to know. They're going to know. So.
Well, Paul, I want, I want to thank you very, very much and, and you've been a terrific guest for this first episode of Sage Dad Life and over the coming weeks we'll have more and more fathers who come in and give their perspective.
(01:07:24):
And I do think that it's helpful to, to hear this from other men.
I think you mentioned it, and men just aren't that great at talking about these things. And hopefully we can, we can start to change that.
Yeah, I agree. And I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this moment with you and, and I hope that you're right that men will start to listen and, and learn from themselves and, you know, I think it is a good thing for, for us to open up and see that there's a lot of similarities
(01:08:01):
in how we, we grow, grow our kids into normal human beings and what effect we actually have on them.
Absolutely. Thank you very much and you have a wonderful day.
And you too, sir. Have a good one.
This episode of Sage Dad Life could be sponsored by your brand. Just like fatherhood, the best things in life come with support, guidance and a little wisdom. Help dads navigate their journey with confidence.
(01:08:32):
For your quality brand, we're proud to present engaged and empowered fathers. Visit www.sagedad.life or email rob at sagedad.life for more information.
There is something truly special about reading to a child. It's more than just words on a page. It's laughter, connection and the little moments that turn into lifelong memories.
(01:08:59):
Whether it's a silly story that gets them giggling or a bedtime favorite, they ask for night after night.
Books have a way of bringing us closer. In this segment, we're going to dive into some of the best and most read books in our house.
Because stories that we share today shape the love of reading for a lifetime.
(01:09:21):
The first book I want to talk about today is the Wonky Donkey. A song and music by Craig Smith, illustration by Katz Wokali.
It was the very first book that Sage got. She got it from grandma. And let me tell you, I must have read it a thousand times.
And you know what? It never gets old. Every single time we laugh, giggling at the silly rhymes and that goofy ever growing description of the donkey.
(01:09:52):
The best part, on about the thousandth read or something, I finally paid attention to the credits and realized that it's actually a song.
A quick search on Apple Music and boom, we found it.
And I saw a donkey. I don't have three legs. He was a Wonky Donkey. Wonky Donkey.
(01:10:20):
Okay, a lot of fun. I will tell you, Sage loved it even more with the music.
Dancing along as I tried to keep up with the tongue twisting lyrics.
And the book is just pure fun. One of those rare gems that kids adore and parents don't secretly dread reading over and over.
(01:10:41):
If you haven't read the Wonky Donkey yet, grab a copy, get ready to laugh and maybe even sing your way through it.
Another regular in our house is the Grumpy Monkey by Susan Lang.
Grumpy Monkey is delightful, simple. It tackles the important topics of emotions in a way that both it's both relatable and appropriate for toddlers.
(01:11:04):
The book follows Jim Panzee, a monkey who wakes up feeling grumpy for no particular reason, despite his friends attempts to cheer him up.
Jim insists owning his feelings and even when they make him uncomfortable.
This book really introduces that idea that emotions can just happen.
(01:11:27):
They don't always need to be explained or fixed right away. This is an important concept for young children who are just beginning to navigate the complex world of feelings.
It helps normalize emotions like anger, frustration, sadness, and reassures kids that it's okay not to be happy all the time.
(01:11:49):
The illustrations by Max Lang enhance the story and are absolutely beautiful.
The face expressions, you'll see the photo from I posted on the blog where all I did was ask Sage to make a Grumpy Monkey face and she did it immediately.
(01:12:10):
She knew exactly what that was and it was perfect. I love it.
Grumpy Monkey is a fantastic tool for helping toddlers begin to understand emotions in a general, gentle, age-appropriate way.
It's, I think, a must read and it fosters a really sense of empathy and self-acceptance and highly, highly, highly recommended.
(01:12:41):
Thanks for joining me on Sage Dad Life where we embrace the joys, challenges, and lessons of being a present father.
If today's episode resonated with you, share it with another dad, a parent, anyone who needs a reminder that the little moments matter most.
Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and eggs.
(01:13:05):
Or visit the site at www.sagedad.life.
Email me at rob at sagedad.life.
I would love to hear your stories and experiences.
Until next time, keep showing up, keep embracing the journey, and most of all, keep making memories that'll last a lifetime.
(01:13:30):
See you next week.
Welcome to Sage Dad Life. I'm Rob, a dad who is on a unique journey. I've raised a
(00:08):
wonderful son and daughter now in their 30s, and at 55 I find myself facing and embracing
fatherhood again with my two-year-old daughter, Sage. I've learned many lessons. Being a father
isn't just about time, it's about intention, and I intend on being the best dad that I can be.
(00:28):
Here we break the mold of traditional fatherhood, embracing the joy, challenges, and wisdom that
come with raising children to be equipped for this ever-changing world. If you're a dad looking to
lead with love, confidence, and hopefully a little humor, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
(00:50):
This episode of Sage Dad Life could be sponsored by your brand. Just like fatherhood, the best things
in life come with support, guidance, and a little wisdom. Help dads navigate their journey with
confidence. For your quality brand, we're proud to present engaged and empowered fathers. Visit
(01:11):
www.sagedad.life or email rob at sagedad.life for more information. Hello and welcome to the very
first episode of Sage Dad Life. I'm your host Rob, and I am so excited to have you here as we
embark on this journey together. This podcast is about something deeply personal and meaningful to
(01:33):
me. Fatherhood. Not just fatherhood, but the joy, the lessons, and yes, the challenges of being a
present and intentional dad. To give you a little personal background, I am the father of three
wonderful children. Two of them are grown and have lives of their own. They're in their thirties.
And I also have a two-year-old daughter who keeps me on my toes every single day. At 55 years old,
(02:01):
I've had the unique opportunity to experience fatherhood at different stages of life. And let
me tell you, it has been the most rewarding and humbling adventure of my lifetime. I really hope
that Sage Dad Life becomes more than just a podcast. I'd like to build a space where we
(02:22):
explore what it means to be raised strong, confident, and compassionate children in today's crazy
world. It's inspired by themes like the Girl Dad Movement, which celebrates fathers taking on
non-traditional roles and embracing the unique challenges of raising daughters, partly because
(02:44):
my youngest is a daughter. And I have those challenges. And it is a different world today for
our daughters than it was yesterday. And that's just a reality. It's not a political statement.
And it's just a reality. And fathers will play an important role on building that next generation
(03:08):
of women who will have to live in this world that we're leaving them. I hope that from this,
you can expect practical tips on teaching life skills and independence, honest conversations
about the joys and the struggles of parenting, insights into how to build strong father-daughter
(03:31):
bonds, and most importantly, creating that legacy of empowerment for the next generation.
I'm going to cover things like teaching resilience and instilling confidence,
fostering creativity, and navigating tricky waters of modern parenting. My goal is to share
stories, tools, and inspiration that help us become better dads, ultimately, better humans.
(03:58):
Let's talk a little bit about why I started this podcast. My journey as a father hasn't been
exactly linear. I had children early in life and I had children late in life. Two very different
perspectives. When my older kids were growing up, I was very much focused on building a career,
(04:24):
being a provider. While I was there for them, and I've always wanted to be a dad, I've always
thought I was a good dad, there were times where I wish I was more present, where the external
factors of the world were more important than the internal dynamics of my family, and just
(04:50):
being real. With my youngest daughter, I have had this opportunity to slow down and really soak in
the experience. This time around, I'm determined to be that dad who shows up, not just physically,
but emotionally and mentally. I am all in. The real aha moment for me, well, I had a lot of aha
(05:16):
moments, but when I started really engaging with my daughter and trying different things, trying
different activities, I think that the idea that it was okay for me to spend an afternoon baking
bread with my daughter. In fact, it was probably one of the most meaningful things that I did all
(05:44):
week. I have just tried this time around to be there. In fact, when I found out that my daughter
was on the way, I talked to my older kids and I said, tell me, what did I do good, and what did
(06:08):
I not do good as a dad? Was I a good dad? They're nice people, so yeah, they said I was a good dad,
but it was really, it was the memories of doing things together that were most important to them.
(06:31):
They didn't remember the long hours that I worked. They didn't remember my paycheck getting bigger
and bigger as my career grew. They remembered the little things that we did. Then I look back and
I, it was my first marriage and we spent so much time building our life. We probably spent too
(07:01):
little living it. I got to think that that's common when you start out at a young age.
You have so many things that you have to accomplish to stabilize your life. I can be proud of some
of the things that I did and even quite accomplished in my career. But when I changed, when my life
(07:28):
shifted, but the things that I miss the most were the Christmas ornaments that we collected every
year. Things that had memories of my children and things that I could look at and say, I remember
(07:51):
that. I remember that moment with my child. None of them had anything to do with my career.
And it's like many people, it really was the onset of COVID that sent my career into a death
(08:12):
spiral as a 55-year-old in technology. You can imagine that the jobs were not there.
And I've had to reevaluate everything about my life and what is important and what is not
(08:35):
important. And that process has been painful, but also incredible. It's just absolutely incredible.
The fact that my daughter came along and the journey that we've had so far just makes me
(09:02):
a different person. I don't know how else to explain it. I want to be a different person.
I want to be a great dad. I want her to look back at time we had together. I want her to measure
every future relationship by the quality of love that I'm able to give her
(09:26):
because she deserves that. And I think that will be my greatest accomplishment, okay with that.
In fact, I'm more than okay with that. I think that that is more than anyone can hope for.
(09:49):
And I'm sort of done with the making money for other people and long hours and not because
I'm lazy. I work very, very hard. It's because it's not worth it. The material things that you get,
(10:13):
the paycheck that you get, it can all go away quickly. You can be discarded very, very quickly,
but your family, your children, they don't discard you. There what's important.
(10:34):
And I hope that this podcast really lives up to that. And I think fathers deserve credit
too often. I think fathers are sort of relegated to the breadwinner role.
Mothers are the caregivers. Mothers are the teachers.
(10:55):
Fathers have so much to offer. And good fathers already know this. And there are lots of good
fathers out there, lots of better fathers than I am, I'm sure. I will invite them and I will
talk to them and hopefully we'll all get some ideas from their experiences. I'm going to focus
(11:20):
probably on mostly older fathers who have lived it, who have made the mistakes and who have done
the things. Nothing against newer fathers, but you guys are still learning. And
you'll get there. And if you're listening to this podcast, I think that just the idea that you want
(11:45):
to be a better dad is phenomenal. These special guests probably won't include a lot of
quote unquote parenting experts. I've heard some of those podcasts and there's quality stuff out
there and there's crap out there too. I have the requisite 10,000 hours to be an expert at parenting.
(12:12):
They're real hours in the trenches doing the job. I don't need a college diploma that focuses on
children's studies or anything else that to be a good dad. And there have been good dads throughout
(12:33):
history who never had any of that. And those dads, I think their story needs to be told. I think you
need to hear what is in on their minds and what they remember and how they remember and what's
important to them. I might throw a mom in there once in a while, share insights and experiences
(12:59):
about the role that their partner or whatever relationship to the father figure that they
have for their children and their perspective on. We're going to keep it real. Parenting is not
always picture perfect. I'm not going to spend hours virtue signaling about what a great person I am
(13:27):
and how I have every answer because I don't. I do know a lot because I've done a lot. I've had a
career. I've had a top tier income and I've worked at hourly rate and I've done both. I know technology
(13:53):
but technology doesn't do much for older people and it's not something that it's talked about a
lot but I'm sure there's others out there like me who are facing this sort of second life.
And let me share a quick story about Sage and I and I just really wanted her to
(14:21):
get involved with preparing family meals and understand what it takes to put food on the table
and put dinner on the table. And so this fall I planted a garden with her. We went out. We watered
(14:47):
it every day. I'd never done a garden before. We ended up doing pretty good with the tomatoes.
We got lots and lots of tomatoes so made sauce, made salads, everything you could possibly think of
with tomatoes. Pumpkins, they did okay. Like I said it was my first gardening experience
(15:15):
and I hope to do better this spring. But it was so much fun to do it with her and we'll talk about
that a lot in the spring as we take lessons learned from this past fall and we'll apply those and
she's a little older and can participate a little bit more. And I think that we'll have a lot of fun
(15:39):
doing that. But after the garden kind of ended I wanted to keep doing this and it really started
I think with the tomatoes. We had planted and grown these tomatoes and they were delicious and
I wanted her to see the sort of completion of that. So we made dinner a couple of times and
(16:05):
we made a beautiful quiche and I made my first pie crust ever from scratch and then
we made this quiche and everybody loved it. It was delicious and we had fresh cut tomatoes. We
(16:28):
made pizza which was a little bit of a fail because I got this outdoor pizza oven and
I kind of burnt the pizza. It was charred beyond recognition. My mother-in-law graciously
(16:49):
ate it anyways and said she likes burnt stuff so you know go figure. But the process of rolling the
dough and putting the toppings on the pizza that was something that Sage was really really engaged
with and we just kind of built from there. We've been on this baking cake lately and
(17:13):
been making everything from Amish pretzels to sourdough bread and it has been just
mind-blowing how much fun it is to do that with her. And so just looking at those activities I
(17:34):
thought you know I want to share this with somebody and I want people to have ideas and to do their
things with their children and yeah. So, Podcast Born I guess and it's going to evolve I'm sure.
(18:00):
And like I said this is the first episode and I hope to catch your attention enough to get you
to subscribe and to follow my progress as I get better and better at this. So one of the things
that's important to me I think is that I try and have a guest with each of my episodes in some
(18:30):
different perspective from another father. Somebody who has lived their own truth and
understands what it is to raise a kid and these are just normal people. I don't have any particular
poll with any star power so you're not going to get you know Taylor Swift's dad or anything like
(18:57):
that at least not right away. But you'll get your next door neighbor and you'll understand
you know what they're thinking and what they're proud of and what they wish they did differently.
And maybe that gives you a couple of ideas on how to be a better dad and that's not a bad thing. I
(19:22):
think arguably men in general don't talk enough about this stuff. They leave the talking to
the moms or at least I did. Yeah maybe I'm just old. Maybe this new generation is a lot more open
(19:43):
about what they do. I think that that would have done a lot for me if I had had you know a support
group or a support network of other dads to talk you know to strategize about different approaches
(20:07):
to take to encourage me. You know I think that would have made a difference. So if I make a
difference by sharing these stories I think that that's a valuable thing and I really hope that I do
(20:28):
and I hope that I keep it you know upbeat enough to keep your attention.
You know I'm always going to appreciate feedback. My email is rob at sagedad.life
so reach out to me for really any reason. A couple of housekeeping things. I'm going to share
(20:55):
activities that I do with my daughter. I'm going to share some photos but for the most part you'll
get the back of her head. I'm not here to hold her up as some kind of trophy and expose her on
social media. This is about bothering and being dad. Not about look at how cute my kid is or
(21:26):
living through them or anything like that. But I do want to share activities so I've experimented
a little with doing some video of our baking experience and so I'm going to share that and who
knows this will evolve. I promise you that. So again my email is rob at sagedad.life
(21:54):
and certainly any feedback that you might have any ideas for future episodes would be great.
Also any dads that you know who have interesting stories or who are particularly proud of their
parenting legacy or just you know willing to talk. Certainly make an introduction. Let them
(22:27):
listen to the podcast and if they're interested reach out and it's again rob at sagedad.life.
I plan on doing you know an episode at least once a week. I think consistency is important
and I think there's enough to talk about. Certainly enough in my daughter's activities to keep everyone
(22:54):
entertained for once a week. I think that's fair. I will share you know bits about me about my life
and but I'm you know for the most part going to try and keep you know anything that could personally
identify my my daughter out of the the experience. It is not her this is my thing the idea of
(23:23):
share-inting which is the new sort of thing where you just overshare your your child.
I think that that is not healthy for anyone. There will be people who hear that and go oh
(23:44):
you're sharing photos all the time. Those are people in my network and I do have a
Facebook account and a Instagram account which are private. I have less than 100
(24:06):
brands. I think it's down to about 70 and those are people who are important to me. People who
have shown an interest in you know keeping up to date with what is going on with my life or
with my daughter's life and I will share things on there that I will not share in the on the public
(24:31):
Sage Dad life sites and you know I expect them to respect that and and likewise not share
the photos and things that I share on the private channels outside of those channels
but I do share and I'll kind of rewind for a minute. Let me tell you a little bit about
(24:58):
when Sage was born. Sage was born about two and a half years ago and she was born
early, couple months early and her mom spent about a month in the hospital before she was born.
(25:19):
She had this thing where your ambiotic fluid leaks kind of like the early water breaking
and so as soon as you know they discovered that she was in the hospital until she gave birth
(25:43):
and she was able to stay there for several weeks and those weeks were critical in my daughter's
development and most likely my daughter would not have made it without that extra time and medicine
and medicine steroids to help her develop quicker but she was born and she was two and a half pounds
(26:12):
two and a half pounds and went you know directly into the NICU and I spent the next six weeks
visiting the NICU every day. My wife and I were the only ones allowed you know to interact
with our daughter. We had to you know scrub up every time we went in the room and
(26:36):
ask permission to hold our child. You know those are tough things.
Sitting there and listening to the monitors beep and watching the oxygen level of my daughter's
(26:57):
blood and watching you know alarms go off, watching her little toes turn blue because of the central
line. All of those things were life-changing. During that time I had faith that she was going
(27:17):
to pull through, that she was strong and I also wanted to share this beautiful beautiful little girl
with my family, with friends, with my wife's family. So every day I would visit
mostly three times a day. I would go have my private time with her at about 4 a.m.
(27:45):
I let my wife sleep but I would drive over and I would sit with her from day one
and I would stay with her and I would talk to her and I would just be. And then usually around
lunchtime I would run over, deliver whatever milk my wife was able to collect and just check on her.
(28:20):
And then in the in the evenings I would bring my wife over and my wife would spend her time with her.
And each one of those visits was very special. And I took photos and I shared them with my family
every day on, it was text message. I had this group and I would just text photos, new photos every day
(28:46):
and it became the way that my family got connected with my daughter. And when we were able to come home
and when we had her and we were taking care of her and we were facing things like a formula shortage
(29:12):
and just crazy stuff. I started instead of doing the text message I started sharing on Facebook.
And to do that I reduced greatly my circle and unfriended a lot of people, people who I had had
(29:39):
contact with over the years. But they weren't family, they weren't really close friends or
anything like that. I just wanted to be able to share and yes, overshare with people that
(30:00):
you know it really mattered too. And so I've continued that and I have tried to keep it in that world.
And you know there are there family and friends on there who probably think I'm like crazy for
(30:26):
sharing as many photos as I do but it really does come from a place of wanting to keep
everyone connected. I have family everywhere from Oklahoma to Switzerland and those people
(30:49):
want to stay connected and sometimes it's the little things that get posted that they'll go
in and they'll like it right away because it made them feel a certain way or they
felt particularly connected to that image or that comment. And I don't know, it's just I don't
(31:11):
regret that. I don't regret all the photos I have. I have a real timeline of her history to date.
When I decided to do the podcast, I realized that I was probably going to share outside of that
circle and so I really thought a lot about what I was going to share and how I was going to share it.
(31:40):
And you know I made some conscious decisions and I'm not saying that those will be
the way it's going to be. I'm going to kind of see how it goes and I want to share
my daughter and what she's doing and what's working, what's not working and everything else but not.
(32:04):
I would be mortified if I took an embarrassing moment and put it out there in the ether for her
to live with for the rest of her life or you know I want to be that respectful person.
I want her to look back at the history of this podcast and of things that she did with her dad
(32:30):
as real moments and there's a certain level of privacy to those that I want to try and maintain.
And so as I experiment with this, just you know, bear with me. Anyway, I'm just sort of rambling.
(32:53):
So I want to get to my first guest and we're going to talk about his journey as a father
and I hope that you enjoy it. And again, I hope you subscribe and if you have a father that you
(33:15):
think would be a good guest, let me know. I'm accessible. It's Rob at Sage Dad Life.
Rob at Sage Dad.life. And I'll get back to you best I can.
(33:38):
Welcome to Sage Dad Life. Today I have a special guest with me, Paul Kisman. Paul,
welcome to Sage Dad Life. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your journey so far?
Well, I started out in a very traditional upbringing for our family life. Back in the 60s and the 70s,
(34:00):
parenting rules were very specific in a lot of ways. Father went out to work, bring home the
paycheck, mom stayed home, raised the family, raised the kids. In my mom's case, she was in
she was in charge of five very active boys and no sisters, no daughters. And dad had to work
(34:27):
kind of six and a half days a week just to support us. That's a lot of mom's feed. Oh yeah,
a lot of them. We were hungry boys too. And in fact, we never ever saw the inside of somebody
else's house. We never invited to other people's house because of that. Mostly, you know, the rules
rules of parenting were set by them. My mom, who now I realize had the unfair portion,
(34:55):
literally worked 10 days a week compared to my father's six and a half to keep going with us.
So it was definitely a challenge. So now that I'm older, had one daughter of my own,
you know, my life started out with a significant amount of education. I went through a little
(35:16):
way through a couple years in college. I did go to art school. But through the opportunities afforded
to me, I was able to learn how to work on heavy equipment. It was a heavy equipment
technician for about 15 years. And then I've actually worked my way into equipment management and
ended up as a caterpillar branch manager for caterpillar dealership. Recently retired a few
(35:43):
years ago. Now I didn't want to sit around. So I became a school bus driver, which I'm enjoying
the interactions with the kids. And I think you've mentioned it to me in the past that
we see a lot of the similarities. I see a lot of the similarities of these kids with my own
daughter. And I'm enjoying it a lot. So it's been kind of an interesting experience to go from
(36:09):
full time management to watching and driving kids to school. Can you tell me a little bit about your
daughter and the person she's become? Yeah, she has been the light of my life, basically,
from day one. She is an extremely sociable person. I think the last time I checked her
Facebook, she had almost 2000 friends on just her Facebook account. One of the jokes that we have
(36:35):
is that anytime we would go out to a restaurant, she would inevitably run into one of her friends
that she either worked with or went to school with. So it's kind of a running joke with us. But
her education, very similar to my own, a couple years of college. But her work ethic, her drive,
and then must have come from my father, who worked very hard to get where they were. She
(37:02):
has eventually worked her way into management. And she's the type of person that works well
with people, likes to see their personal growth. People enjoy working for her. So I think there's
a lot of similarities in our experiences thus far through working life. Nice, she sounds pretty
(37:25):
special. She does, she is. Not because she's mine, but because she is. Can you take us back to the
moment when you first found out you were going to be a father? What kind of emotions ran through you?
You know, being a young, you know, growing up in a house of old boys, never really had the sister
(37:49):
aspect, learning how to deal with emotions. And it was a pretty, I think it was pretty calm about
it in the beginning. I was very happy. What made me feel good about knowing that I was going to
become a father was the idea that I was going to achieve something that my parents did, that I became,
(38:11):
I would become someone who was dependent on and, you know, hopefully become a leader within my own
family. But that's pretty much what I remember. It didn't seem like there was this epiphany of,
oh my god, what am I doing? It just was, seemed like a very natural aspect of life.
(38:34):
Nice. Did you have any fears or doubts? Did you feel ready?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was not young. I had my daughter when I was around 28. So it wasn't like I
was really, you know, really 20s or even late teens. So I was ready. I was definitely ready and looking
(38:57):
forward to it. Was there anything, you talked a little bit about the vision you had of what a
father was and what you wanted to be? Anything in particular that influenced your vision?
Well, I think the fact that my vision was of a traditional, one of traditional rules would be
(39:22):
for 1960 and 1970. I saw my dad working a lot of hours, bringing in a lot of the paycheck,
come home and just basically be dead tired, eat his dinner and go to bed. Whereas my mom was
was the sole center of the family. I looked at it as well. There's something seems to be
(39:42):
along with that, with that whole setup where, you know, one parent has to be almost, you know,
absent in a lot of ways. So the do's that I learned from him was, you know, to work hard and
support your family, but the don'ts or try to be more involved. And that's what I think my success
is. And if it going into my relationship with my own daughter is that I was very active in her life.
(40:09):
What was the biggest change in your personal identity when you became a dad?
Well, I went to somebody who only cared about themselves to a great extent, to becoming a
person that looked upon the responsibility and has been a protector for my daughter. You know,
(40:34):
the cliche of you would take a bullet for somebody, that's exactly how I felt. And, you know, it
didn't, wasn't something I felt before becoming a father. You know, I cared about my mom and,
you know, probably would would do the same. But openly, I felt I would protect her too.
To the extent of my own life.
(40:55):
Can you share just a moment from early childhood where you really felt like you were stepping
into a brand new world?
Yeah. And I think part of this is my early upbringing. Again, being a family of all boys
and having a lot of boy guy friends that we used to hang around with and, you know, playing baseball
(41:20):
and doing what boys do. My biggest thing was that my perception of what girls were and who women
were were very narrow, to say the least. And I have to say that a lot of it was because of the
influence of media at the time. You know, I hate to say this, but stolen magazines from
(41:46):
one of my friends father's collection of mail is definitely, you know, definitely had
made me think of things in a different way. So one day when I was pushing the cart or shopping
cart with my daughter in the supermarket, Christie was in, you know, sitting in that seat on the front
or on the top, grabbing candies out of the trying to throw them into our grocery grocery pile.
(42:13):
So I looked at the magazines and I looked at and I saw, you know, popular mechanics, field and stream,
magazines that were slated for men and boys. And then I saw the other side of that with Christie's
magazines for it. They were magazines that, you know, how to make yourself beautiful to attract
(42:35):
a man and how to, you know, what fashions to wear. And a lot of magazines had sexy covers on the front.
I'm thinking to myself, wow, my daughter's not going to have the same influencers that I did
when I grew up. And that was very eye-opening. And you feel like it's gotten any better?
(42:55):
Today? No, I don't. I don't, I think it's, I think people are more aware of it. I think it's more
out in the open, but quite frankly, not to get political, but I don't see it having a positive
effect yet. Yeah. And it's been a while. How did becoming a father change kind of your day-to-day
(43:17):
life, relationships, priorities? Obviously, she became a big priority, but it had to change the
dynamic of day-to-day living. Well, I think my own maturity was an issue. But my feeling to become,
(43:40):
to be her protector was so strong that it clouded my ability to parent the way probably I should have
100%. Not to say that she, I mean, she turned out wonderful. It's like I said, in spite of me.
But my, I remember that her mom, who is now my ex, we did not have a united front. Now,
(44:04):
I don't know if I would ever have agreed to some of the parenting tactics that she had,
but we definitely caused a problem and a rift within my relationship with her. And it also,
it also made it tough for me to be a parent who wasn't more of a friend to my daughter than somebody
(44:27):
who is more of a, somebody who can give out reasonable discipline and make her, you know,
give her good guidance. So there was a little bit of issue with that. So her being my priority and
me feeling that I needed to protect her at all costs definitely had some negatives, not all
(44:48):
negatives, a lot of positives, but some negatives in relationships. What was the most challenging
moments you faced as a father and how'd you get through it? As I said before, learning to be tough,
learning to be a father when I needed to be a father instead of just a cool dad or whatever you
(45:11):
want to be, it made, it made my, I don't think it was good for her. So that was, that was really
the challenge is, was to get from that point. Eventually I did, but it came later in life where
was a lot tougher with her. And I think about, you know, maybe if I was tougher in certain
(45:32):
instances in her early eight days, maybe her ability to, to finish college or do certain
things might have been, it might have happened instead of, you know, not happening.
Yeah. Have you ever doubted yourself as a dad? How'd you handle that?
Yeah. Well, I think, I think going, this is probably the part where I go into how I kind of
(45:57):
changed our relationship. When she was, when she first started driving, the, she was not a good
driver. She, she had several considerable accidents with her cars. And I worried a lot about it,
especially with, with the use of her cell phone, text messaging, you know, constant worry,
(46:20):
but I couldn't get that across to her. One day or one evening, and this is after I'm
separated with, with her mom and living in, in another place, I received a phone call from her.
It was probably about two o'clock in the morning. She goes, hi dad. Don't worry. I'm at the hospital.
They just wanted to get checked because I, I had an accident on the parkway and half asleep.
(46:44):
I kind of like said, okay. So then I'm like waking up after that, after I hung up and I'm like,
wait a minute, she had an accident. What's going on? Fortunately, she called back and I asked her
a little bit more probing questions. I said, Christy, what, what happened? She goes, well,
I kind of rolled the car on the parkway. I'm like, what? So then I got in, I ran up to
Overlook hospital. And I was just seeing her with her, with her mom, leaving the hospital
(47:10):
and asked her about it. She seemed to be okay. She seemed a little bit, you know,
cavalier, nonchalant about the accident, but I waited maybe an hour or so for the,
for the lot that her car was towed to. And I went to go see it. And I said, oh my God,
this car looked like it went through, looked like cement mixer. Well, every part of it was,
(47:35):
was dented in. Her side of the car was okay, but the passenger side was completely crushed in. And
I literally went to peace at that point. And a few days later, I, I talked, I talked to her on the
phone. And I just lost it. I was both angry, crying, telling her, I don't want to lose her.
(47:55):
I couldn't, I couldn't bear it if she, she died before I did. I told her she had to stop doing
what she is doing. She's going to, she's going to hurt herself and she'll, she'll, you know,
in the end of May for sure. And I think that period of time, that conversation on the phone
had to have some kind of a change in her life because she ended up not having any more accidents.
(48:17):
She would always say, I'm not on the telephone when we're talking or she's not texting on the,
you know, she was very adamant about not doing the things she did before, which by the way,
she, she told me that she had the accident because a big plastic bag blew across the road and she
avoided it. And when I actually went to her car, I found her cell phone and exactly the same time
(48:39):
that the police call went into and police was exactly the same time she was texting. So I knew
so I knew, knew she wasn't and I confronted her about it, which she didn't deny.
Yeah. That's every parent's worst, worst nightmare. Yeah.
Glad it worked out and kind of snapped her out of that. These unexpected struggles,
(49:01):
they come up a lot as a parent. How have they shaped you as a father?
Well, they made me, they made me understand where I was, my lack of maturity. I think not
having sisters, not understanding, you know, what, what give and take there is, you know,
(49:23):
being with all boys, you basically punch your brother in the arm and then you go play baseball
here. But, you know, dealing with relationships and, and, and that is something that I needed to
learn how to do. And my first reaction was to, to baby her and to be half-her, be my, you know,
(49:44):
daddy's little girl. It was a wonderful thing, but being, being tough was, was, that was the
biggest struggle I could recall. It still is. It never ends, does it? No. No. Who's, who has been
your biggest mentor or anyone who kind of guided you through fatherhood and, and how did they help
(50:07):
you? Well, again, I think my, my father was, was my biggest mentor, along with my mom, not on
necessarily fatherhood, but family and things like that. But my father's hard work ethics was,
you know, undoubtedly he did that out of love. That's the way he was able to, to really show
(50:30):
his love. The unfortunate part of that is that, you know, he, he was not around enough. But what
he was, he is, his level of patience for us was astounding. He just, you know, in a, when he did
get older and could free us time up, my younger brother has benefited a lot from, from his being
(50:53):
there. He was a, he was a parent that was always there when he could be, even if he was dead.
Did he share any advice or wisdom that had a significant impact on you?
Not sharing verbally, because he was a very quiet man. He, he was, he didn't have a lot to say.
(51:14):
In fact, there was, there was times when I remember riding in the car with him, when usually there's
a gaggle of kids in the car. But, but just one time he and I were, and I was sitting in the front
seat and he was driving. And I felt like I was with a stranger. He, we had nothing to say to
each other. I didn't know how to talk to him. It wasn't until later in life that he started to open
(51:40):
up and, you know, and talk about things and family and things that I didn't even know that he had
his own troubles. I thought, you know, that dad was Superman and just could do anything.
Yeah.
Have your kids ever surprised you or would it become your mentor in some way?
Well, that's, that's a good question. Cause, you know, Christy has over the last seven to 10 years
(52:04):
has, has become more and more involved with my life and kind of being my reminder to make sure I go to
different doctors appointments or when it came to family, family issues that I might have with my own
brothers or whatever, she would be the one I would tend to call and she would give me the advice that
(52:28):
she would give me. Yeah. So it made me feel really good. And even, even when she was talking about,
while I was working full time for, for caterpillar and going through my own struggles, she would be very
supportive and I would do the same for her in her role. So we, we basically were mentors for each other,
but it was amazing how much she turned into a very good mentor for me. And that was, it was just wonderful to
(52:56):
see them, they start teaching you things and pointing you in the right direction. It's, it's a pretty amazing feeling.
Yeah. Anytime I need help with my Apple watch or Apple phone, I think that she's always there too. So I should have
thrown that into. That's awesome. Have you ever experienced a moment in fatherhood where you felt completely lost
(53:19):
or just overwhelmed? How'd you find your way back? You know, I would say not really. I think that I would seem to
have a very high confidence level of things that, you know, things will always work out the way they do.
You know, obviously at the time when my daughter had the accident, that was, that was pretty trying and it made
(53:45):
me feel lost. And the fact that my relationship was strong enough with her that I could actually, you know, express how I
felt. And, and that's probably the only time, but for the most part, my bond with my daughter has always been rock solid.
So I never really felt like I had to make my way back. I just needed to sometimes get aggressive or get tough.
(54:11):
And that's kind of where it landed. Yeah. How about a really tough decision you had to make as a dad? Any of those pop up?
Yeah. When my my ex and I were, were not, I don't think we were suited to be married together from day one. But from a very
young age, I knew Christie Christie small enough to be rocked in my on my shoulder to fall asleep small was I realized that this was
(54:42):
going to be tough. This was going to be tough because, you know, the vastly different with lifestyles and how we reviewed family and the
way it came from compared to where she came from was very different. And when, you know, it was more like when she Christie was like 16, almost
(55:04):
17 years old is when we, her mom and I decided to split. That was a tough decision because I knew, especially back in that time, parental fatherly parental
rights were not as strong as the rights that women had. And I didn't want to lose the time I had with Christie from that time going forward.
(55:29):
Fortunately, Christie was already starting to, you know, have a life of her own friends. And when we did split, I ended up getting in an apartment, which was about a
mile away from the house. The apartment had a room dedicated for Christie when she stayed over. So I was able to keep a lot of good contact with her.
And plus, I was also very much involved with any activity she she had, what she did at school, I was always there, but she needed to ride somewhere
(55:59):
before she was able to drive herself. I would always be the parent to take her.
So how do you handle the weight of the responsibility that comes with shaping a child's life? Is there anything wisdom you can pass on in that regard?
Well, I think at first, when she was very young, you know, most of the tasks and shaping are mostly functional, like, you know, making sure she's fed, getting her to preschool, picking up her up after
(56:29):
aftercare, being, you know, being the one to make sure that she is healthy and whatnot.
Where the challenges came is when she started to be a team. And I became obsessed with making sure when she was at a school activity or needed a ride somewhere that I was going to be the one there.
(56:54):
You know, I would read stories about, you know, these horrific accidents that happened at school events. And I wanted to be the guy outside that would run into a burning building to make sure she was going to be safe.
I would, I would, I would look and basically look into the doors and windows of schools and things like just to make sure she was still there.
(57:18):
And unfortunately, a lot of her friends used to kid her about me being a stalker dad, but I just, I just couldn't be, I just couldn't be anywhere else.
You know, I was one time she went to, she was at a high school event. She wanted to go to, I think it was one of the local chain restaurants with her friends after a school event.
(57:42):
And I said, okay, I'll drive you over there. So I drove her over there, sat out in the parking lot. And I watched her come out of the restaurant early and get into a van.
So I drove after the van, and they pulled up into a diner. And as she, as she got in, I called her on her cell phone and I said, I'm sitting right here. Come to me, you're grounded.
(58:09):
So she got in and she goes, good God, we have the other restaurant. She gave me all kinds of stories. But actually, that was one that her, her mom, or my ex was, was kind of saying, boy, that was pretty tough on her.
But I just felt like, you know, I had to be there for everything, you know.
And of course, if we're very readily, I was always, I never held anything against her.
(58:33):
Yeah, absolutely. It's nothing can get in the way of that relationship.
How has fatherhood changed you as a person?
Well, without hesitation, growth and maturity, personal growth and maturity was, was something that changed me from this carefree young guy who didn't have any responsibilities other than to make sure, you know, he can work a part time job or do something like that.
(59:03):
And it really, really changed me to the point where, you know, even, even how I conducted myself with other people, you know, it was, it was a huge thing.
You know, it might be corny, but my daughter made me a better man.
No, not at all. Not corny at all.
And I think true of most of us. What's something that you kind of went into this whole parenting experience thinking and then you completely changed your mind about.
(59:34):
Well, for sure. I mentioned before, traditional parenting roles.
Back in my days, you know, we would, we would go out. Dad would be already gone for work.
We would go out all days long. Mom would be home doing mom things and making sure that there was dinner on the table for us and him, my dad, and, you know, I saw that as, as the way of life.
(01:00:04):
And I think it was that for, for many people that, you know, the mom dad relationship was so standardized that when I had Christie, which was probably when I was 28.
I still felt that should is the way that it should be. But life and people have had changed. And they, you start seeing more of dual parenting roles between parents where sometimes parents, others were stay at home dads and, and mothers were brought in the big paychecks and
(01:00:43):
all those things and I, I thought that that was so wrong at the time. How can that possibly be good for a family unit to have that kind of, you know, have that kind of set up between the parents.
And I think, you know, there could be an arguments to say that there, there is some issues with, you know, with the growth of children and seeing that that parents are not there.
(01:01:08):
And Christie basically, once, once I did, once we did establish that, that my, my wife was going to work full time, became a after school kid, which kind of hurt her, I think, in a lot of ways.
So it, it, you know, it, those changes were pretty hard for me to accept to go from one wall to a parent.
(01:01:36):
I know the accident sounds like a pivotal moment, but is there, are there any other moments where you really felt like you, you leveled up as a father?
Um, yeah, I would say, see, I would say that having my daughter, who would, would call me, once she's, once I saw that she was no longer a little child or immature adolescent, and I can see that she became mature and made me feel like,
(01:02:11):
hey, I think I, I accomplished bringing up a decent human being in this world.
And it made me feel as if, you know, I really did something and my fears of her going down the wrong path were no longer there.
So it did feel, it did feel good knowing that she probably going to be okay.
(01:02:37):
So if you could go back in time to your younger self before becoming a dad, what would you say, what advice would you give yourself?
Well, for me, in particular, my preconceived ideas of women, men and girls would be a would be a huge thing.
I think that, that even in today's society is something that, that young men should be aware of should be taught by their parents, that they, you know, their, their ideas of what, what women are is wrong in some respects, and is tainted by the visualizations and the things that we read and hear about.
(01:03:25):
And, and I think that one of the major issues that I think about some of the stories my daughter told me personally, how she, you know, being a waitress one time how, you know, a drunk painter, painter, male male painter, painter, would, you know,
grab her or smack her on the blood or something like that and I'm like, oh my God, this is happening today. You know, it's just very sad to hear that and from when I'm hearing from other women, including my current wife is that this is very common.
(01:04:01):
And, and I don't think a lot of men understand that. So we need to start changing how we look at things like that early on in a young man's life.
Absolutely. And, you know, I struggle with this a lot, myself, but when, when you think about how your children are going to remember you, what do you hope that your children remember most about you?
(01:04:26):
I want, I want, I want Chrissy to remember that I want her to remember how much I loved her, how much I love her today and how much she means to me and, and I think she, she does feel that way that, that I am totally totally in her fan club and, and want her to succeed and, and I think that she carries that with her,
(01:04:53):
always carry that with her. You know, it's, it's because she is my world and I think I've accomplished getting her to understand that.
Are there anything else in the legacy you want to leave behind, not just for your kids, but potentially other fathers who are looking for guidance?
(01:05:23):
Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of people out there that have different opinions on how to be a father, how to be tough. I think that from, from my case, that I might have been a little bit easy to, to, to Christy where I should have been in tougher and in some instances.
So to figure out that perfect balance kind of depends on the child also with what they need.
(01:05:49):
Christy turned out to be a wonderful human being. So maybe, maybe I'm putting too much too much on my, my own shortcomings but, but I think that being the best person you can be the best parent and understanding no one's perfect.
Love your kids more than, than yourself. And most importantly, be human and be when appropriate, be ready to say you're sorry when you mess up and understand that they're looking at you to, to be loving enough to care when you, when you make a mistake to say you're sorry.
(01:06:33):
I think that's, that's so important. Of course, I've only been sorry once in my life, but.
Of course, just, but yeah, it's, it's, they're human beings, they're little human beings with, with feelings and they understand more than you think and if you are unfair, or if you are caught with something that you did wrong, and not able to man up and, and, and say that you were wrong.
(01:07:02):
They're going to know. They're going to know. So.
Well, Paul, I want, I want to thank you very, very much and, and you've been a terrific guest for this first episode of Sage Dad Life and over the coming weeks we'll have more and more fathers who come in and give their perspective.
(01:07:24):
And I do think that it's helpful to, to hear this from other men.
I think you mentioned it, and men just aren't that great at talking about these things. And hopefully we can, we can start to change that.
Yeah, I agree. And I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this moment with you and, and I hope that you're right that men will start to listen and, and learn from themselves and, you know, I think it is a good thing for, for us to open up and see that there's a lot of similarities
(01:08:01):
in how we, we grow, grow our kids into normal human beings and what effect we actually have on them.
Absolutely. Thank you very much and you have a wonderful day.
And you too, sir. Have a good one.
This episode of Sage Dad Life could be sponsored by your brand. Just like fatherhood, the best things in life come with support, guidance and a little wisdom. Help dads navigate their journey with confidence.
(01:08:32):
For your quality brand, we're proud to present engaged and empowered fathers. Visit www.sagedad.life or email rob at sagedad.life for more information.
There is something truly special about reading to a child. It's more than just words on a page. It's laughter, connection and the little moments that turn into lifelong memories.
(01:08:59):
Whether it's a silly story that gets them giggling or a bedtime favorite, they ask for night after night.
Books have a way of bringing us closer. In this segment, we're going to dive into some of the best and most read books in our house.
Because stories that we share today shape the love of reading for a lifetime.
(01:09:21):
The first book I want to talk about today is the Wonky Donkey. A song and music by Craig Smith, illustration by Katz Wokali.
It was the very first book that Sage got. She got it from grandma. And let me tell you, I must have read it a thousand times.
And you know what? It never gets old. Every single time we laugh, giggling at the silly rhymes and that goofy ever growing description of the donkey.
(01:09:52):
The best part, on about the thousandth read or something, I finally paid attention to the credits and realized that it's actually a song.
A quick search on Apple Music and boom, we found it.
And I saw a donkey. I don't have three legs. He was a Wonky Donkey. Wonky Donkey.
(01:10:20):
Okay, a lot of fun. I will tell you, Sage loved it even more with the music.
Dancing along as I tried to keep up with the tongue twisting lyrics.
And the book is just pure fun. One of those rare gems that kids adore and parents don't secretly dread reading over and over.
(01:10:41):
If you haven't read the Wonky Donkey yet, grab a copy, get ready to laugh and maybe even sing your way through it.
Another regular in our house is the Grumpy Monkey by Susan Lang.
Grumpy Monkey is delightful, simple. It tackles the important topics of emotions in a way that both it's both relatable and appropriate for toddlers.
(01:11:04):
The book follows Jim Panzee, a monkey who wakes up feeling grumpy for no particular reason, despite his friends attempts to cheer him up.
Jim insists owning his feelings and even when they make him uncomfortable.
This book really introduces that idea that emotions can just happen.
(01:11:27):
They don't always need to be explained or fixed right away. This is an important concept for young children who are just beginning to navigate the complex world of feelings.
It helps normalize emotions like anger, frustration, sadness, and reassures kids that it's okay not to be happy all the time.
(01:11:49):
The illustrations by Max Lang enhance the story and are absolutely beautiful.
The face expressions, you'll see the photo from I posted on the blog where all I did was ask Sage to make a Grumpy Monkey face and she did it immediately.
(01:12:10):
She knew exactly what that was and it was perfect. I love it.
Grumpy Monkey is a fantastic tool for helping toddlers begin to understand emotions in a general, gentle, age-appropriate way.
It's, I think, a must read and it fosters a really sense of empathy and self-acceptance and highly, highly, highly recommended.
(01:12:41):
Thanks for joining me on Sage Dad Life where we embrace the joys, challenges, and lessons of being a present father.
If today's episode resonated with you, share it with another dad, a parent, anyone who needs a reminder that the little moments matter most.
Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and eggs.
(01:13:05):
Or visit the site at www.sagedad.life.
Email me at rob at sagedad.life.
I would love to hear your stories and experiences.
Until next time, keep showing up, keep embracing the journey, and most of all, keep making memories that'll last a lifetime.
(01:13:30):
See you next week.
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