How to Survive Fatherhood

Let's face it, guys. Being a dad is never easy, whether it's the constant drumbeat of research that's used to highlight how dads are disposable or easily jettisoned from the family unit or the constant portrayal of fathers -- especially single dads -- who are morons and act as if they're still reliving their own adolescence, even as their spouse or partner is shown as the only adult in the relationship. I know that last part well as I'm also a film critic and one of the things I constantly marvel at is how rarely men are portrayed as competent, let alone good at parenting or even interacting with children.

My experience in this realm of single fatherhood has been quite different and as a divorced father of three children, a teen girl, a tween boy and a 7yo girl, I've had to fight to retain 50% custody of my kids and continue to battle my ex wanting to impose her views and values on my household, even years after we divorced and shifted into a co-parenting relationship.

I realize that co-parenting isn't a breeze, but somehow it seems like some families manage the two-household thing pretty smoothly, while others find it a constant struggle, a never-ending precarious dance between the pit of hostility and the plains of serenity. My goal, needless to say, is to offer an oasis, a peaceful respite from the challenges of adolescence and the chaos of the two worlds my children inhabit. And, oh yeah, to have a life too.

I've been running The Attachment Parenting Blog since 2003, first with my wife, then taking it over as a separated, then divorced and single father. Now it's time for it to evolve as I've evolved, time to reinvent it as Go Fatherhood. Check it out. We can figure out this survival thing together...