EP60: What Does Fathering Together Mean?

Interview with Brian Anderson and John Badalament / Change Makers

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Fathering Together is a nonprofit that works to make fathers agents of positive change. One of its missions is to give dads the tools to try to be the best fathers they can be. Their mission is supported with research and data that shows that more involved fathers benefit the whole family. Listen to what any dad can easily do better.

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Transcript

00;00;05;13 - 00;00;27;20
Paul Sullivan
I'm Paul Sullivan, your host on the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, sublime, silly and strange aspects of being a dad in a world where the role still isn't considered normal. While most of the child care is done by moms and paid caregivers lead dads. Whether we work full time, part time, or devote all of our time to our families are here to step up and help.

00;00;27;27 - 00;00;57;25
Paul Sullivan
The company of dads is here to bring together other Lee dads, and to show that what we're doing is good for fathers, mothers, and the whole family system. Today my guests are Brian Anderson and John Badalament, two of the dads behind Fathering Together, a nonprofit that works to make fathers agents of positive change. One of its missions is to give dads a tool to try to be the best fathers they can be, and they back up their mission with research and data that shows how more involved fathers benefit the entire family.

00;00;57;27 - 00;01;12;03
Paul Sullivan
Brian has recently shifted from executive director to president of Fathering Together, and John is a director of education. Between us, we have six daughters and one son. Brian and John, Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast.

00;01;12;06 - 00;01;13;01
Brian Anderson
Thank you.

00;01;13;04 - 00;01;14;02
John Badalament
Thank you.

00;01;14;04 - 00;01;17;22
Paul Sullivan
All right. First. Which one of you is a better father?

00;01;17;25 - 00;01;20;23
John Badalament
Very tough. We're at such different stages right now.

00;01;20;24 - 00;01;33;23
John Badalament
Brian maybe, but I because I have two teenagers, late stage teenagers. So Brian is yet to sort of go across a bunch of mine fields, but yeah, I'm going to go with them.

00;01;33;26 - 00;01;38;27
Brian Anderson
All right. Yes. He's got quantity of years. I've got quality of here.

00;01;39;04 - 00;01;42;03
John Badalament
We'll put it that way. Oh, wow. That's.

00;01;42;06 - 00;01;42;25
Paul Sullivan
Wow.

00;01;42;25 - 00;01;47;17
John Badalament
Shot of cow is right, Right across that your body. Wow. Oh, start.

00;01;47;17 - 00;01;50;07
Brian Anderson
You got it started in quick and early. Gotta get him in.

00;01;50;09 - 00;02;08;22
Paul Sullivan
Oh. You all right? I'm a peacemaker here. There's a third member of of fathering together, Chris Lewis. How did you guys start working together on what's an amazing organization with a first rate mission?

00;02;08;24 - 00;02;45;23
Brian Anderson
Yeah. Chris Lewis gets credit for the kind of the impetus of the the group which started on Facebook as dads with daughters. I get credit for the name because I was meeting with the guys locally here in Evanston, and I just call ourselves Fathering Together because no one had that domain name. And then when we realized this was, you know, something that needed to be bigger than a Facebook community, I offered up the name because we already had, you know, the rights of gathering together, and it fit more of the mission of what we wanted to accomplish in that sense of bringing dads together from various stages of life and varying makeups of life.

00;02;45;23 - 00;03;12;10
Brian Anderson
We have all manner of dads in our in our network. And so Chris and I put in motion the the nonprofit piece, and we realized neither one of us at the time wanted to do this full time. We had great full time jobs. This was kind of our side thing. And John had this wealth of history working with men and dads and the educational background to really help create and hone the products we wanted to offer.

00;03;12;10 - 00;03;19;24
Brian Anderson
And so, thankfully, John was in a place to transition into something new. And we brought him on two years ago, two and a half years ago.

00;03;19;26 - 00;03;22;11
John Badalament
I think somewhere in there.

00;03;22;14 - 00;03;22;19
Brian Anderson
Yeah.

00;03;22;19 - 00;03;26;04
John Badalament
It's hard to know exactly, because it was a process. But yeah, it was during Covid.

00;03;26;04 - 00;03;42;12
Brian Anderson
So everything's a bit of a blur in Covid. But, we got our 501 C3 designation in June of 2020, and it's been a slow build ever since, connecting with dads all over the world. And it's been an awesome experience so far.

00;03;42;14 - 00;03;52;22
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I mean, a lot to unpack here, but come back to the Facebook group. Am I correct that it's the largest group of thought for fathers on on Facebook?

00;03;52;24 - 00;04;17;07
Brian Anderson
I haven't checked this week. We go back and forth with an organization called A Bunch of Dads. Great group of guys over there. And both of us were highlighted during Facebook's More Together campaign back in 2000, 2019, 2000. And so both of our membership kind of grew exponentially. We only focused on dads who had daughters in our primary group, while theirs is a open network for all dads.

00;04;17;07 - 00;04;24;14
Brian Anderson
So we can say we're in the top 2 or 3 largest groups. Keep us a little humble. Yeah.

00;04;24;16 - 00;04;50;05
Paul Sullivan
And with that start on Facebook. And it it is is quite a diverse group of dad. When you look at and you know, men historically are not great at communicating, not great at sharing. How have you used that Facebook group to, you know, bring men together and help them? I mean, what part of your mission statement is to, you know, provide tools to to dads, and not all of us have have the best tools and to sort of support them.

00;04;50;05 - 00;04;55;27
Paul Sullivan
So how has that Facebook group been instrumental in that part of your mission?

00;04;56;00 - 00;05;20;22
Brian Anderson
I think it was kind of right place, right time on some level, because we were in the midst of a pandemic, there weren't a lot of options to meet in person. And, you know, people were starving for connection, starving for answers on how to get through Covid, how to get through this life. And we created a space for camaraderie that was as free as you can from trolling and negativity.

00;05;20;29 - 00;05;52;29
Brian Anderson
We really put it upon our membership to say this is a place of empowerment and encouragement, rather than shooting dads down, that maybe we made a mistake or we're looking for support. And by doing so, I think that really helped community grow and offered opportunities to build those bridges through zoom, through Facebook, through, you know, posts. We did a virtual dad daughter dance where we invited one of our members who's a DJ, just to play, in the group live from his, you know, studio or home studio, I should say.

00;05;53;01 - 00;06;13;14
Brian Anderson
And I think it was just a way to kind of, like, goof around and imagine fatherhood differently. We had some members that, you know, did arts and crafts with their daughters, and so they just went live and taught dads how to do things, and their daughter was right beside them. We had another dad teaching salsa lessons, I believe, for a few weeks in a row with his daughters.

00;06;13;14 - 00;06;23;24
Brian Anderson
And so, yeah, we just kind of made it a playground. I'll be at a virtual one, for dads to connect and I think that really drove our membership in those early, early months.

00;06;23;26 - 00;06;39;28
Paul Sullivan
In a John a you came on and, you know, you call it June, you know, 20, 20. And that's a moment that I remember. Well, I mean, that's when the pandemic became, you know, real. We all sort of went in lockdown in March and like, wow, you know, this, I don't know, it's probably not going to last.

00;06;39;28 - 00;06;59;14
Paul Sullivan
And then it lasts and then it's like, Holy cow. This is you know, and I live outside of New York City. So this is sort of the epicenter for the early part of the pandemic. And, it was horrifying. And but during that time, you know, personally, that's when I got the idea for the Company of Dads is a way to, you know, bring together lead dads, you know, working dads, allies for for moms.

00;06;59;14 - 00;07;16;11
Paul Sullivan
And it took me, you know, you're so to sort of rally the times and actually do that. But when you came on in that sort of, you know, mid 2020, call it to be the director of education. What did were you hoping to do? Like what was your goal in coming on then. And you do you know you and I know each other well.

00;07;16;16 - 00;07;29;16
Paul Sullivan
We've joked a lot but but you do have you quite a pedigree. In, in education and in working with, with men and fathers. So what was your hope and your goal when you joined in 2020?

00;07;29;18 - 00;08;01;05
John Badalament
It's an interesting I mean, it's a tough question because, you know, initially being being virtual, I mean, well, my hope's always been the same to, to build, curriculum and programing, for dads in, in any setting really. So initially it was virtual. It was virtual. I mean, my hope was always my intention was always to get dads together in any way we can and wherever they are.

00;08;01;12 - 00;08;26;02
John Badalament
So at that point, it was it was online, you know, and in years past it's been where are they? They're in schools, they're in jails, they're in, they're in bars, you know. Where do you find dads? So that my my I yeah, initially it was how do we do this? How do we build programing for this group that we all feel good about?

00;08;26;06 - 00;08;53;20
John Badalament
And Chris and Brian, we were all aligned very much. And that's what sort of started the conversation with what we wanted to provide for dads. So one is a space and a forum, a place to gather, which is, I'm sure we'll talk about. That is hugely important. And then two is trying to build confidence in dads trying to build competence or skills, and and connection.

00;08;53;24 - 00;08;57;28
John Badalament
So that's sort of the, the three things I always focus on.

00;08;58;01 - 00;09;18;26
Paul Sullivan
You know, one of my, recent guests, runs a consultancy, in the UK around, you know, working parents. And one of his lines is they don't teach dad in school. And I thought, that's a really powerful. And they don't teach dad in school. And here he was a guy who, you know, was trying to go at it the right way, try to do all the right things.

00;09;18;26 - 00;09;38;23
Paul Sullivan
But when he he's a father of three, when he first got into it as a boy, I'm not quite sure what to do. And when you think of this, could be for either of you. You both answer the question. But when you think of like the key things that if we could teach dad in school, if we could educate fathers to be just good fathers, not you don't have to be great father, but just good father.

00;09;38;23 - 00;09;46;18
Paul Sullivan
What would be some of those key points that that we should that we should teach, or at least at this point get across to men who become fathers?

00;09;46;20 - 00;10;21;12
John Badalament
Well, can I take this one to start it? Yeah. So, so because I was just talking about this yesterday, I was talking about it in the context of health care with with one of the health centers here in Boston. They're doing a big project. I just learned about this yesterday to, somewhat ironic, but to to strengthen maternal maternal health and specifically sort of, help of the disparities, with infant mortality that we have going on with, black and Latino women mothers.

00;10;21;12 - 00;10;57;25
John Badalament
And so I'll bring this back around the the project they're doing to help. They were, you know, put together a bunch of leaders and saying, what, what can we do to change these outcomes, these health outcomes, ultimately for these babies and the project this part of the project evolved into we need men, we need dads. They're they're basically an untapped resource to support because we know research shows when dads are there for the pregnancy, when they support the mom, everybody does better, you know, they do better.

00;10;57;25 - 00;11;27;24
John Badalament
The dads do, the moms do, and the child outcomes are better. So working backwards, they started talking about where do we, you know, how do we get dads, how do we get men to show up all the way down the line here? And where it led to was, which seems very obvious to me much earlier. We have to have these conversations about fatherhood much earlier, which which brought me to thinking about a pilot than I did years ago.

00;11;27;27 - 00;11;52;05
John Badalament
With mass General Hospital called the Fatherhood Project. We went into a high school, a local high school, and through the health curriculum, we it was a pilot. So we did different groups. We did some that were that were single gender and then mixed gender groups. And the the thrust of our our program was to ask the question, what does it mean to be a good dad?

00;11;52;08 - 00;12;17;27
John Badalament
And I'm in this for high school boys and high school girls as well. And it was just fascinating because the number one thing we learned, of course, was the like, nobody's ever asked that question. We've never talked about fathers or fatherhood at this age. And I would argue that's even I'd like to see it go younger, but just just starting the conversation.

00;12;17;29 - 00;12;55;05
John Badalament
It is so critical because what they came up with to answer your question is they were reflective. I think we need to teach boys and men to reflect, not just act. It's a combination of acting and reflecting, to all the things you would think, talk, to, communicate, to talk about what they learn about themselves. But it's so it's it was so it just stuck with me to sit there and listen to these boys talk about, you know, about their own fathers, the father they want to be that that was the name of the project, the father you want to be.

00;12;55;08 - 00;13;20;26
John Badalament
And the reality is most of them are going to be fathers. I think the statistics, around 80% of them will go on to be biological fathers. All of them are of a father figure or will be a father figure in many cases already are by high school. And the second thing was listening to or watching the girls and what they had to say about what these boys were saying was fascinating.

00;13;21;02 - 00;13;37;17
Paul Sullivan
So do you when you asked that question, though, like, what does it mean to be a good father? And you said, of course it was. It kind of stumped them. They hadn't really thought about that. But after they reflected on it, did they come up with any conclusions or did you guide them into sort of x, Y and Z?

00;13;37;19 - 00;14;13;17
John Badalament
Yeah, I mean, they came up with a lot. They weren't they weren't definitely weren't stumped for long. And you know, we we addressed kind of the elephant in the living room that like, we know not everybody here has a great father and not everybody here has a father. Not everybody has a close relationship. So we acknowledge there's all kinds of experiences, but they were united in all, had a real kind of a a passion to say for what they wanted, the sort of aspirational they wanted to be a father that was close to their kids.

00;14;13;19 - 00;14;38;08
John Badalament
My language connection, they wanted they wanted to be responsible, you know, they gave some, some pretty powerful, answers. And the answers in themselves were interesting because here it is, boys talking about something, you know, their feelings, their hopes, without making it an exercise about talking about your feelings. You know, I think that's what was so interesting to all of us.

00;14;38;14 - 00;14;59;23
John Badalament
In particular, the girls were like, I never seen these guys talk like this. And that's kind of the work we do and fathering together, and all of us do with dads is we just want to, you know, get together and reflect and and share what's going on inside of you. So I think that they came up with all kinds of really.

00;14;59;26 - 00;15;27;27
John Badalament
Yeah. Like I said, passionate responses as to what they wanted. Now we try. We did guide them. We gave there were like five sort of I don't remember we call it five principles or something about showing up, about responsibility and just had them reflect on those. And so we but it was a, it was a combination of guiding them and really going with where they were headed, what they thought, because we didn't want to tell them, here's what you need to do.

00;15;28;00 - 00;15;43;10
John Badalament
Right. But at the same time, we wanted to make use of it. You know, and say, these are some things. They knew what wasn't working, whether it was because of their own personal experience or what they had seen, or because they had made great dad.

00;15;43;12 - 00;16;02;12
Paul Sullivan
So in Brian, listen to to John's response here. I mean, this is sort of, it's a wonderful story, but it's the set up of courses. Let's try to get to these kids in high school, presumably before, you know, most or all of them have become, you know, fathers. But, you know, we're on the father together, you know, Facebook page.

00;16;02;14 - 00;16;25;21
Paul Sullivan
There are a lot of questions there of, of of fathers asking sort of an extreme situation to what, what do I do, you know, and, and it's clear that they went into this, thinking it would be different than it, than it turned out to be. And, and they're struggling when you see that, on this very sort of powerful Facebook group, you've, you've created what are how do you, you get in there and help?

00;16;25;21 - 00;16;43;27
Paul Sullivan
What are some of the bits of advice you give, to help these fathers who, who didn't have the good fortune of being in a class that John was teaching in, in, in high school to sort of think about it before it happened, but to actually have to react and then course correct once they become fathers and realize that they're they're struggling.

00;16;44;00 - 00;17;04;04
Brian Anderson
Yeah. It's interesting. My dad had that kind of distant dad like, I, I don't have much of a relationship or didn't have much of a relationship with my grandfather either. And I would often ask my dad, like, how did you turn out so good? And how did you know to raise me the way you did? And learning by not by learning by bad examples isn't going to cut it right.

00;17;04;04 - 00;17;29;13
Brian Anderson
It might get you so far. And he said, you know, like I had an uncle, I had my my mom, your grandma. They kind of tell me. But he did a lot of research. And this was like, you know, in the early 80s, late 70s when there wasn't a lot of masculinity or fatherhood research. But but I think that now that there is, you know, part of it, depending on the dad, is I point them like, do some research, write like read books.

00;17;29;13 - 00;17;53;22
Brian Anderson
There's so many great books out there on healthy parenting, not let alone healthy fatherhood. But my tack for most dads, regardless of where they're coming from, regardless of the color of the color of their collar or anything, is, to help them understand the skills they already have. And most of us have been taught to have a career right for yourself into your work.

00;17;53;25 - 00;18;00;25
Brian Anderson
And a lot of that comes with professional development workshops around team and interviews. Right. Like how do you run your team?

00;18;00;25 - 00;18;15;20
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, if you stink at your job. People aren't going to fire you right away. Chances are they'll put you to some sort of professional development, give you a chance. But I think I see where you're going with this. If you think of being a father, there isn't the equivalent professional development. Is that is that not.

00;18;15;20 - 00;18;45;13
Brian Anderson
No. But how do we help dads translate those emotional intelligence skill sets? The communication that they have with their team that has gotten their product on a shelf somewhere or their products, you know, highlighted in a magazine or not even a product. Right? They're they're consultancy. Right. Like whatever. A dad is doing really well in the office, chances are there's ways to translate that into the home and respond to their child with a long term outcome in mind, right.

00;18;45;13 - 00;19;03;17
Brian Anderson
Like most of us aren't going to just switch off, fatherhood had at 18 when our kids go off to college or become legal adults. Like we're in it for the long haul. And so you can't just fire a kid. You can't just say like, F it, go to your room and never talk to me, right? Like, no, there has to be appropriate conversations.

00;19;03;17 - 00;19;19;04
Brian Anderson
You have to make teachable moments much like we do in the office. Because you're right, we don't fire people on a first offense 99% of the time, right? You take a chance on them and say, hey, we hired you for a reason. We want you to grow. We trust in your skill set. You just made a wrong decision.

00;19;19;07 - 00;19;43;29
Brian Anderson
Same goes with our kids, except that they've never made those decisions before or they've never experienced, I don't know, snow or going to school. And so how do you guide your child and and how do you get on their level. Right. Like how do we remind ourselves that we're six foot 5.5ft, whatever. They're two feet when we talk to them, they're scared or they're put in an inferior position.

00;19;43;29 - 00;19;57;14
Brian Anderson
And so how do we find ways to level the playing field, to get on their level and, and empathize with the fear they're experiencing, or also the joys and the excitement of that first adventure they get with their dad, you know.

00;19;57;17 - 00;20;18;16
Paul Sullivan
That's it. Yeah. I've got a follow up question for you, Robert. There's such a good point. I my kids are five, ten and 13, and my 13 year old is you know, I'm, I'm, I'm five 11.75 that three quarters important. But she's, you know, five, five, five. And with her, I maybe we'll sit down on, the edge of something when we are having a tough conversation.

00;20;18;16 - 00;20;36;10
Paul Sullivan
But with my five year old and my ten year old, I 100% like you're saying, they literally get down to their level so that I'm not, you know, also that, like, you know, talking down to them. One of the things you did recently, Brian, which had you asked me ahead of time, I would have advise you against, is write a book.

00;20;36;12 - 00;20;51;20
Paul Sullivan
And I say that because I've written a couple books. One one went really well. The second one not not not so well, talk to me about the impetus for it. And it's a it's a great place to get some clear takeaways, talking about a few of those takeaways that you'd want to want to share with the listeners.

00;20;51;22 - 00;20;58;20
Brian Anderson
Yeah, I agree, I don't know if I'll write another book, at least not by myself. Or maybe co-writing is worse. I don't know, but.

00;20;58;23 - 00;21;07;15
Paul Sullivan
I also, I failed to write three books with co-writers. But I did get paid for, so. So it is worth it. You get pay, but you don't have anything to show for. At least for me, it's no good.

00;21;07;15 - 00;21;27;29
Brian Anderson
You know, I had a mentor tell me. Never write a book unless you can't fall asleep at night because of the stories running through your head or the points you want to make. And it got to the point where I was having so many conversations with dads and so many common themes were coming out, and I just couldn't find a book to reference or to recommend in every situation.

00;21;27;29 - 00;21;41;26
Brian Anderson
I mean, there's so many great books, right? But for me, again, coming from this idea of translating our workplace skills into the home servant leadership has been well documented. There's so many books by corporate leaders and consultants on.

00;21;41;27 - 00;21;46;08
Paul Sullivan
And in one and one sentence for the listeners explained to us what servant leadership is.

00;21;46;11 - 00;22;12;00
Brian Anderson
Servant leadership is basically a CEO making themselves available and listening to their staff to grow their staff in, in trust and experience so that they do a great job, thus making it easier for the CEO to tell the shareholders we've got, you know, yeah, profit or whatever. And in many respects, dads are CEOs or co-CEOs of their home.

00;22;12;02 - 00;22;31;20
Brian Anderson
And how do we see our children as the potential that they are? How are we building cathedrals? As I once said, rather than fixing holes in the wall? And how are we providing opportunities for them to grow and flourish and most of the dads I would interview did that fairly well. You know, we all have our great 75% days.

00;22;31;22 - 00;22;50;19
Brian Anderson
But very rarely are we all on 100% of the time. And so I basically said, okay, here are the tenets of servant leadership around emotional intelligence, advocating, looking to the future and creating opportunities to reach those goals. All of that stuff. I kind of put it through the lens of fatherhood and said, okay, as dads, how are we doing that pre work?

00;22;50;19 - 00;23;07;26
Brian Anderson
How are we doing the mental internal work before we even become dads to make sure that we're ready, and do things beyond just build the crib? How are we communicating, how we empathizing? How are we putting ourselves in a place of lifelong learner ship? Because it's so much fun to relearn things through the eyes of our children.

00;23;07;26 - 00;23;33;17
Brian Anderson
And even if I've built Lego bricks 50,000 times, going back and building with my daughter, definitely some headaches. But it was a hell. A lot more fun to play with afterwards, right? Because we built that story together. And I think at the ultimately at the end of this day, I wanted a book that told dads, you can read every book in the world, including mine, but the most important book and manual you have is the one you co-create with your children.

00;23;33;19 - 00;23;39;15
Brian Anderson
And my book is just giving some perspectives on how to get there. If you hadn't given it thought before.

00;23;39;17 - 00;23;59;14
Paul Sullivan
I think about that. And I loved playing checkers as a kid. But checkers is is, you know, inferior to chess. You can't go on. I played and now my daughter's, we have a bot. Like a wooden checkerboard. Like a nice checkerboard. Not the, you know, cardboard ones that I had that would break. And it's so much fun to, to to play with them.

00;23;59;14 - 00;24;16;28
Paul Sullivan
But you're right. Like, you know, I'm not going to have you guys over and have a couple beers, like, okay, guys, let's break out the checkers. Here we go. But we could do it. John, I got a question for you. I know you guys are working on a new education initiative. That's going to go into to schools.

00;24;17;00 - 00;24;19;15
Paul Sullivan
Talk a bit about about that.

00;24;19;17 - 00;24;24;19
John Badalament
Sure. Backgammon is a good medium, by the way.

00;24;24;21 - 00;24;29;14
Paul Sullivan
It's, it's actually on the other side. It's on the other side of the checkerboard. I can flip it over. You can play that. Yeah.

00;24;29;14 - 00;24;45;11
John Badalament
Perfect. There you go. And I found those five things, by the way, it was called Father Readiness that we taught. So do you want to hear them? What? The things. If you talk to in the schools about, to the boys, about fatherhood.

00;24;45;13 - 00;24;47;01
Paul Sullivan
Sure. Give them to me quick. But then I want to hear.

00;24;47;02 - 00;25;10;03
John Badalament
What is related. I'll answer your question in this one. Having a vision for for fatherhood, for being a father. Part of that is understanding your legacy, what you got from your own dad, and then looking forward to say, what kind of dad do you want to be? What is your vision for yourself or family? For partnership and then having a support system.

00;25;10;03 - 00;25;40;28
John Badalament
And these are all, you know, I'm talking about these. This is what we teach and what we provide activities and resources to, to get men to do and to think about. So, yeah, the third, the third one is have a support system, friends, family, community groups, and we pose these as questions. Are you prepared to provide education, career path, financial plans to provide needs and then lastly is be relationally fit, you know, do you understand your own emotions, others emotions, your commitments?

00;25;41;01 - 00;26;20;16
John Badalament
Problem solving and basic community. So so that's what we were we're sort of posing those questions as Guideposts for for boys in school program and fathering together. We, we are currently piloting in schools, in elementary schools. What fathering together chapters is what we're calling them. And essentially the way it's the way it's working is we we find a dad leader, you know, we're co leaders, couple dads and try and connect them with, the PTA, PTO or whatever the parent organization is.

00;26;20;18 - 00;26;47;23
John Badalament
So that there and so it's not necessarily a separate group. Some schools, it can be a separate group. But it what we found is it's when when the dads are connected to the PTA, it leads to much, better communication. There's not as much overlap. And and also it supports the work of the PTA, and tend to find that when groups form on their own that they're not as connected to the school necessarily.

00;26;47;23 - 00;27;15;26
John Badalament
So. So finding that leader, connecting with the PTA and then starting by doing a survey of the schools, dads and and father figures, and I should have said this at the start when I'm using the word dad, I'm very clear that term means a lot of different things to different people, but that's meant to be, in this context, inclusive of father figures, grandparents, guardians, whoever someone calls, as, you know, their dad.

00;27;15;28 - 00;27;41;22
John Badalament
And so, so the focus of our chapters in the schools is to, to engage the dads because most schools one they don't even know, how, if dads are involved, they might have some anecdotes, but that data is not broken down by gender. Which you don't. I think the best way to look at it is go look at the PTA or the parent organization and how many dads are there.

00;27;41;28 - 00;28;06;20
John Badalament
That usually gives you an indication of, I think, the the general engagement in the school and most of the time the word parent and family still in that context means mom. So part of what we're doing is trying to say, yeah, we would love for parent the word parent and the word family to really, you know, mean that it includes dads.

00;28;06;20 - 00;28;34;13
John Badalament
But unfortunately, in that setting, in a lot of settings, it doesn't necessarily do that. So we're very clear to use the word dad, father, father, figure. And the the purpose of the the chapters, the dads groups is to get the dads engaged in three areas one with their kids, with their family, two with other dads, other parents, other moms, and then three get them engaged in the school and then the community.

00;28;34;15 - 00;28;55;11
John Badalament
So those are everything. Then. Then we break it down. We have they have monthly meetings. Most of the meetings are planning. They are to do three events during the year, in year one. And those three events, ideally one is for dads and kids and families. One is for dads and other parents, and one is for dads in the schools.

00;28;55;14 - 00;29;33;26
John Badalament
So an example event might be the dads hosting, putting together, a school wide pancake breakfast. Okay, for forever in the school. And at that, and just to make this clear, the one I think the special sauce of this program is that we try to build in meaningful engagement with in all the events and activities. So the example that is the pancake breakfast, what we do is we give them a business card that has three questions, for so they depending on the age group they do a little quiz.

00;29;33;26 - 00;29;59;03
John Badalament
So it's a way to start a conversation. What is your dad's favorite food? What is your dad like to do with you? What stresses your child out? What does your child love to do with you? So back and we create moments of back and forth. Not not everything has to be, you know, that way you can do a dad child hike and not necessarily have.

00;29;59;03 - 00;30;02;18
John Badalament
But we try to make the most of those moments. You know.

00;30;02;24 - 00;30;21;01
Paul Sullivan
I can't tell you how much I love this. This is, a passion of mine. It's also a pet peeve of mine. I am. I have three daughters, but I'm a four time class parent, and the first one started with my then not. We're still a oldest daughter, but she said, you know, dad, will you do this? And at first I said, no way, I don't want to do that at all.

00;30;21;01 - 00;30;37;17
Paul Sullivan
And then my wife said, what are you doing? Like, you want to set an example, right? You should do it. And I said, all right. And they did it. And I recruited another dad. And they're literally two of us, doing it at the school of another in elementary school. And so I don't even know, another maybe 40 or 50 parents.

00;30;37;17 - 00;30;52;23
Paul Sullivan
The same. All 48 are women. And to the two of us, and I loved it. And the guy who did it with me didn't he didn't he never did it again. And I and not that I, you know, I'm I guess I'm a glutton for punishment because you do it for one daughter. You get we all her here.

00;30;52;23 - 00;31;16;11
Paul Sullivan
You know that's not fair. So I then did it for you know, subsequent daughters and my youngest is in kindergarten now and I'm the class parent and I'm partnered with a working mom, and we have a good rapport. But there's still some things that absolutely drive me crazy. And it's, you know, the stuff that is so easily remedied, it's, you know, why does a school nurse, you know, call my wife?

00;31;16;11 - 00;31;35;13
Paul Sullivan
Well, she actually doesn't anymore because we've had so many conversations. But she did for, a long time. And, you know, the second one is and I just wrote a post on this on LinkedIn, you know, why do we only send the invitations to moms? And this is not just, you know, stay at home moms. This is working moms who fall into this.

00;31;35;13 - 00;31;36;18
Paul Sullivan
And you people have.

00;31;36;20 - 00;31;37;23
John Badalament
Very important points.

00;31;37;25 - 00;31;53;07
Paul Sullivan
It's so important, like people said, like we could create a joint emails like, yeah, but I want dads to take ownership of being a father. So it doesn't cost you anything to to add emails. It literally they give you a list, you can copy and paste a list in there and then they all get it. Yeah.

00;31;53;07 - 00;32;19;10
John Badalament
And you go, it's 2023. I'll remind you that that's the, the part that. So one of the first things we do I said a survey the survey is actually meant to it's for the dads and it's, it's three purposes. One is find out what the dads are thinking, what they're interested in, who they are to. It's to get their data, with their permission, their email, the best way to connect them.

00;32;19;13 - 00;32;39;29
John Badalament
For that very reason. The schools often they have, you know, a family email, their moms email. This is like, this is well known. And this has been going on forever. And then three, we build a, you know, we ask them to build a database database. Get it dad a base so that there is a communication tool going directly to the dads.

00;32;39;29 - 00;33;06;05
John Badalament
Again ideally we want this integrated and equitable and equal. But right now there's a deficit. You have to do something about that so that we don't have only moms get the email or only, you know, the the nurse I just heard same story last week. A nurse waited two hours to finally get through to the dad. So his daughter was in the in the nurse's office for two hours because she couldn't reach the mom.

00;33;06;07 - 00;33;31;08
John Badalament
So so the there's but I think of this is it's a two way street. This is really important that schools have an obligation. It's a look. It's an it's a it's a gender equity. It's an equity diversity inclusion issue right. In this population. And it's that's actually on the the National PTA website. They have male engagement is an issue for Dei.

00;33;31;09 - 00;33;53;02
John Badalament
It's an inclusion issue are in most schools like I said don't even know because they don't track the data which that if the dads are involved or not. But the the two way street is. So schools have an obligation, I think, to reach out to guys like, like you and, and get more dads involved because, look, the bottom line is there's so much great stuff.

00;33;53;02 - 00;34;21;00
John Badalament
Your kid spends most of their time in school. If you want to connect with your kid, you want to have a strong, close connection. You better know what's going on minimally, know what's happening, and ideally, you know you're going in to read to to the kid, to the to a group of kids. And don't forget, there's lots of kids who may not have a dad that's providing a, you know, another image of what a dad is, what a dad does, what a man is.

00;34;21;00 - 00;34;48;06
John Badalament
There's lots of different ways to do it. So, so getting the school has an obligation. You know, we know families, school partnerships. There's tons of research and, you know, all the research about how great it is, how great kids do when school engages that family, all that research. There's almost nothing. There's some there's almost nothing that breaks that word family and parent down by gender.

00;34;48;09 - 00;35;11;07
John Badalament
So we're missing a huge, huge because a lot of dads are involved. And that's not necessarily reflected the two way street, though. The other part of it is we can't, as dads, can't necessarily wait around and make excuses for not being involved. And the biggest one is time. I don't have time. I'm busy. Well, you said it yourself.

00;35;11;10 - 00;35;38;23
John Badalament
You're partnering with the working mom. Working moms have been doing this for forever and so single moms. So the the idea that time is the barrier I, I don't buy that. I think we make you know, at the end of the day, we make time for what's important. So that two way street is is important to acknowledge. It's like schools I have to invite dads, which is part of the program that we're we're building to help them do that.

00;35;38;26 - 00;35;55;20
John Badalament
And dads, we need to just step up and realize if you want to connect with your kids, you better really at a young age, which is important. The younger they're engaged in school, the longer they stay engaged. So it's a great opportunity and I think a lot of fun.

00;35;55;23 - 00;36;13;10
Paul Sullivan
This been great guys. Thank you so much. I'm going to give you the last question to to to Brian. And that is I mean you've been along this journey since almost the beginning with father and together you're, you're now, you know, transitioning into sort of a role as president. But you've accomplished a lot. You're doing great work.

00;36;13;13 - 00;36;27;05
Paul Sullivan
But what are your hopes for the future? Like what does, you know, fathering together become? What does it grow into in its effort to continue to to help, you know, fathers be the best fathers they can be?

00;36;27;07 - 00;36;50;16
Brian Anderson
That's a great question. And I think part of it is the school based chapter and application for all of this data that that is being collected. But on a larger level, I see fathering together being our title and being a collaborative space, a collective space. So the, you know, the local group in Buffalo, New York that our colleague Antoine Johnson is running for new dads in Buffalo.

00;36;50;18 - 00;37;15;03
Brian Anderson
They can look to us and say, hey, I'm looking for a good practice for my dads. Do you know someone? And I can put them in touch with someone in Miami or, you know, the the great guys up in Vermont and with dad Gild and Keegan Alba. Like, how are we staying connected as individuals to help us grow in that day to day of tantrums and potty changing and all that kind of diaper changing and potty training, all that stuff.

00;37;15;05 - 00;37;37;26
Brian Anderson
But then also as an organizational level, how are we holding each other accountable? How are we setting standards that we can live up to? And to John's point with the school systems, how are we role modeling healthy balance in our workplaces so that if we're in a leadership position, we set an expectation that you can leave at 4:00 if you have to pick your kids up or be a coach or take a kid to a doctor's office, we're not going to penalize you.

00;37;38;03 - 00;37;56;13
Brian Anderson
And, and, you know, be nit picking your hours, but really kind of using fathering together as a platform to set new narratives and new standards for what modern fatherhood can look like. And, not to correct you, but just to expand on something you said early on, like the three of us behind the name of father and together John, Chris and I.

00;37;56;13 - 00;38;15;17
Brian Anderson
And that is true. But there are just so many dads in our network. And, you know, two years ago, we held our first Father's Friday event where the Friday before Father's Day, we pushed us to think about how to step out of their work roles and into their life roles. And we had 18 dads from across the globe join us on panels and conversations from every walk of life.

00;38;15;17 - 00;38;32;15
Brian Anderson
And this year, coming up for this Father's Day, we want to do something similar and just bringing all of those diverse voices together in a way that often gets overlooked or gets siloed into this one community here or this one community there, but really celebrating that diversity of experience.

00;38;32;18 - 00;38;38;27
Paul Sullivan
That's a great way to end. John and Brian, thank you again for being my guest on the Company of Dads podcast.

00;38;38;29 - 00;38;40;29
John Badalament
Baseball.

00;38;41;01 - 00;39;07;26
Paul Sullivan
Hey, thanks for listening to Company of Dads podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. But I'm Here to tell you is just one of the many offerings we have at the company of Dads. We've got another podcast, we have a weekly newsletter, we have various features. We have events that we put on both online and in person. If you want to know about all of those, the best place to learn about them is to go to the company of dads.com backslash the dad.

00;39;07;27 - 00;39;21;15
Paul Sullivan
There's a company of dads.com backslash the dad. What do you get if you do that? That's how you sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Dad, which is a one stop shop for all things the dad. Thank you again for listening.