EP108: Change The Fatherhood Narrative You Learned As A Child

Interview with Sir Royce Briales / Founder of Welcome To Fatherhood

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Welcome To Fatherhood began when Sir Royce Briales asked his childhood friend, Dr. Raheem Young for fatherhood advice. The two Chicago dads began talking and Sir Royce wondered how he could share more broadly Dr. Raheem's advice. It was all about knowledge transfer and Sir Royce realized that transfer wasn't happening for fathers like it should. What began as a meeting in Chicago has gone national thanks to Zoom. Whatever the format, Sir Royce said there's one goal the groups go back to again and again. Listen in.

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Transcript

00;00;05;16 - 00;00;24;29
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange and sublime aspects of being a dad in a world where men who are the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in the community for what they do. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. Our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the company dads.

00;00;24;29 - 00;00;46;02
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead dad of the week. We have our community both online and in person. We have a new resource library for all fathers. The one stop shop to learn about all of this is our newsletter for dad to sign up today at the company of dads.com. Backslash the dad.

00;00;46;04 - 00;01;09;02
Paul Sullivan
Today my guest is Sir Royce Briales, the co-founder of the, Welcome to Fatherhood podcast. Sir Royce's mission is to help fathers cope with the stresses and pressures of being a dad today. So Royce is a father of three ages 12, eight and six, two boys up top and a girl in the third spot. And he works with his childhood best friend, Doctor Raheem Young. We've got lots to talk about today.

00;01;09;02 - 00;01;13;02
Paul Sullivan
So. So, Royce, welcome to the Company Dads podcast.

00;01;13;04 - 00;01;15;28
Sir Royce Briales
Hey, Paul. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. So.

00;01;16;01 - 00;01;30;28
Paul Sullivan
You know, you're you're smart guy. You're doing interesting work here. You know, the acronym of that podcast. You know, welcome to fatherhood. WTF? My my teenager sometimes uses that. That's that's, you know, that's not a nice phrase. How did it come about? How did that come about?

00;01;31;00 - 00;01;52;12
Sir Royce Briales
So it was, a lot of things. So back in 2015, me and my childhood friend, Doctor Raheem Young. We met just to talk about different business ideas, because we actually got into real estate maybe ten years before that. The, the real estate bubble happened, and, we didn't do real estate anymore after that, so we kind of fell off of real estate, but we kind of always had, like, an entrepreneurial spirit.

00;01;52;13 - 00;02;11;16
Sir Royce Briales
So, back in 2015, I was also expecting, to have my son at that time. My wife at the time, she was pregnant. So, a lot of the conversations would go from business to fatherhood. Questions like, hey, man, how many times did you wake up in the middle of the night? That kind of thing. You know?

00;02;11;19 - 00;02;31;06
Sir Royce Briales
And, that just kind of sparked the idea in both of our minds. Like, I want to do something for dads. You know, why don't we just look up some stuff for dads? Like, what can we do for dads? And I literally went home and I googled it. And, in Chicago, that's where we're based. And, there probably about maybe about 1 or 2 pages on Google for fatherhood organizations in Chicago.

00;02;31;11 - 00;02;50;25
Sir Royce Briales
Let me just see what motherhood has. And it was a lot longer, a lot more pages. So I'm like, wow. So is probably a need for for something like this. So in that moment, literally the minute the name hit me, WTF? Yeah. I kind of smile. I got the man, had me not text, Doctor Raheem and said I got it.

00;02;50;26 - 00;03;10;07
Sir Royce Briales
I said the name of it and he started laughing. He said, Elmo and, I we got it. And, shortly after that, we got incorporated. We got our LLC in, and, maybe a year after that, we got our, five of my C three sacks. So we've been doing it doing it ever since, basically since 20, 2016.

00;03;10;09 - 00;03;38;06
Paul Sullivan
You know, I love hearing that story because it's not really, dissimilar, wholly dissimilar from how the company dad started. And that was, you know, during the pandemic, I was looking at saying there must be some sort of organization, you know, for for guys like me, you know, and, like, I'm, I'm, you know, we use the term lead dad and, you know, lead dad as a go to parent, whether he works full time, part time and devotes all of his time to his children and same as you, you know, as, like there's not a lot out there for for that.

00;03;38;06 - 00;03;55;04
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, then it's like, well, what is there? Vermont. Lots of stuff. Okay. What is there for parents? Well, turns out all the stuff for parents is really for moms. And then I started looking around. I found this magazine called fatherly, and I reached out to those guys because I was at the New York Times at that point, and I said, you know, tell me a bit more about this.

00;03;55;04 - 00;04;12;10
Paul Sullivan
And the guy that's great going really well. But he had to know this. And I said, this is, you know, 65% of the readers of fatherly are moms. Now, they got to be kidding me. And so, like, you know, had you not already taken off, I might have used it because I'm like, what? This isn't, you know, right.

00;04;12;13 - 00;04;30;04
Paul Sullivan
Tell me, like, you know. So you started back in 2015, 2016 and it all started rolling along, you know, amazing. Because, you know, look, there's this huge need. There's still this huge need. You know, I believe that that, you know, the pandemic has changed some of the things hopefully for the better around work and life for fathers.

00;04;30;10 - 00;04;37;22
Paul Sullivan
But what was it like in those early days, and what was your goal from, from the beginning with, with Welcome to Fatherhood.

00;04;37;24 - 00;04;56;29
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah. So at the time when we started having our meetings, we started having them in the room. It was actually around 2018. So having our, we call them our, our symposiums, our parent symposiums, but we're doing them all in person. So we'll come up with a topic, and it will come up with questions designed to get their heads to open up and talk.

00;04;57;04 - 00;05;15;27
Sir Royce Briales
So it's like more of a, like a, like a group but group session, you know, like we call it like group sessions. But I think it's more therapeutic, you know, in a way, because a lot of men, we hold a lot of things in, we don't even talk about stuff. So, but in 2018, we started doing the tap, doing them every week, every, twice a month, actually.

00;05;16;00 - 00;05;38;09
Sir Royce Briales
It was the first and third Thursday, which still is today, first and third Thursday of every month. And the pandemic started. So we can't do it in person anymore. So we're like, man, what can we do? So we had so like, we started doing it on a person on his own, and it was actually a blessing in disguise because really, we started reaching out to a lot more dads because it wasn't just in this local in Chicago.

00;05;38;11 - 00;06;03;02
Sir Royce Briales
It became really nationwide and really even worldwide. We had dads on the phone to call us from, like Australia, from, Africa, from the UK, like all over the world. So we were able to reach the dads by, by doing it through zoom. So that's kind of where it is now. As far as our symposiums, we, we have a lot of, good conversations.

00;06;03;02 - 00;06;18;18
Sir Royce Briales
A lot of times we kind of get off the script because, you know, everybody wants to talk about whatever they want to talk, but it's like, okay, yeah, talk about what you want to talk about. That's what it's all about. Just open up and talk, you know? So, we've been doing it consistently ever since, and, and we still use zoom.

00;06;18;23 - 00;06;37;08
Sir Royce Briales
We're, we're trying to get it more hybrid where we have people in person and on zoom. But, I don't know, I think people that the pandemic changed people in a way, you know, so I understand people now want to come in close proximity. That would be. But, that's kind of where we are now with our symposiums.

00;06;37;10 - 00;06;58;10
Paul Sullivan
What do you think about, you know, what you've you've learned or what you've seen, if you've seen things change over these sort of 8 or 9 years that you've been doing this. What are some of the things that that stick out for you around, you know, sort of the evolution of fatherhood or if not, you know, trends that you've noticed among, you know, fathers both pre and post pandemic.

00;06;58;12 - 00;07;20;23
Sir Royce Briales
Well, even before the pandemic, we were kind of, stuck on our screens, from the dads and trickling down to the kids, like, here, take a tablet and watch where or for our to be distract or play a game or even a video games. And, that happened really back when I was a kid, like the video game part, but, even now, even more like it's.

00;07;20;24 - 00;07;42;13
Sir Royce Briales
So everything is so on demand is right in front of your face as soon as you want it. So, I think for for a dance now, going back eight years ago until now, for me as being a cognizant of a what I put in front of my kids, what kind of what kind of stuff I'm out, exposing them to be a TV or via their screens.

00;07;42;15 - 00;08;00;20
Sir Royce Briales
But to also, how much time are you spending on these screens, like, because you only got a certain amount of time, which it's fun. So how how those can we use our time instead of just looking at the screen on it so I can take my kids out? We go to the park, and it's nice in Chicago, even when it's not nice, you still go for a walk.

00;08;00;20 - 00;08;06;22
Sir Royce Briales
But we walk around a block and we walk where like the Christmas lights are just to get a fresh breath of fresh air, you know?

00;08;06;24 - 00;08;07;24
Paul Sullivan
Yeah.

00;08;07;27 - 00;08;16;27
Sir Royce Briales
Just to give them different experiences. So I think that's important for the kids, for, for us as men, we need new experiences, not just the same ones on our screens.

00;08;16;29 - 00;08;32;21
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, we sort of, you know, obsess over kids and screens. But, you know, we all know that if we're sitting at home on a couch, you know, engaging, it's hard not to check our phone. It's hard not to do this. Whereas if you're out and about, you're there. You have to, you know, you can't lose your kids in the park.

00;08;32;22 - 00;08;48;02
Paul Sullivan
You have to pay attention, you know, tell me, you know, what's a week like in your life? As is both, you know, a dad, you know, a nonprofit co-founder and you know, a host of the Welcome to Fatherhood podcast.

00;08;48;04 - 00;09;06;17
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah. So, I'm divorced now. So I was married and I got divorced in 2019, and we, we do, like, a co-parenting, type of arrangement where she has, for four nights. I have him for, for three. So it's basically like 5050, almost. But I get them, I get them on a Friday. I pick them up on Friday.

00;09;06;17 - 00;09;26;04
Sir Royce Briales
So my week begins on Friday. That's how I look at my week, my week with my kids. So I pick them up from school Friday evening and take them back. And then we spend the whole weekend together. I drop them back off at school on Monday and, I call them every day during the week, Tuesday through Thursday.

00;09;26;06 - 00;09;51;05
Sir Royce Briales
But my Friday through Monday is when I have them. And, after I drop them off, I get to work. So I'm literally what I'm doing now is what I do. What welcome to fatherhood. I you know, we're going the podcast that we have also, social media. I'm, doing most of that right now. I'm just, you know, working to welcome the father in, to pick them up again.

00;09;51;08 - 00;10;05;04
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk to me about your own journey as a as a father. How is it, you know, evolved, sort of, you know, from when you were married to to now as a as a single divorced dad.

00;10;05;07 - 00;10;27;00
Sir Royce Briales
Then, that's a good question. It changed a lot. It definitely changed a lot. So when I first became a dad, you know, I got a father who was based based on, like, what my own experience was in regards to my dad. My grandfather like, seeing other dads. But when you become a dad, you know, it's it's, nothing like what you expect.

00;10;27;02 - 00;10;43;17
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah. Nothing. So I became a dad. I didn't know what to expect. I was nervous, anxious, like all the all the emotions you can think of. And, I could take. I'll tell you a quick story about my my my, my son was born. Yeah. We had no idea what he what he was. We didn't.

00;10;43;17 - 00;11;15;11
Sir Royce Briales
We know if he was a boy or girl the whole time. And, when he came out, they turned him from, the sense of, like, I like the joy. I'm like, man. So, what I think about, from then to now, I think, I think I've grown as a dad in regards to, like, my patients, because then I was like, when I first became a dad, was on age, like, I do everything a certain way, but now it's like, it's not that way because every kid you have is different.

00;11;15;12 - 00;11;37;02
Sir Royce Briales
They're different people. So you have to tailor your parenting to who they are. Can't just be just one approach for all your kids. It's different. I wish I had more kids, but, I mean, for now, for me, I think I've grown in regards to my patients, for my kids, because I could call me, have a conversation even when they're flustered or frustrated.

00;11;37;06 - 00;11;45;00
Sir Royce Briales
They'd be screaming and yelling or mad. I just remain calm during those moments instead of matching their, their energy.

00;11;45;02 - 00;12;03;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I remember, it's a good point. I remember I joke, with friends and with my kids about this, and I said, you know, 4 or 5 years ago, I, I just gave up yelling, you know, I just said, like, I'm quitting yelling. We quit all kinds of things. And they laughed. But like, it's pretty serious because, like, nothing good comes from yelling like you don't like.

00;12;03;19 - 00;12;22;26
Paul Sullivan
And we all yell. It's not like, you know, I'm not perfect. There's some moments when I'm like, I cannot, like, literally, what are you doing right now? Like, how is this like, if you and I do this, like what? But for the most part, I don't. Because, you know, the child is worked up. You're worked up. Nothing good comes to it.

00;12;22;26 - 00;12;43;15
Paul Sullivan
It's just this energy of just just clashing. And so like, you know, when my kids are little worked up, I try even more to stay calm or to just be even and sort of to listen. And, you know, when you think of and, you know, on your podcast and some of the other work you're doing both in-person and online with dads, you know, one of the things, you know, you've got 12 years experience.

00;12;43;15 - 00;13;04;13
Paul Sullivan
I have 14 years experience, but I joke, I don't know the rest of the movie beyond, you know, 814 but what are some of the things that you try to share with dads to get them to open up, to get them to sort of be a be honest with themselves, but also honest with both the joy and the the struggles of of being a dad today.

00;13;04;15 - 00;13;23;11
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah. So one of the questions we asked on our podcast is at the end is if you had to give any advice to any dad that's listening, what advice would you do? What do you give? And we've done over 100, POC interviews and I would say we're playing Family Feud and we hit the buzzer. I hit the buzzer first and I said, number one.

00;13;23;11 - 00;13;26;19
Sir Royce Briales
And I'll say, be present.

00;13;26;21 - 00;13;27;25
Paul Sullivan
Yeah.

00;13;27;27 - 00;13;48;27
Sir Royce Briales
Thing number one that we asked a number one to answer that I've heard, and not just on a podcast, but also with our, you know, conversations with dads is to be present, to be there because that's all your kids know is their dad. But, where are you in that moment? Are you there with your kids? Are you somewhere else?

00;13;48;29 - 00;14;14;10
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah. Talk about how you and that Raheem Young came to, you know, work together. What? How is this changed? You know, your friendship. I mean, you say is your childhood best friend. You know, I think it was on the fourth or fifth podcast. We're up to, like 107 now. You had I had my childhood best friend on, you know, and you grew up doing all this kind of fun stuff, nonsense stuff, serious stuff.

00;14;14;16 - 00;14;26;29
Paul Sullivan
But then you become dads. How what is this whole project of you guys working together? What is it done for your relationship, and what's it meant for you guys as as fathers on your own?

00;14;27;01 - 00;14;37;27
Sir Royce Briales
I think it made us, appreciate, being dads on our own because he has three kids. He already had three kids before. I have my first one, so he's already experienced.

00;14;37;27 - 00;14;43;17
Paul Sullivan
So he was very competitive then as a best friend. He was very competitive. He had to get those three kids.

00;14;43;19 - 00;15;08;25
Sir Royce Briales
You know, that's funny. You say that. He is very competitive. He is super competitive. He hates to lose. So, but yeah, we I think I think over time we've learned more about each other, just by working in close proximity with each other. He became a doctor while we were starting Welcome to Fatherhood. He got his doctorate, like, right around that same time.

00;15;08;28 - 00;15;32;15
Sir Royce Briales
So, we that's even where I got my surgeries from. Is from him. Not one in the team was the doctor. And so the conversations. I will require a podcast and he'll say writing. Yeah, he is a is he wouldn't say doctor. Right. I'm like, man, I say you went to school eight years. Use it. Yeah. Well if you drive a car yourself, doctor will call myself sir.

00;15;32;17 - 00;15;33;28
Sir Royce Briales
Just,

00;15;34;00 - 00;15;35;11
Paul Sullivan
And then that's how it came about.

00;15;35;14 - 00;15;45;19
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah, we actually, we're we're actually recording the podcast when we were talking about it, and, I went on LinkedIn that they put insert right in front of my name, like, there you go.

00;15;45;22 - 00;15;56;12
Paul Sullivan
I love it. I always wanted to be like, Admiral, you know, if I had to do that, I would be Admiral Sullivan. I don't know, it just sounds good, but I love I love Sir Royce. It sounds like it should have been that way.

00;15;56;14 - 00;16;02;14
Sir Royce Briales
Do it. Admiral, I like that. So also like,

00;16;02;16 - 00;16;21;28
Paul Sullivan
You know, every day as fathers, we try to get, you know, more wins than than losses. And it's a process. You know, you said we have to be present. You know, you want to be the manage that screen time. You want to make sure, you know, you control your own, emotions. You learn about, you know, being a dad.

00;16;21;28 - 00;16;35;24
Paul Sullivan
But when you think about, you know, the type of father you are, what are the things that you're, you're most proud of as the type of the father you are? And what are the things where you think, you know, maybe I could still work on this a little bit.

00;16;35;26 - 00;16;57;16
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah. So I would say, like I mentioned before, my, my patience level, but not in in regards to just being like zoom level all the time, but I make a conscious effort. I'm one of the dads. It doesn't speak as children. I'm one of those guys. I didn't start that way. So we talk about development from where I started to where I am now.

00;16;57;18 - 00;17;15;19
Sir Royce Briales
I did my own research, listen to a couple of books. I can't think of the name of the book that really broke it down to do that, I could I could think of it when I gave it to you later, but, Yeah, just in my own experience, like, the screaming and screaming is a version of it, in my opinion, to.

00;17;15;21 - 00;17;37;20
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah, because it hurts the film by everybody's hurt in that moment, but they hurt the worse. And that's and that's really what I, what I, based my parenting style off of is being more, you know, communicating and talking to him about certain things and, you know, take a break and go sit down for, say, yeah, take a journal, go draw for ten minutes.

00;17;37;22 - 00;17;41;05
Sir Royce Briales
Let's go play with some slime together. My daughter loves to make slime.

00;17;41;07 - 00;17;48;02
Paul Sullivan
So that's that's something I've never set in my house. I can't stand slime. I've never said, hey, let's go play some slime. It's more like, can you take that outside?

00;17;48;05 - 00;17;56;27
Sir Royce Briales
Beauty? I like the slime is already made. It's already there in the container. You just pull it out, but dump it out and start playing with it. But she has the kits now.

00;17;56;27 - 00;17;58;21
Paul Sullivan
She has. Oh, yeah. Oh, I know.

00;17;58;23 - 00;18;16;17
Sir Royce Briales
This kit has five different types of slime. You can make. Yeah, there's different colors. It's like a million different combinations you can make with slime. But she loves it. So like okay that's it. Now even I don't like it I don't like measuring the the glue. The whole process is long and tedious where it comes out beautiful. She plays.

00;18;16;17 - 00;18;24;14
Sir Royce Briales
What if she loves it? And I'll do stuff like that. Where is of here? Take a spanking. And you know, I'm saying just cry for a little while right?

00;18;24;17 - 00;18;54;06
Paul Sullivan
So I have a slime story. So somebody I don't know who because the labels fell off a somebody got my youngest daughter, my six year old, a slime kit for Christmas. Oh my God, if I only knew who this person was, they would never get a Christmas card from me again. And we went, on vacation for a couple days and for five days between, after Christmas and before we went to the beach and I packed slime kit, and we're in the room and she's making slime.

00;18;54;06 - 00;19;10;06
Paul Sullivan
And there's a, you know, that, like a hard floor. So she go out, go out, in the room and make the slime. And my wife looked at me and said, that's the smartest thing you've done in a long time. And I said, you're absolutely right. Because, like, we brought the slime with us. It was in, you know, not in our house.

00;19;10;08 - 00;19;18;17
Paul Sullivan
And she was making the slime. And I was like, this is great. Turns out, though, you know, at the end, at a cleanup, it all washes off so that may actually made me feel a little bit better.

00;19;18;17 - 00;19;42;02
Sir Royce Briales
It wasn't easy cleanup. So I've grown to, like, actually making slime now. But I have a job. Slime and activator, like water and activator mixed up on my kitchen sink right now. I might finish this because I like doing that. My daughter loves that stuff. I she's really like, you know, she wants to spend quality time. So I'll sit down with her and do it by even if I don't feel like doing it.

00;19;42;08 - 00;19;44;03
Sir Royce Briales
You know, I'll do it.

00;19;44;06 - 00;20;00;05
Paul Sullivan
You know, that's a great thing. I think of that a lot. Like sometimes we do things and we don't want to do them, like, you know that last night. Yeah, we're talking on a Monday to Sunday night. And I was tired. You know, you do a laundry over the weekend, you try to help your kids clean up, you do all this stuff.

00;20;00;05 - 00;20;24;07
Paul Sullivan
And at Sunday night, I literally was sitting in front of TV. I wanted to watch the. They're playing golf in Hawaii, and it's so cold and snowy where I am right now. Like, I want to watch like a Hawaiian afternoon because I know it's warm there. And I just sat down and like, I don't know, ten minutes into it and my daughter came down and asked, you know, if I could help her and like, you know, help her study for her science test today.

00;20;24;10 - 00;20;43;24
Paul Sullivan
And, you know, immediately I stopped immediately, I stopped what I was doing. I was like, okay, you know, let's go. It's, you know, it's like it's like you said before, it's like being present, like she needs me. This is, you know, this will be watching golf in Hawaii will always be here. But this moment with my daughter, you know, will will not be right.

00;20;43;27 - 00;20;58;14
Paul Sullivan
When you think about what you and dad Rahim are looking to do, where are you hoping to make the biggest difference with with fathers, both in the Chicagoland area, but also, you know, more broadly than that.

00;20;58;16 - 00;21;21;27
Sir Royce Briales
And I think just, having a space for dads to come together and share their experiences because I think iron sharpens iron. And even with fatherhood, a lot of things I've learned from other dads that I probably will never knew if I never would have went down his path. So let's open that up to the people of all ages, all races, all creeds, everywhere.

00;21;22;00 - 00;21;42;24
Sir Royce Briales
I will, I would love to see a worldwide because it's needed everywhere. It's not just in Chicago. It's not just where you are. Everywhere, every day. I need the space to be able to open up and talk about something other than what they're going through. Or maybe it is what you're going through. Yeah. Or at least have that opportunity to to be able to speak your mind.

00;21;42;26 - 00;22;01;05
Paul Sullivan
Well, what do you think the biggest things are that hold dads back? I mean, obviously guys who come to your sessions, guys that come to mind, guys, these are guys who believe in that. They want it. They're, you know, they're embracing it. You know, we're not drafting people. We're we were there and we want them to come. But what do you think are the biggest things that that hold dads back?

00;22;01;05 - 00;22;04;07
Paul Sullivan
Then they'll tell you, you know what I think and see if we agree.

00;22;04;13 - 00;22;14;23
Sir Royce Briales
Man, it's a great question. I will say, a lot of men are raised to, you know, get up, toughen up, stop crying.

00;22;14;26 - 00;22;15;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah.

00;22;15;21 - 00;22;36;18
Sir Royce Briales
Like, suck it up, stop crying. I'll hit you some more. Give you something to cry about. That's what I've heard that before. Yeah. Like in my in my upbringing. So, we get we, we come up, we come up with that in mind whenever we come up with a problem or a situation that we maybe can't deal with it, we just push it down.

00;22;36;18 - 00;22;55;24
Sir Royce Briales
I push it down. My daughter need help with her homework. I got to push it down and it stays there. I think each one of those moments are like seeds. Like when you plant a seed, like you push it down in the ground, it's still there. Then eventually it grows and it sprouts and you might have an outburst.

00;22;55;24 - 00;23;07;29
Sir Royce Briales
Your daughter yells, you yell back at her but you raise your hand, you know, you do whatever. Just there in that moment you don't have control. You lose control because you have got that seed that you never took care of.

00;23;08;01 - 00;23;36;08
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah, I, I agree with you. I think, you know, I talk a lot about, you know, the link between, you know, masculinity and money and the idea that, you know, fathers need to be the providers and, you know, can't be caregivers as well. And I, you know, really push to see if we can, you know, see the complexity, of the world that, you know, men need to be caregivers, you know, it's okay if you know, you and your wife earn the same amount of money.

00;23;36;08 - 00;24;10;20
Paul Sullivan
It's okay if your wife earns more than you. It's more like thinking about, you know, and you, as you know, a single dad. We know 18% of men in the United States are divorced, widowed or otherwise. Single. Huge, huge component of the company, dads. And like to get, you know, support to to go through this and, and I think some of the things that have been for me and these, you know, the most profound in the past two years is when you bring people together and they tell their story, whatever it is, or they ask or question or they tell, and other people in the group say, yeah, I've been through that, or, hey, thanks

00;24;10;20 - 00;24;27;11
Paul Sullivan
for saying that, because I was thinking that, but I didn't feel like I could say anything. About it. And I think that, you know, to me, the most, most powerful thing is like allowing, you know, kind of changing the narrative around what it means to be a man and, and a father.

00;24;27;13 - 00;24;49;03
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's it for it, man. Just, we are always changing. No matter where you are, where you started from as a dad to where you are now, you've evolved as a parent. But like I say, it's good to have that community where you can lean on to just get information, you know.

00;24;49;06 - 00;25;01;21
Paul Sullivan
Sir Royce Borealis, thank you for being my guest on the Company of Dads podcast today. One final thing. Tell people where can they find you? Where can they find? Welcome to fatherhood. How can they access all the great stuff that you do?

00;25;01;24 - 00;25;27;13
Sir Royce Briales
Yeah, so we're pretty easy to find and search. Welcome to fatherhood. You'll see this logo and, that's that's us. Wherever we're at Facebook, Instagram. We we're on Twitter or X is X now right. But yeah, we welcome to fatherhood up on every platform, even LinkedIn. But we have a community on LinkedIn as well. Our website is, then the word fatherhood.org.

00;25;27;15 - 00;25;31;04
Sir Royce Briales
You can do a quick connect to the connect with us on there too as well.

00;25;31;07 - 00;25;34;29
Paul Sullivan
Awesome. Thank you again, Sarah. It's been great having you on today.

00;25;35;02 - 00;25;36;26
Sir Royce Briales
All right. Thank you, Paul.

00;25;36;28 - 00;26;02;09
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do at the Company of Dads. Possible. Helder Mira, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker, handles all of our social media. Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;26;02;09 - 00;26;19;27
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at The Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.