Building While Breaking: The Challenges of Being a Present Dad with Brad Moser

An honest, relatable look at modern fatherhood and parenthood, where showing up matters more than perfection, and small moments of presence make the biggest difference.

Our newest episode features a conversation with Brad Moser, Registered Psychologist and host of the podcast Real Dads with Brad Moser. Read more about Brad in his bio and find him at any of the resources listed below.

"I have been facilitating individual, couples, and family counselling for 18 years. Having and raising my two sons has been the most difficult and rewarding experience of my life. Experiencing and working through the many challenges of being a dad has inspired me to specialize in working with dads. Currently, I’m in private practice at Associates Counselling Services in Lethbridge, Alberta. I am available for in-person, virtual, and telephone sessions for anyone living within Alberta."

Website: https://bradmoserpsychologist.ca/

Podcast, Real Dads with Brad Moser

From my website:

https://bradmoserpsychologist.ca/blog/

On Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4Okz2R6j97sspQrFdpaUod

Associates Counselling Services:

https://talkinghelps.ca/users/brad-moser

Psychology Today:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/therapists/brad-moser-registered-psychologist-inc-lethbridge-ab/1203916

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-moser-9697638a/?originalSubdomain=ca

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brad.moser.psyc/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bradmoserpsychologist/?hl=en

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Inter Solutions Podcast. I am here today with Brad Motor. Brad is a registered psychologist who's been private practice and associates with Counseling Services and Lefty Product. And he specializes in working with dads. Brad was inspired to specialize in this area after experiencing many amazing moments as well as challenges that come with being a dad of two kids. Brad is also the host of the Real Dads podcast, which explores engaged parenting and how to maintain strong relationships with our kids, other important grown-ups in our lives and ourselves. Today, Brad is going to speak to us about all the challenges that dads experience. Welcome, Brad.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Thank you so much for having me on the show, Jessica.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

It's really nice to have you. Brad, I'm I'm really excited about this conversation. And I'm I'm kind of giggling to myself a little bit because right before we started to broadcast here, we were just having a quick conversation about just some of the experiences that can happen as a parent. And so this is just something that is so relatable. It's relatable to me. I'm sure it's relatable to you and many different parents who are going to be listening today. So very excited to be able to jump into this conversation. I wanted to sort of start a little bit with just tell us a bit more about how you became involved in working with dads.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Oh, thanks, Jessica. And thanks for that lovely introduction. Being a dad was a huge experience for me. It was my firstborn. I have two boys. My firstborn is Shay. And when he was born, I was holding him and he was grasping onto my the, you know, the tips of my pinky fingers with his whole hand. And I just got this message from him. And the message was clear to me. It was, I need you. And that just really cemented it for me, the importance of my role as dad. And it just basically formed the meaning of my life. And I found like being a dad is has been the hardest and most rewarding job of my life. And uh today I'm going to talk about you know the challenges that dads face nowadays, and and I directly experienced many of those struggles. So I'm speaking a lot from my uh own experience. But shortly after I had my firstborn, I became involved in this program at a place I was working at called Family Center, nonprofit organization. The program is called Supporting Father Involvement, and this is uh developed by uh some researchers and facilitators in the United States, Kyle and Marcia Pruitt and Philip and Carolyn Cohen. And they put this program together. It's re it's developed by research, and also the the participants in the program were part of the research, um, where it was moms and dads who are in an intimate relationship, they took this program together with their kids. The kids were involved in childcare while the parents were involved in kind of this therapeutic group to help them have a stronger relationship with each other and to co-parent better together, those kind of things. Uh the results of the research they found is that the more that dads are involved in their children's and their the and the family life, that the stronger the relationship will be between the parents, both as intimately and as co-parents. And also the more dads involved are, the more positive mental health effects that happen for dads themselves, for moms, kids, and families. And then uh so that was a great experience, learned a lot from that program. And then in my counseling, I started to gear more towards working with men and dads and now kind of specializing in working with dads and men. So it's kind of what's what got me involved in that.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

That's awesome to hear. And being able to experience those, again, those rewards and challenges yourself as a dad and having that lived experience really does make such a world of a difference of just understanding what it's like to work with other with other dads, other parents. And I love some of the things that you just said there, that really that ability to be present, to be involved in our kids' lives, not only does it benefit the kids themselves, but absolutely it benefits the parents as well. And I can see that from my my own lived experience of watching the the dads that I know in in my life or that are involved in in their kids' lives, when they're able to be fully present and engaged with their kids, like you just see such a benefit. And it goes, it really does go in both directions that it it generally promotes such a higher wellness, I would say, like higher improved mental health. Like there's just so many things that you see coming out of uh a parent who's able to be present in their kids' lives. So I'm curious about something that Brad, what what what exactly do we mean? When we say present dad, what would that mean?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, so there's other ways of saying it, involve dad, all in dad, engage dad. Basically, it's a dad who tries hard with her kids, makes mistakes, and tries to learn from them. The title that, you know, I resonate with is the idea of building while breaking, right? So you're building the these, you know, this legacy, building that your kids up and everything. And then we're also breaking because we we make mistakes and that's it, we just have to learn from them. And so it's not, it's we're not perfect. No, no such thing as a perfect parent, but it's the dad who parents his way while also being open to feedback from you know the mom, the co-parent or friends, family, you know, people that they learn from. And also knowing that uh parenting is an important part of the dad's life, but it's not the only part of their life, right? They have a well-rounded life with self-care and engaging in friends and all those kind of things.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I I like what you're saying there too, in terms of just being able to kind of do it their way. Like there's no prescribed parenting here. It's not like there is a one size fits all that says like this is the way that we must parent, that uh dads should do this or should do that. It's really about trying to figure out how what's going to be effective in their own parenting, while perhaps taking in some of the feedback from others around us. Like I think that can just make us better parents overall when we're open to some of that feedback for sure. But again, it's not about doing this in any one way. It's about really just being focused, I would imagine, right, on on what your child needs in that moment and then being able to pivot and move just depending on what's coming up every day.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

When you are in your practice, when you're working with dads, what are some of the challenges that you see that dads are experiencing?

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Great, that's a good question. And this is something that I'm really passionate about. Um, I just want to let everybody know that I'm just discussing challenges here, not solutions. It would take a few hours to go through the solutions. Uh, so reach out to me if you'd like more information or on any of these, or if you'd like to see me for therapy. And you may hear me talk about dads and moms. Um, you may uh, and you know, I'm mainly talking about dads and moms who are in an intimate relationship, but and it may seem like I'm only referencing heteronormative or gender-normative dads and parenting relationships, but I'm talking about dads in general and dads of all kinds, so separated divorced dads, dads who identify as members of the LGPTQ plus uh community, um, you know, dads who identify as he, she, they male, female, non-binary, trans members of racial and cultural minorities. So I'm kind of referencing everybody as a whole. And a lot of this stuff can overlap with dads and moms, right? So just want to be clear about that. But what I want to talk about when it comes to challenges are uh basically three categories. And the first is personal, so with our with ourselves, the second is with our kids, and then the third is within the co-parent or the intimate partner relationship. So, first of all, with ourselves, uh, a big challenge, and this is like the the number one I see a lot with dads is work-life balance, right? And that's just not having enough time with our kids, not or if we're and when we're there, we're with them physically, we're not with them mentally because of burnout or exhaustion at work or things like that, right? So that's a big one. Um, I do want to mention uh a term called privileged dad. And that's basically a kind of a sense of privilege that we may feel with being the man in the relationship, and therefore we feel like we can do what we want and allow women to do the majority of parenting. And that can all, of course, lead to difficult relationship dynamics, and I'll talk about those in a GIF when I talk about the relationship dynamics. Uh, and then another one is childhood trauma, right? So that's kind of our, you know, when our emotional experiences from the past can get triggered when parenting our own kids, particularly when our kids reach the age that we were when we experienced trauma, right? So that can be a something that gets us caught up. Another one is where we have problems uh with our own emotional awareness and expression. And many men weren't raised with the knowledge and experience with understanding, talking about and dealing with their emotions in healthy ways. So that's just something that might be difficult for us, particularly when you know parenting and being in a relationship, having a family are very emotional, trusting times at different times, right? And then this there's another thing that I've seen a lot of in my own experience with clients, and this is it's a lost sense of who am I, right? Having kids is a huge lifestyle change, especially the first few years of our kids' lives. A lot of dads feel like there's only two main roles they take on, and that's the role of the dad and the worker. And as kids start to get older, we may be left wondering outside of being a dad and a worker, who am I? Like what's my identity? Who is the authentic me? And what are my values? What's important in my life besides being a good dad and a hard worker, right? So a lot of men and dads particularly can be faced with that as uh in their life. Um, another part is that it's kind of the whole idea of not asking for help. I know it might sound cliche, but it's real. Many of us dads, men, don't want to reach out for help because we may have grown up with the idea that asking for help is vulnerability and weakness. Um, and the last part I want to talk about when it comes to our own challenges with ourselves is not connecting enough with other dads and men. For myself, I've seen a number of female therapists in my life. They're very nice, they're compassionate, lovely. But being a man and seeing male therapists myself, it's a whole different experience for me. I feel like they get it, they understand what it's like to be a man. Um, as men, when you can let your guard down and say to your male friends, I'm failing or not doing well, the support you can receive from them is amazing. Men supporting men promotes genuine and healing connections. So that's kind of what I wanted to mention when it comes to that, right? To the the challenges that that uh dads face within themselves. I also wanted to mention how with the challenges that dads can face when raising kids. Uh, the first one's uh something that I I came up with, it's called zombie parenting. And that's basically when we're physically with our kids, but mentally and emotionally we're somewhere else. We're distracted by phones, our TV, you know, other devices. And I mean, we've all been there before, right? It's it's very emotional, it's very difficult raising kids, and so we do need to zone out once in a while, but uh, it can become a distraction for sure. Uh, another challenge with kids is feeling like we lack the experience and confidence with kids. And what the challenge that can happen with that is that we may default raising kids to our co-parent or our partner because we feel like they're more competitive at parenting than we are. And if any dads out there resonate with this, I want you to know that your presence, contribution, your life experience are equally valuable and necessary for your kids' development. Another challenge we can face with our kids ourselves is understanding discipline. Generations have changed. The ways that we were raised with spanking punishment, for example, or kids are seen, not heard, you do as you say, and your feelings don't matter, those kind of phrases, those things don't longer work. Um, so when our kids are misbehaving, what do we do, right? If we can't hit them, if we can't, you know, probably not helpful to go on the other side and do nothing, right? So that's where a lot of dads might be faced with what do we do in this kind of situation. Another thing that a lot of dads can struggle with with their own kids is just a lack of positive dad or male role models. And that might be due to having an absent dad in our own life or just not having a positive father figure. So we may not, you know, may not have learned firsthand good ways of being a dad because maybe we didn't experience that growing up. The last set of challenges I want to talk about, and this is something I'm very passionate about, is I work individual counseling, but I also do couples and family counseling. And this is a relationship that we have with our co-parent andor our intimate partner. There's three main dynamics that I notice in my practice uh within the co-parenting relationship. The first one is a parent-child dynamic, right? So this is a very common dynamic where two people in a relationship, one person kind of tends to take on the parent role, the other person takes on the child role, and that can create a you know challenges within itself, particularly when there's kids involved, right? Where, for example, the mom may feel like, you know, that they have four children and they're married to the oldest one, basically, right? So that can get definitely get in the way of the relationship. Another similar dynamic is called the over-under functioning dynamic, right? Where one parent kind of takes on the overfunctional role. So for example, if the kids are, you know, taking care of the house, they they do they overfunction, they do more than the the their share. And then the dad, maybe in that situation, maybe underfunctioning and may not do as much, right? So that can they those two with any kind of dynamic, when two people are involved in that, the more that one person does their role, like the overfunctioning, the more the other person it influences the other person to underfunction. Whereas when the one partner underfunctions, it influences the other person to overfunction. Um the other one that this happens a lot with within people in a relationship who are raising kids together with dads, and the it's the idea of maternal gatekeeping. And this is basically when the mom makes decisions and takes control of the parenting and insists on raising kids their way, right? And the dad is, you know, expected to follow suit and not rock the boat, basically. And of course, both both roles, mom and dad can can make this happen. They're both equally make you know influencing it. It's not just the mums. And this can put an extra burden on mums where they may feel like they're the default parent, and they're the ones who are expected to take on the mental load, right? Like the load of you know, all the appointments and big booking things and booking trips and all that stuff, right? And this can lead to mums feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and can take on the role of controlling and kind of a controlling and overbearing stance with their spouse and their kids. And then dads can reinforce this burden on their mom through something called weaponizing competence. And that's where they pretend to not know how to parent or do household tasks when they do know or they could learn, basically. In working through these relationship dynamics, like all three of them, there's two main phases, right? So the first part is that each individual partner needs to identify how they put themselves in these roles and how they consciously choose that role, and then they need to consciously choose how to make take on a different role, basically. And then as a couple, the couple needs to learn how their choices are impacting each other and how to shift the dance. And uh, of course, these dynamics do involve individual and interpersonal changes that are often long and complicated. So seeing a couple's counselor with experience with helping couples navigate these dynamics can help a great deal with the process. So, anyway, that's kind of in a nutshell the main challenges that I'm know I've noticed in my practice with dads.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

That was hugely insightful. You can't see me, but I've been sitting back here just vigorously nodding because everything that you said, I'm like, yeah, like I've either seen that in my clients or again in the dads that I know in my personal life. A lot of these challenges that you just mentioned, I think are quite normative. And I think that's something that's important to stress here is that I think sometimes with parenting, it can feel like we are becoming like isolated. And we think that a lot of these problems are only specific to us. We think that there's something like even pathological about what's happening with our parenting. And I think really just important to say that that the fact that you're able to name so many of these different challenges is because they're actually quite normal. And the nice thing about it too that and you said we're not going to get into this today because it would just be maybe speaking for hours, but every single one of those problems that you just mentioned, there are going to be solutions. And I think that's where being able to see a therapist that is yourself who specializes in this area, right, is is just so helpful. To know that that people are they're not alone and that these problems don't have to continue to happen throughout their entire parenthood, that there's things that can be done so that these challenges become more manageable and resolvable.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah, absolutely. I love what you said there, right? That there are solutions and there are ways to manage it. There's a ways to navigate it. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah. I'm gonna I want to pivot a little bit because there's one area that I think is again so common for people to experience, new dads to experience, and I don't think it's it's spoken about often enough. I'm thinking about new dads who might lack experience and confidence with babies and kids. Maybe they never grew up really being around a lot of babies and kids, so they just don't really know what to do. What advice would you give to those new dads who do lack some of that experience and confidence with babies and kids and are anxious about taking on the role of the father?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Good, great question. Thank you. And and this is a very common challenge. Uh, many dads are tend to be hands-off with their babies for the first year of life. Like they feel like, you know, that mom's breastfeeding, mom's doing all this, and I don't really know what to do with this baby. And then maybe as the the child gets a bit older and they start to walk more and move around, one of dad's superpowers that we have, I mean, moms have this too, but dads in particular, is uh rough and tumble play, right? So wrestling with them and all that kind of stuff. And that's when they start to get older and and and that's great. Using the body to really explore and have fun with you know with with dad is is is great. But I just want dads to know too that their engagement in their kids' life is essential for all stages of life, especially when they're babies and especially within the first year, right? So I just want to encourage new dads to know that doing things, trying things and learning as you go, even if your co-parent has more experience and knowledge with kids than you do, or has their own kids from a previous relationship, every child is unique and you're both learning on the spot. So the importance of doing these things and not giving up. Also, just to get involved very early, right? So skin-on-skin contact, so essential for with dad and and the baby. Um, and that could be with holding, it could be with feeding with a bottle, it could be changing diapers, is really important as well. I found that really cool, changing diapers and just kind of even though you know it is disgusting, seeing this. I mean, I used to joke around about all the different colors and textures and of the poop and and everything. And um the whole thing about this thing came like when I was this thing was popular when I had my kids and it's called a TP, no, for boys, it's PP TP, it's supposed to block their pee when they when they you change their diaper, it never it doesn't work. It's just a I don't know, just a gimmick, but uh things like that, right? So we can have humor about it. We it's it's a it's a bonding experience. And then also like things like rocking, putting them to sleep, getting up when they get up, you know, those kind of things. Um and and so just do just do it, get involved. Uh there are resources that can help you learn more about child development, behavior, emotions, parenting. I have a few websites, or just a couple, I guess. Uh, there's a really good website for it's a Canadian one, and it's called Dad Central. So it's the website is dadcentral.ca. And then I just have a local one here in Letford, Alberta where it's a really good one. Um it's fascinating. Family Center. So I used to I mentioned I worked at Family Center in Lethbridge. If you Google Family Center, the dad case, that's a really good resource as well. And then just wherever you are in your region, your country, city, just to look up local dad resources. It's it's a lot more, it's a bigger thing now with these dad resources. So that's great. And the other big thing is just to talk to other dads, parents, grandparents, elders, role models, a lot of good role models out there.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Definitely. Yeah. I think the more that dads speak, right, about the challenges that are happening and starting to break down this taboo that men don't talk about emotions, that it's important to continue to just be stoic and that yeah, that you can get through anything without having to feel distressed, like all those myths, right? I think it's important that we start to break them down. And I think the more that dads can talk about how difficult things like parenting are, uh, the more likely it is that it's just going to become more uh more common, right? To be able to help each other out and provide different resources and share tips and and tricks and all those kinds of things. Um, Brad, if there was one suggestion, you've given a kind of a few suggestions already in terms of just where dads can network and be resourced and and all those good kind of things. Is there any other suggestion that you might give to all dads? Like what's like the number one thing that you would tell them?

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Absolutely. So I mentioned that you know one of the biggest challenges I notice as with the dads I work with is a work-life balance. Such a huge thing that can just help you feel more connected to your kids even when you're not there, is to I call it daddy up your office or your workspace, your garage, your shop, your truck. So daddy it up. And what I mean by that is put up pictures of your kids, the art that your kids make in daycare or school and they give to you, put that up, especially the stuff you get for Father's Day. I mean, that's such amazing gifts you get from Father's Day when they're the kids are in school or they're in daycare. And my first Father's Day, I got this amazing thing from my son Shay, uh, his daycare. It was a poem, and the poem is called Walk a Little Slower Daddy. And if you just Google it, you can see it. It's it's it's online. And man, even just when I first read it, it brought it brought me to tears, and it still brings tears to me when I read it. It's such a powerful poem. For me, it reminded me that I need to I need to go on my child's pace. I need to stop getting into my dad, my own man pace. I need to slow down. Um, and the other thing I want to mention too, when it comes to employers and bosses, I mentioned before the supporting father involvement program I was involved in. Based on that research, dads are more with the dad, when dads are more engaged, they have themselves better health and longevity, longer marriages, less aggression, they're more happy, they're committed. Uh the employees are, they're less angry. And so, just so you know, employers and bosses, if you're employing dads, it is your in your company company's best interest to encourage your dad employees to take per paternity leave, to be with their kids, take time off of work, to go to their school events, though that sort of thing. So the more involved your your your employees are in their kids' life, the better it's going to be for you.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, I think having a a well-rounded employee, right? One who is able to enjoy their lives and not feel like they're missing out on the things that are really important is going to create just a yeah, like a happier person at work and a person who's more engaged and probably a person who's going to have a lot of gratitude, right? Like if I think as as an employer, if you're able to just say to the dads that you employ, like, please go right and be a family person as well. Like that's just as important to us. I think that the um the benefit you're gonna get back as an employer from that employee is going to be substantial because they're gonna feel like that you get them, right? That you understand what's important. Yeah, absolutely. Brad, where could people find you if they decide that they would like to work with you or if they say we do want to listen to a podcast, uh, check out your website, where would they look?

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah, so my website is Bradmoserpsychologist.ca. So B-R-A-D-M-O-S-E-R, the word psychologist.ca. And uh my web my podcast is called Real Dads with Brad Moser. And so if you search on Spotify, you can find that also on my website. Uh the podcast is available there. Uh, you can look me up also on psychology today. I'm also available on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you search Brad Moser Psychologist, you'll find me. And also, if you do live in the province of Alberta and you would like to see me for therapy, I'm available virtually over the phone. Or if you live in or near Lethbridge, I'm available for in-person as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Amazing. I really appreciate your time, Brad. This was very insightful. There's so many different things that you said today that I think will just truly resonate with the dads that are listening. So thank you very much for your time.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yeah, thank you, Jessica. It was a great experience.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

And thank you, everybody, for listening. We'll see you back next episode. Thanks so much for listening. If you found today's episode helpful, please go ahead and leave us a review. And you can also follow the show so that you don't miss out on any future episodes. For more information about us, you can check out our website, www.innersolutions.ca.