My kids don't go back and forth; none of this 50/50 time with the mums and dads. My children live with me; that is it.
Once upon a time, the homemaker was just Mom, but now we've evolved and come to a place where we're celebrating grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads - all the people that keep it safe and clean for our kids - and the overall health for ourselves so we can continue to function and do the variety of things we all do.
Of the many horrors of divorce, the most egregious is that it robs a kid of the best of both worlds. Dads can do many things that even the best moms can't, and vice versa.
Dad played with me a great deal, as dads should do, and our chief sport was baseball. He bought me a hardball when I was three years old, and he used to sit in a rocker on the front porch while I sat on the grass in the yard, and we'd play catch by the hour.
We have so many young men, especially, who are growing up without their dads. We have to fill that void. We have to do a better job helping young people see what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman. And then, somehow, we have to put that family structure back together.
My father was a food lover and a deadbeat dad, and maybe a connection between good food and bad dads was forged early, in the deepest folds of my subconscious, where we make so many decisions about our parents.
I don't have problems starting writing. I have problems stopping. I'm one of the last dads to arrive at school to collect the kids, because I want to get this paragraph just right.
When I first knew I was having children, I thought I wanted boys, but then I thought I'd be better with girls. I'm quite sensitive, and you get more cuddles with girls. And they like their dads.
Like many dads I know, I've long been motivated in all aspects of my life by my love for my children - and my desire to make the world better a better place for them, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren.
