He wrote he wants to kill my son.

I got a phone call from my girlfriend sounding pissed. The cops had called her first. After reassuring her that no one was hurt. He told her that our son was in an altercation with another student.

A=my son, J=the other kid, Z=third kid (All kids are in 3rd grade)

From the cops point of view. ~11:15 am

A gave the substitute teacher a letter that said “I want to kill myself” and on the other side it said “I’m going to kill you.” A said J gave him the letter. He took the kids out of the room and separated them so everyone is safe. But he just wanted to let us know what was going on.

Busy life of a dad

Man has my life been busy: I started collaborating on a book (which is almost done and ready to be published), started a new job, continued being a den leader, ran day camps, got my kid into an archery club and even had my other son start preschool.

Since I started my job as a Youth Coordinator my life has been a lot of fun mixed with work. But I am spending a lot of time outside of the house without the boys, which is a big change for me. I am still a strong supporter on other parts of their lives, including sports and school that they are in. In fact next week is daddy and donuts day at the preschool and I will be happily eating donuts instead of working that morning.

I would like you to thank all the dads out there who have a busy schedule and still make time to be with their kids. I wish I could blog more but I am going to try to start a new blog and get a new site up for our dad book. But I do promise to publish more on here as well.

Thanks for being here.

My Fatboy or soon to be bullied son

We use very hurtful nicknames for our kids. I call my 7 year old “Fatboy” and my 2 year old “Chubbs”. I don’t say it to be mean but that’s just the nick name that stuck with them. And for a while there my 7 year old really liked Fatboy Tobacco till he found out what Tobacco was (we saw it on a sign one day while we were in a different city.) So he rather just have it as Fatboy since he really likes it.
Now once again I have to mention that I love my sons more than life, again before someone gets mad at me. My girlfriend is still working on her Masters in counseling or something like that,

Stop my Whiny son.

My son just had 2 of his cub scout friends come over for the day and one of them was here for the last 2 days. And both days started the same, 45 minutes of fart/burp jokes then more weird behavior about boobs. They would hold up balls or anything circular and would say hey look “boobs”. This was really funny since I have never seen him act this way with other people. It was funny though to see what kids his age are thinking about. Not everything I found out was funny about his behavior.

Is My Son a Bully or Is He Just Flirting?

Weird dad thought. My 7-year-old son wanted to tell me something that was told to him in school. “Boys go to college to get more knowledge, girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider.” At first we told him that he shouldn’t say that because he can hurt people’s feelings. And we don’t like to hurt people’s feelings. We even asked him what if someone said that to your mom, wouldn’t that hurt her feelings?  And that’s where we left it because I thought it was over, but now I kind of feel different towards it.

What if its his way of flirting with girls on the playground. Kids would chase girls and play (pull) with their hair and call them names so that they would chase them back. Since at the moment he doesn’t know how to talk to them or how to act with them. I see why he would flirt/bully them just so he could get a reaction from them, in his world its only boys not girls.

In a previous job I worked as an assistant to a director of an Institute that was spreading the word of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) education and a big hurdle I kept coming across was women in the STEM field. These are fields where men grossly outnumber women and harassment/bullying is rampant. I saw that girls and boys are mentally grown different and as they age they are told that they are either good at math or it’s just not their strong area. So to try to curb this behavior in our sons we have bought them a doll for every birthday or Christmas. This Christmas they age getting the Lammily doll [The first fashion doll made according to typical human body proportions. Based on measurements of an average 19-year-old woman’s body.] We also aim to try to stop the garbage that is boy means blue and girl means pink, along with boy toys and girl toys. He recently told his cousin (female) that she couldn’t play Legos with him because “she was a girl and didn’t know how to build things with them” while at the same time putting the Legos together with his aunts girlfriend.

But after hearing this from him I think I should step up my father duties and push him to start inviting girls over or to at least start making female friends more. I know he knows some girls from class and from the Boys and Girls club but he never hangs out with them. I was told, that at his age its more of boys playing with boys and not really playing with girls. I wonder if there is any truth to this.

What are your thoughts? Do most 7-year-olds pick their friends based off of gender segregation?

I Always Abandon My Kids

I love my sons and I make it a point to tell them all the time. That doesn’t mean I need to watch them like a hawk or even worse, as a helicopter parent. Much like Lizzie Heiselt who just wrote a nice piece about leaving her 7-year-old at home by himself, I do the same. I have steadily done that ever since he was in Kindergarten.

No Job Equals Less of a Man

I wonder if it’s just me who feels like half a man? I have a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration but no job. It isn’t like I’m not getting interviews either. I’ve probably been on 10 in the last 2 months. Suited up, practiced and even studied some of the openings so I could have a leg up during the interviews. And I’m pretty sure I’m not bombing it on the interviews either.

You might even say it’s because of place but I’m not living in a big city but thirty thousand isn’t just a small town either. It’s rated one of the best small towns to live in the USA, ranked #5. Maybe its a numbers game? 100 jobs in a city of 30,000 looks good but 100 jobs in 3,000,000 looks like a crap shot. Am I wrong though, should I be having better luck finding a job?

This non stop going and interviewing and still not coming up with a job is putting some weight on my shoulders that I try not to show my family. But at times it feels like I can’t support my family and it cuts to the bone. I feel as though I can’t ask for any time off, or time to hang out with an acquaintance.

I want to leave my kids a great example to follow as a man but not being able to find a job is a huge disappointing example. The father/man I had raise me always had a job. Whether it be warehouse work or construction work. He even had a job as a drug dealer until he was no longer around. This is who I based my understandings of being a father on. 

Fatherhood book project

I am glad to announce that I have signed on with 59 other fathers to write and publish a book about fatherhood.

Since that is a huge project I am a little scared to tell my girlfriend. I don’t think she is the kind of person to say that I a
m wasting my time but it also doesn’t look good that I don’t have a job. This is also on top of volunteering as a District Committee Chairman, South Dakota Recruitment Chair, and as a Wolf Cub Scout Den Leader. So even though I’m not getting paid I am busy.

Building rounder kids

For the last year I have volunteered as a Den Leader for the Cub Scouts. It’s also a good spot to mention that I have never been in Scouts or to a meeting before, so it’s all new to me. I made a great plan for the kids and even kept it exciting. I am looking for a full-time job and I would really enjoy volunteering again as a den leader. I plan on getting the scouts to be more community helpful with community service projects and doing some fundraising. Even though some of the kids are moody little drama queens.  I plan is that it will show the scouts that each of us can help change someone else life.

I have noticed from my time working as an assistant tee-ball coach that every kid wants to play and hit but no one wants to pass the ball. They all want to make the play. I’ve had our center outfielder run in a ball to try to tag the guy out at home. They love being part of a team but don’t understand the aspects of teamwork.

I’m Clueless on How To be a Dad

From what I can tell from the people I follow on here or articles I read on being a dad. Most of the time we all are just trying not to screw it up. 

The most recent information we got was from my girlfriend’s father about my son’s behavioral problems in school. Just like a wise old man he said