The Project

Last year we saw a dad at a Phillies game catch a foul ball, hand it to his daughter who through it back and she got a huge hug (stupidly MLB pulled video).

At the Super Bowl we saw Drew Breese celebrating lifting his son up in the air.

At WalMart before Christmas I saw a dad hold it together and comfort his little girl when she started crying in the isle because he had lost his job. She was worried about their security and how they could afford Christmas. “Santa has all the money he needs for Christmas.”

We even have dads who crawl into cribs to help their children go to sleep.

Dad’s are staying home, Dad’s are blogging, Dads are involved and dads have changed. They no longer go to work, and expect to retire with a gold watch and a pension after 25 years of good service to a good company.

DADvocates  – Today’s dads are a new generation of dads and while  I don’t think we have a great definition, I believe we are finding ways to be more involved in family life. We are doing jobs that allow us to be home more and we are finding ways to be more present when participating in family activities. We help drive parenting decisions that were previously made by women and we are not the Peter Griffins that dads are portrayed as on TV.

Since I have no ability to prove this without research and evidence, I’ve undertaken a project to help define who we DADvocates are and I need your help to complete the project.

The DADvocate Project consists of three phases:
1.    The Survey – this is an in-depth look at who you are and what you do. We discuss how much time you spend in the various areas of life including, family, finances, work, physical fitness and much more. We are publishing survey results as we go. You can read about the survey results in various posts on this blog.
2.    Interviews – The interviews will be the second phase of the DADvocate project. Interviews will go in-depth with some of the participants of the DADvocate survey. We will talk about experiences growing up, College, and work. We will ask about the best moments you have had with your children and how you spend your time trying to be the best dad you can be.
3.    Book – The final part of the DADvocate project will be a published book that tells the story of who we (dads) are and why we give all we give to being a parent, how that includes our work and our responsibilities to our wives and ourselves.