4 Standouts From 3 Decades of Daddying Dialogue

By Allan Shedlin

Grampsy and Founder, Daddying Film Festival & Forum (D3F)

We always remember the first time, don’t we?

Thirty years ago I conducted my first focus group with the “consumers of daddying.” Having been invited to consider writing a book about being a dad, it occurred to me that it would be informative to consult the consumers, sons and daughters. After all, if one wants to improve a product or process, it’s always advisable to consult the consumers.

I worked up a protocol of questions to guide the discussion. One of the questions I asked was, “If you could create the perfect dad, what would he be like?” This first session happened to be with six 14-year-old boys in a living room in New York City.

Any of us who has lived or worked with adolescents is familiar with the eye-rolls that readily appear after a “dumb” question or idea is offered by an adult. And so, I wasn’t totally surprised when one of the boys responded, “Hey mister, there is no such thing as a ‘perfect dad,’ and if there was, he’d be really boring.”

After agreeing that there is no such thing as a perfect dad and adding there is no such thing as a perfect son, daughter, partner, teacher, or anything, I asked if it would be better to inquire, “If you could create the most excellent dad what qualities would he have?” And so, that’s how I asked the question in my subsequent 27 focus groups conducted in three countries with like-age boys and girls from five-year-olds to 21-year-olds. Some of the groups were co-ed and some were single gender – it was before “non-binary” was part of the discussion.

I have written about those desired daddying qualities in prior blogs.

In addition to the 162 children and youth interviewed in these focus groups, I have conducted 205 one-on-one interviews with fathers 16 to 104 years old from 20 countries. In addition to acknowledging that the qualities kids want are congruent with the qualities dads want to develop – and that child development experts agree children need – I have also written about the collective “wisdom” that has emerged.

In honor of Fathers’ Day, I recall four comments that stand out in my memory:

“Mister, will you please be my daddy?” One of my early focus groups took place with 10-year-old African American boys in a Baltimore, Maryland, parochial school. I had not met any of these boys beforehand. As we walked down the hallway after our 40-minute session, Rodney tugged at my sleeve and asked, “Mister, will you please be my daddy?” Rodney was so eager to have a dad present in his life that he was willing to ask a total stranger.

“The craziness stops with me.” Toward the end of a two-hour interview with an 85-year-old dad and granddad in Santa Fe, NM, having listened to an hour about how “crazy” the family he was born into was, he recounted the stability and joys of the family he created. When I inquired, how he avoided repeating the negative examples he grew up with, he matter-of-factly responded, “I decided the craziness stops with me.” And so it can be.

“You’ll never be alone in your heart.” When I asked a 64-year-old Scarsdale, New York, father and grandfather what the best advice he had ever been given as a parent, he responded that his mother-in-law told him, upon the birth of his first child, that he would never be alone in his heart. He found it useful to remember that during hard times.

“I’m scared I will turn out just like my father”/ ”I’m scared I will never live up to the example my father set.” I conducted a series of optional “Becoming the Dad You Want to Be” brown-bag lunches at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC. I began the session by asking the fathers why they had decided to spend their lunch time this way. We went around the conference table for answers. The French dad to my immediate left volunteered that he had the most awful dad imaginable and he was scared he’d be just like him. By the time we came around to the Italian dad to my immediate right, he answered he had the best dad possible and that he was worried he’d never measure up. Somewhat sarcastically I suggested that there is no research to support that the type of dad you become is genetically determined and I asked them to remember the title of our session.

When you ask questions about daddying and really listen to the way they are answered, so much is shared. A tenderness often surfaces from even the toughest men. And unlike the stereotype that men won’t speak about their feelings, sometimes things are shared that even surprise the dad. After listening for hundreds of hours, it has often felt like once a dad starts talking about his experiences – as a son and as a dad – it’s like his finger has been pulled out of an emotional dike and a flood of emotions released.

As we approach another Fathers’ Day, may we all swim in a flood of tenderness that allows us to become the parent we want to be and that our children want, need, and deserve. Kids need dads, dads need kids, and families and communities are better off when fathers and children are positively involved in each other’s lives.

Allan Shedlin has devoted his life's work to improving the odds for children and families. He has three daughters, five grandchildren, as well as numerous "bonus" sons, daughters, and grandchildren. Trained as an educator, Allan has alternated between classroom service, school leadership, parenting coaching, policy development, and advising at the local, state, and national levels. After eight years as an elementary school principal, Allan founded and headed the National Elementary School Center for 10 years. In the 1980s, he began writing about education and parenting for major news outlets and education trade publications, as well as appearing on radio and TV. In 2008, he was honored as a "Living Treasure" by Mothering Magazine and founded REEL Fathers in Santa Fe, NM, where he now serves as president emeritus. In 2017, he founded the DADvocacy Consulting Group. In 2018, he launched the DADDY Wishes Fund and Daddy Appleseed Fund. In 2019, he co-created and began co-facilitating the Armor Down/Daddy Up! and Mommy Up! programs. He has conducted daddying workshops in such diverse settings as Native American pueblos, veterans groups, nursery schools, penitentiaries, Head Start centers, corporate boardrooms, and various elementary schools, signifying the widespread interest in men in becoming the best possible dad. In 2022, Allan founded and co-directed the Daddying Film Festival & Forum (D3F) to enable students, dads, and other indie filmmakers to use film as a vehicle to communicate the importance of fathers or father figures in each others' lives. Allan earned his elementary and high school diplomas from NYC’s Ethical Culture Schools, BA at Colgate University, MA, at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and an ABD at Fordham University. But he considers his D-A-D and GRAND D-A-D the most important “degrees” of all.