Cool is only a descriptive term regarding how I am feeling on this chilly morning.  I am cool in a literal sense and perhaps I periodically pull off the appearance of being cool.  Am I cool like Miles Davis’ “Birth of the Cool? Or like Snoopy’s alter ego Joe Cool?  Can this kind of cool still be achieved while pushing a stroller and wearing a milk stain on my shoulder?  I say, yes, but with mild trepidation.  I need to redefine what cool means, at least when it comes to being a cool daddy.

Being a cool daddy means to be a father who does more than just the bring-home-the-bacon, Stogy smokin’, sports page reading stereotype ala the patriarchal figure of Ward Cleaver.  A cool daddy gets into the trenches of raising a baby (diaper washing, bottle feeding, barfed up breast milk swabbing) and gets out into the real world of the streets (of Bellingham in my case) and it’s surrounding outdoor grandeur.  No sitting in the protection of your humble homestead!  Say yes, oh fathers, to getting onto the stage of soothing a disturbed baby in public. Watch the single men wince at your struggle and watch the women flash their eyelashes and give you that “what an adorable baby” look.  I get checked out, smiled at, and eyeballed so much more and interact with so many more people than the total anonymity I feel when I am by myself.  I feel so much more alive and aware of the moment.  I know it is simply because I am out and about with my adorable baby boy named Eli.  Being a Cool Daddy rips the sterotype of being a father from the detached, 1950’s era, bread-winner-only paradigm and replaces it with a father figure who is actually involved in the day-to-day saga of raising a child. 

Those interactions with people and the daytime adventures I have with Eli are what I will be documenting here.  I will teach you the ways and means of being a Cool Daddy.  Read on, my brother, and when questions arise in your mind and you are ready to seek advise then seek it from me.  Ask me your questions by commenting below.

  • Cool Daddyhood is where you will find my philosophies and ponderings on defining modern fatherhood.
  • Adventures of a Boy and his Dad tells the stories of Eli and I navigating the urban and rural, the yummy and yucky, the joy and pain of our time together. 
  • Warm Fuzzies are endearing, cute, and cuddly anecdotes from a manly point of view.

I am a father in “the Ham” and proud of it.