Dad 2.0 Podcast

Our guest Jaime Casap thinks one of the worst things you can ask a kid is "What do you want to be when you grow up?" It's an outdated question that confines a person's impact too specifically. The better questions is: "What problem do you want to solve?" After 14 years at Google, most recently as its Global Education Evangelist, Jaime has several problems he plans to confront head-on. How can we make education more collaborative among students? How has the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the frailties and inequities of our current system, and how can an expanded role of technology help correct them? And why haven't more people with his background achieved the status he has?

Each year, our guest Whit Honea serves in one of the most important roles at Dad 2.0 Summit: Presiding over the Newbie Seminar to help first-time attendees meet each other and find their way around. Whit has been part of our team since the beginning, either in an organizational capacity or speaking about his 16-year career as an author and freelance writer. As we celebrate the fourth anniversary of the Dads4Kesem Walk, a 100-mile fundraising hike across England, we reminisce about a magic week of blisters, sheep poop, and sticky toffee pudding that raised $40,000 to start Camp Kesem Maryland. We also discuss raising teenagers in quarantine, our latest writing projects, and which Bob's Burgers character are you?

This week, the creator and host of the Fatherhood Is DOPE podcast (and future Tennessee governor) Aaron McGee joins Jeff and Doug to discuss life in Nashville as an early import from Jackson, Mississippi. He has a lot to say about how his upbringing, education, and faith made him into a compelling interviewer who is eager to talk about fatherhood from as many viewpoints as he can find. We talk about life with his three-year-old daughter Journey, how it's never too late to create and market a podcast as long as you invest in the content, and why Nashville's willingness to lead the way and fight systemic racism makes it the Athens of the South. (You probably shouldn't tell Athens, Georgia, about that last bit). 

Half his life ago, our guest Jim Joseph achieved the two primary goals he had set for himself as a teenager: to work in marketing and to be an engaged father. Which made his decision to come out in the late 1990s all the more terrifying, since he was told he would jeopardize both. Having weathered that storm, he talks about how every marketer's job is to understand that everyone is working hard to recalibrate their work and home lives. And as an executive at one of the largest communications companies on the planet, he has the power to set policy and make workplaces more family-friendly than ever. Plus: How 2020 will accelerate hands-on fatherhood more than 2008, why more men are stepping forward and admitting their struggles, and would you spend a two-week quarantine with a breathtaking view of Riker's Island?

This week, Jeff became an engaged father in the most literal sense. And in posting his announcement online, expressing his joy felt like a little rebellion against the male tendency to bottle up emotion. A lot of what we're doing now feels similar, and more than just how we're trying to "ruin our children." We're returning to restaurants. Leaving our phones at home. Putting oatmeal on our corn flakes. Rethinking the whole game. Plus, we discuss four important new reports about protecting our family's health, bonding with our kids during lockdown, raising boys to be good men, and the quest for shared parenting.

From the moment he started writing jingles at 19, Stewart "Brittlestar" Reynolds has been a compulsive creator. He's spent his entire adult life making music, videos, scripted content, brand campaigns, and most recently the Social Media North conference, because "the Internet needs more Canada." Listen for an inspiring discussion about realizing your creative worth, raising business-savvy kids, and recognizing disaster as a liberating "forced opportunity" to try things you'd normally dismiss.

Our guest Creed Anthony is a writer, teacher, and frequent contributor to the Dad 2.0 Summit who describes himself as a "seasonal stay-at-home dad." He shares a wealth of knowledge about converting to online education during Covid-19, talking to his students about George Floyd, and coping with racism as a kid in Cleveland. He was often told he "had to be better than the best to be considered average," and one of the cornerstones of his parenting is not to pass that pressure onto his kids. 

Believe it or not (and we sorta don't), it's June! With Father's Day just three weeks away, Jeff and Doug talk about updates to #GratitudeClub, the effect of George Floyd's death on so many families (and what it means to sit your kids down for "The Talk"), and the crazy-great rise of Rob Kenney, who started his "Dad, How Do I" YouTube channel to further his life goal "to raise good adults."

On Memorial Day, we're feeling grateful for the power of social media to connect us with the creatives who make the things we rely on while Quarantine Life lingers on. And we decide to keep reaching out using the #GratitudeClub hashtag, because you never know how a simple thank-you can radiate outward and encourage those who need it. Head to dad2.com/podcast for a prodigious list of the stuff we're thankful for. And join in!

Beau Coffron's life as Lunchbox Dad began with a simple act of kindness, when he sent his kindergartener to school with a Hello Kitty-themed lunch. Nine years later, without any prior training in food or art design, Beau has turned his avid curiosity into two careers, as a social media director and as one of the most sought-after influencers in the online dad community. Beau's simple recipe for success has been to start something you love, be curious, work hard, and maintain your relationships. He talks about late nights holding his baby in one arm and researching with the other, his strategies for negotiation, and the reasons why 2019 was his most successful year yet (and 2020, despite the pandemic, is keeping pace).

We celebrate Mother’s Day with our first guest mom, Deborah Moebes (Whipstitch), and her husband Michael (Dadcation), one of the few online power couples who’ve both spoken at a Dad 2.0 Summit. They're also avid family travelers, so one of the biggest challenges of quarantine life with three kids and a dog is having to cancel 23 plane tickets. Join us for a freewheeling episode that could have easily been titled “Everything Turned to Poop,” “Every Night Is Crotchless Chaps Night,” and “She’s Adorable, but She’s A Biter.”

In the last 18 months, our guest Aaron Gouveia has launched a worldwide viral movement, fended off attacks by right-wing media, walked the sidelines during an AFC Championship game, quit a job the day the world shut down (and found a better one four weeks later), and fulfilled a dream by writing a book -- Raising Boys to Be Good Men -- during six months of daily commutes. And throughout it all, he's stayed strong, pursued what makes his family happiest, and bet on himself when making the hardest choices. Is he the most interesting man in blogging online content creation? You be the judge.

This week's episode is about the unexpected things you find when you're looking for the things you've lost. You lose a cat, you find a whole network of caring neighbors who'll help you find him. You lose a job, you find the time for some mental inventory while you update your resume. Finding balance is hard, but it's there if you look. Plus, damaged soccer jerseys lead to a meal donation, announcing your kid's college plans, and is LinkedIn just Tinder in business casual?

Most parents have grown accustomed to accommodating stress in our lives, but the known unknowns of Quarantine Life are really stoking the furnace. So we asked therapist and 2020 Summit alum Jonathan Baxter, LMHC to talk about how our brains are built to detect threats, but never to process so many at once. Plus, it can be difficult to feel agency in your life when it's up to us to close the feedback loop of accomplishment. So how to we keep our heads without losing our minds?

This week's episode functions as a laid-back kind of check-in. How're you holding up? How's the family? Is schooling from home not a complete disaster? This Great Pause, for all its tragedy and chaos, is affording us the chance to unplug our lives and reboot them with new software. Jeff and Doug don't know when social interaction will resume, but they're already formulating ideas of where they want their lives to be when it does.

If you're expecting a child in the next few months and are wondering how COVID-19 will alter your birth plan, we had a chat with Dr. Craig Garfield, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine and physician at Lurie Children's Hospital, to discuss the experiences and recommendations he shares with expectant couples. He's also quick to remind us that this virus is still a moving target, so those recommendations are subject to rapid change. Be sure to stay up to date with your pediatrician.

In the first podcast of Season 2, Jeff and Doug ruminate about the weird Spring we all have ahead of us. Our community spends a lot of time and energy figuring out how to balance our work and home lives, and now they've been mashed together like a PB&J sandwich in the bottom of your kid's backpack. How are we coping? How are we using the time? And where do we want to be when normal life returns?

Doug and Jeff recap what we now know will be the first of two Dad 2.0 Summits in 2020! What the what?!? Join us in Los Angeles from October 1-2, 2020 for the next Summit. Use code 'dad2la' to save $20 on your ticket when purchased through Wednesday, March 4 (and have $20 donated to the Oren Miller Scholarship Fund!) Check out Dad 2.2020 speaker Kenneth Kellogg in BLUE, a contemporary new opera on stage in D.C. from March 15-28. Consider buying Dad 2.2020 speaker Dan Kois' book HOW TO BE A FAMILY. The music in this episode is "Too Cool" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.  

It is Dad 2.0 Week! On this episode, Dad 2 co-founder Doug goes deep on sponsors, explaining their mission and Summit activations. It's not too late to make a plan to join us at the Dad 2.0 Summit in Washington D.C. from Feb 27-29 2020! Get yourself registered today! The music in this episode is "Too Cool" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.