Disclosure: We are proud to partner with Dove Men+Care in its #ThereToCare campaign. City Dads Group members around the nation marked Grandparents' Day Sunday with a lot of love and a little help from our organization's frequent partner, Dove Men+Care. The grooming products company generously sent a few dozen of our fathers framed photos of the dads, their kids, and one of their grandfathers along with a shaving kit filled with Dove Men+Care goodies for the father who helped conceive these last two generations. Our fathers used #ThereToCare across multiple social media platforms to talk … [Read more...]
Grandparents: The Acoustic Version of Parents
Grandparents Day, always the first Sunday following Labor Day, was especially poignant for our family this year. My mother is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, and our visits to the nursing home are increasingly difficult as she struggles to remember her children and grandchildren. Her anguish recently came to mind while my daughters and I were, of all things, ziplining through a forest. On many landings a simple warning sign reads: “Always stay attached.” The sign features a figure falling through the air, his harness belt waving aimlessly like a severed umbilical … [Read more...]
Lessons from Grandpa and His Wondrous Basement
Editor's note: This Sunday, Sept. 13, is national Grandparents Day.
The sounds that came from the basement were mesmerizing. The constant whirr and buzz of saws like a swarm of angry bees, the hammering of metal on wood upon unseen projects. The smell of fresh-cut wood and developing chemicals, the traces of sawdust from shoes when they walked up the long wooden steps. The clunk, clunk, clunk of my grandfather's shoes up those creaky wooden stairs and me, straining, laying in the entryway trying to peek under the basement door just for glimpse of what was … [Read more...]The Many Special Moms in My Life
I was in the fifth grade and it was a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday because my school only served hot lunch on two days – Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesdays brought Campbell’s vegetable soup and McDonald’s hamburgers and cheeseburgers. Soup was a quarter and burgers were fifty cents each. That particular day I forgot my money and my lunch. I called home, but my mom wasn’t home, so I called my grandmother and asked if my mom was there. I asked if she could pass the message on to my mother. She did one better. I sulked most of the morning because I couldn't get a hold of my … [Read more...]