420 | The Research Behind Great Dads, Generational Impact, and How to Move Men from Risk to Resource (Dr. Jeffrey Shears)
Episode Description
What if the way you father your daughter today shapes the marriage she has twenty years from now? In this episode, Dr. Jeffrey Shears—a fatherhood researcher, girl dad, and the chair of the Moynihan Institute for Fatherhood Research and Policy—shares over two decades of findings on why dads matter more than they think. You'll hear how generational fathering works, why Nacho Tuesdays became a game-changer for connecting with his girls, and what it really means to move men from risk to resource.
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Dr. Jeffrey Shears is a professor of social work jointly appointed at North Carolina A&T State University and UNC Greensboro. He serves as the inaugural chair of the Moynihan Institute for Fatherhood Research and Policy and is the board chair of the Fatherhood CoMission. He's spent over 20 years researching the impact fathers have on child development, with a particular focus on generational fathering and intergenerational transmission. He co-authored What All Dads Should Know with Dr. Clarence Shuler. Jeff is a proud girl dad of three daughters and lives in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.
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Your daughters internalize how you treat their mother—and it shapes who they're attracted to and the health of their future marriages.
Fathers who affirm their daughters' abilities have a measurable impact—girls with engaged dads are overrepresented in STEM fields.
What you do as a dad ripples across generations. Your great-great-grandchildren will be shaped by values you instill today, even if you never meet them.
The desire to be a great dad is already there in most men. What's missing is the support, the models, and the community to show them how.
Every man is either a risk or a resource to a child. The question isn't whether you'll have an impact—it's what kind.
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Dr. Jeffrey Shears: The whole idea from that study that you talked about — that when a girl reports having a loving, emotionally connected relationship with her dad, her husband shows higher marital satisfaction. I tell a man, you are literally responsible for your son-in-law's marital satisfaction. What you do with your daughter, what you do with her mom, impacts your son-in-law's marital satisfaction.
Jeff Ling: Welcome back to DadAwesome. Today, Episode 420, I have Dr. Jeffrey Shears joining me. And before I introduce him, I want to remind you guys — we are launching the DadAwesome book, and it's out in the wild. In fact, today, the day that this episode launches, they're being mailed out. I ordered 300 early copies for the advance team, and at the time of this recording, we've got about 30 copies left. So about 90% of them are being mailed out, and I'm so grateful for the advance team.
Basically, you're committing to reading about a third of the book over the next month and you're committing to leaving an Amazon review and doing a pre-order on Amazon. So you're going to get basically two books for one, and you'll get it about a month or five weeks early. The advance team helps advance the mission and you get an advanced copy of the book. All you have to do is go to dadawesome.org/book to join the advance team. And once those 300 are used up, it'll be a digital copy. So as soon as possible, sign up.
Okay — Dr. Jeffrey Shears. I've been hearing about his work for the past few years. He co-authored a book with Dr. Clarence Shuler, who's been on a number of times. That book is titled What All Dads Should Know. He's done extensive research in the area of family ministry, fatherhood ministry, and the fatherlessness epidemic. He's done work in Atlanta. He lives in North Carolina. He's got three girls. So another girl dad named Jeff. I'm thrilled to introduce you to this conversation — Episode 420 with Dr. Jeffrey Shears.
I was introduced to you through a few different friends, and now today we're finally meeting through a video feed. We'll do another round in person, but welcome to DadAwesome.
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: Thank you. Excited to be here. It's a small world, given your story. We have kind of the same mentor and things of that nature. Super excited to talk about one of my favorite topics — the importance of fathers in the lives of children.
Jeff Ling: Yes, and I agree on the small world. We have to give a shout-out to Dr. Clarence Shuler because he's poured into both of us. We were talking about him offline, so we'll give him a shout-out. He's been on, I think, three times as a guest on DadAwesome. But you guys wrote a book together. And just for fun, even though it was over a decade ago, I'd love to have you share a little bit about what drew you to co-writing with Dr. Clarence and what are some of the things you still draw back on from that book — things where you're like, "Man, I want more dads to know this."
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: Yeah, so the book is What All Dads Should Know. I was in the academic space, and being around Dr. Shuler, he was like, "Man, more people need to hear your story. More people need to hear the research you're conducting in regards to how important fathers are in the lives of children." So we kind of wrote the book from a developmental-stage approach. My stuff back then was really around early infant development — what do fathers do — because we get the message that we're just supposed to be providers. And it's really important to be hands-on from the beginning.
So maybe as I go through the different developmental stages from the book — one thing you asked, "What can we use now?" One thing: my wife breastfed my daughters, but I would be the one to wake up with them in the middle of the night, change their diaper, and take them to my wife for feedings. Part of that process was I wanted my daughters to know that when they're in distress, their father would be there. It's very easy as a man — your wife's breastfeeding, you hear a baby, you just kind of roll over and she'll take care of it. But I was trying to be intentional. Part of that is making sure that my daughters knew, "Hey, my dad is here."
Early on, from little babies to the middle stage — just again, being hands-on, being a caregiver. I remember one time my wife had to travel. Jayda, my youngest, must have been about six to eight months old, and Jira, the middle one, was almost three. And that means Jordan was like nine. Anyway, my wife's friends were like, "Well, what are you going to do with the baby?" My wife was like, "What do you mean, what's he going to do with the baby? She has a capable dad. He's going to do fine." And I'm like, "Yeah, it's a little baby. She's going to eat, poop, and sleep. I can handle all that."
But part of that too is — particularly a lot of generations ago — there was so much out there that we were bumbling, stumbling idiots as fathers. That fathers cannot be competent caretakers of little children. I understood where those ladies were coming from — "What are you going to do with your practically newborn as you leave town for four or five days?" But part of that is, we know that moms are gatekeepers. Super grateful that my wife always embraced my being hands-on. And to joke — when I have all girls — "Did you really send her to school with her hair like that? Did you let her pick that outfit out?" I'm like, "Yes, that's what she wanted to wear. It was appropriate. It's not cold outside. Who cares?"
I just say that to say — she never critiqued. She just kind of laughed like, "Okay, I wouldn't do it that way." But we know mothering is different than fathering. We parent very differently, and children need both.
So we move on to middle school, early adolescence. One of the things I really tried to do — I recognized that as my daughters were going into puberty, that's a natural point for fathers to kind of disassociate with their daughters because your girl's starting to change. I remember being gone for a while, coming home, and Jordan, the oldest — I was like, "What's that on your face?" She started wearing some makeup as a middle schooler. My wife was like, "Let her do it." I'm like, "What's all that?"
So one of the things I really tried to be intentional about — knowing that that's a natural break cycle — was to just be about what they're about. Know whatever it is, be about what they're about, because now you have some commonality.
One thing we'd always do — and it's funny that now my girls talk about how they used to love Nacho Tuesdays — I'd make a bunch of nachos, sit it down in the middle of the table, and they didn't realize what I was doing. I was inquiring about who their friends were and what's going on here and there. But it was just a great time. They'd just spill all the beans. And they would share stuff about school or friends or whatever. It was a way for me to keep track of what's going on in their lives.
They've heard me speak at fatherhood conferences and they'd be like, "Oh, that's why you would do that!" — as they've become adults.
The takeaway is that we have to enjoy every stage of fatherhood and understand that we are super important in the lives of children.
Last thing, Jeff — I probably started doing this when the baby was around five or six. I would just do a checkup. Every so often I would ask my girls, "How am I doing as a dad?" I encourage dads to do that, but I also tell them to be receptive to the responses. Don't just go in like, "I know I'm okay." Really inquire. "How can I improve?" If our kids are the consumers, we have to satisfy those consumers on what they need. Understand what the final product is we're trying to raise. But be prepared to address some of the things that your kids say they need or what they see. Take it in, embrace it, and be ready to correct behaviors.
I'm not embarrassed to say — I'm a fatherhood expert, I write books, this is what I do — and my daughters corrected some things in regards to their perception of me being a dad. It's helped me a great deal.
Jeff Ling: I really appreciate the journey through some of the phases and what you've learned — some discoveries along the way. To connect two threads: the last two things you shared around connection with dads and daughters and feedback loops of "How am I doing?"
I was on our large beanbag chair in the living room with my nine-year-old, and I was asking her, "How's it going? Do you feel like I've been DadAwesome or Dad Average recently, or Dad Awful?" We play around with the DAs. She was like, "No, you're being DadAwesome." I said, "Well, tell me, are you sure? Is there anything I could improve?" And then I asked her a secondary question. I said, "How am I doing with being Husband Awesome? Are you observing that I'm being a loving husband to your mom?"
That's the one. She said, "Well, Dad, when you guys had that argument the other day, it really made me sad."
I physically responded — I knew she was right. She was revealing to me a blind spot. I just didn't realize the impact. I'd actually come back around to my wife and sought to repair and apologize for ways that I was pushing back in an argument. But my nine-year-old was carrying some hurt in that moment.
You've done some research on daughters and emotional strength. I want to double-click here on those two: emotional connection with my girl, what they're observing in marriage, and feedback loops. It's kind of combining all three. Tell us — go into this a little further.
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: I love to talk with dads and caution them on this. We have guys who are just the doting dads of their daughters — knock it out of the park. Always there. Dad-daughter dates, they go all over. Boy, they're always there for their daughters, which is fine. But as you alluded to, our daughters internalize how we treat their mothers.
I caution them — you could be the best doting dad to your daughter in the world, but if you're not treating her mother a certain type of way, whether you're married to her or not, if you're not speaking about her in a certain way, your daughters are internalizing that.
I often joke — because your daughter is most likely going to be attracted to someone like yourself. When you get mad about who she brings home — "Why'd she bring this guy home? Who's her prom date? Where'd she find this guy?" — I'm like, you probably need to look in the mirror at some point. At some point in her life, this person she's bringing home that she's attracted to, that you as a dad are looking at unfavorably — your daughter saw you at some point. This guy she's attracted to has characteristics she saw in you.
We have to be really careful about how we treat Mom, how we interact with Mom, because our daughters certainly internalize that. When they're in maybe unhealthy relationships, they may have seen some of those characteristics in their dad early on in life.
Now that I have a married daughter and two that are dating age, I get a sense from them wanting my okay, a stamp of approval on guys they're marrying or dating. And I'm appreciative of that. I think we should do a self-evaluation if our daughters are not asking us for our opinion.
I don't want to get off topic, but I also say that in generations not too long ago, we did not leave 22- or 23-year-old young ladies to make lifelong, life-impacting decisions on their own without wise counsel. I know times have changed, but I think we need to do a self-evaluation as dads if our daughters are out there and not saying, "Dad, can I talk to you about this? Can I introduce this person to you?" We need to be that godly counsel over our families. We are the protectors of our daughters. Those conversations need to be had.
Jeff Ling: I've read some of the research around emotionally engaged fathers — that daughters with emotionally engaged fathers have husbands with higher marital satisfaction, basically marriages with higher marital satisfaction. That makes sense that there'd be a correlation there. But the second one was maybe even more surprising — women in STEM. Science, technology, engineering, mathematics. They're overrepresented — there's a higher correlation to them having involved fathers. Would you talk about that one?
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: So, we know that much of the research about women in STEM — and why there's a gap — it's not anything specific in regards to intentional barriers, I should say. But we know a lot of times that teachers in the school system, even early on, react to young girls around science and math differently than they react to young boys. It's those kinds of subliminal messages being sent.
Even though our daughters may be getting a different message at school, their father overcomes that negative message and tells them, "You can do this." And it steals — it builds their confidence.
I have to say — if your mom tells you you can do something, most people are like, "Well, Mom believes I can do anything." Mom is like that. We see it on American Idol: "My mom told me I could sing, so that's why I'm auditioning."
But if your father tells you you can do something, you internalize that. You're like, "I think I really can, because my dad has instilled a confidence in me."
And the studies you're referring to go into this whole generational impact of fathering. I don't think men think enough about, strategize enough about, or are intentional enough regarding generational fathering. This whole idea that what you do as a father is going to impact generations. It's going to impact children — your seed — that you will never meet.
One thing when I talk to men that may not have a personal relationship with Christ, may not be involved in church, may not have that image of a godly father — one thing I do talk to them about to get them to think long-term about their impact is: What is your legacy? What is your legacy going to be?
A lot of times I find, Jeff, that men don't really put together how they were fathered with how they're fathering.
So the whole idea from that study — that when a girl reports having a loving, emotionally connected relationship with her dad, her husband shows higher marital satisfaction. We start putting those little pieces together. I tell a man, you are literally responsible for your son-in-law's marital satisfaction. What you do with your daughter, what you do with her mom, impacts your son-in-law's marital satisfaction.
A man can really start understanding — because, Jeff, in our Western society, one thing we say is "paycheck, paycheck, provide, provide, provide." Sometimes we're working 60, 80 hours a week trying to provide, trying to buy the iPhones and the tennis shoes and everything else. That stuff doesn't have lasting impact, man.
It resonates — I'm sure my grandfather bought me stuff, but the times I remember are my grandfather just riding around in his red pickup truck, running errands. It's really time. We've been programmed that we've got to buy all this stuff. Man, kids don't remember that stuff. They remember the time you spend. They remember the conversations. They remember the intentionality of just hanging out with their dad, which is way more important than buying things.
Generational impact is super important.
Jeff Ling: I know that some historical fatherhood research around fatherlessness and the epidemic has not taken into account dads who live in a different apartment or a different home but still are engaged, still pursuing, doing phone calls and texts and taking their kids out for one-on-ones. Some of the recent studies you've done take that into account. What are some findings that would be helpful — and hopeful — for us dads listening today? Are you seeing any signs that there's a cultural change toward dads being more engaged?
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: Yes. When I started doing this work — so I was part of the Early Head Start research evaluation, which was supposed to be a national evaluation of Early Head Start. They wanted to control for everything that impacts early infant development, but nobody collected data on fathers. It was like three or four months into the study and the sites kept saying, "Hey, we've got fathers showing up. We're not asking them any questions about fathering." So that's how I got pulled into the fatherhood arena. That was more than 20 years ago.
It does my heart good. I do see an impact. We didn't have public service announcements 20 years ago about "Have you hugged your child today?" We just did a study on fathers in commercials — I don't even know if that was a thing we could have done 20 years ago — looking at how fathers interact with their children in commercials and things of that nature.
What I see is that fathers — new fathers now — believe they are important and they believe they make an impact. They do believe they're important in the lives of children. What's missing is they don't know what they're supposed to be doing. They don't know how they impact. That's kind of the next level of father engagement.
Twenty years ago when I started, men only thought they were important as providers. Now men realize they're important. But so much of our fathering comes from our own fatherhood experiences. I say men either emulate or compensate a lot of times from their own fathering experiences.
What I find, Jeff, is we have a number of men who want to be dads, who want to be good dads, but don't have the experience — they don't come from a family or extended family that has a lot of fathers they can model after. We don't have the community supports for these young men. As a country, as a community, we don't have the supports to help fathers be the type of fathers that they really want to be.
So the mindset is there and the desire is there, but where does it come from? Jeff, from what I hear you talking about — you're hands-on, you're a good dad — where did that come from? Most men model because they've seen it. The biggest influence of how you father is your own father relationship. The next biggest influence is family of origin. Well, we probably know people who come from families without fathers, come from communities where they don't see it.
The other two biggest influences on fathering are peers — and if you had peers like mine, they're probably not good examples of fathers — and social media and media representations.
So I think the next big step for us is to begin to support men, support fathers, and give them the resources and the support. We have a whole social service system that's just now, over the last few years, begun to recognize the importance of fathers in the lives of children. And our social service system is 97% female. A lot of times when men go into those places, their first thought is, "I don't see a man, so they must be there for Mom."
That's kind of the next step — educating our workforce, educating dads, and giving them the supports for them to reach their full potential in their fathering.
Jeff Ling: We've observed that as soon as a dad gets a vision — which we've talked about, you've shared about the seed — man, we're part of something multigenerationally that we'll never even get to meet, those great-great-great-grandkids. So there's vision. Then there's a decision: "Man, I'm going to be intentional. I'm going to try to not just be a provider but be present."
Then there's learning — and you're mentioning that men still don't maybe know the how. Just a dad desiring to learn, like listening to today's podcast and saying, "I want to learn about being an awesome dad" — I celebrate that.
But the interesting thing is there's another step beyond learning, which is actually taking action. And often for me, I can take action and then it's not the heavy impact I thought it was going to be — or it's actually perceived as disrupting some current family rhythms. I'm bringing change and I'm taking action. I'm activating change in my family. And then it's like, "Wow, I'm actually experiencing less love and affirmation and cheering on than I was before."
There's a gravitational pull for some of us dads to stay a little bit passive, even if we want to be intentional dads, because it's still so murky. What do I do? Will it help? Is it long-term beneficial but short-term it feels like resistance on the home front? How would you coach me through that — moving someone from a desire to learn to actually taking action?
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: You recognize the desire. I think most men have a desire to want to be a good dad. How do I access resources? But also — effort is great. There's no perfect. As I kind of alluded to earlier, I do this stuff for a living. I write, I speak. And I still have moments where I got it wrong.
Give yourself grace. The important thing is to be present in your children's lives.
I had an opportunity — now that I look back on it — because as men, we don't necessarily like to say we're sorry all the time. I had an opportunity to tell my daughter, "Hey, I'm sorry. I messed it up. I blew this."
How does that minister to your kid? When your dad — your superhero, the one who's never wrong, all the things that our children look up to us for — when you say, "Hey, I blew that, I'm sorry." I'm thankful now because I think it really ministered to her. I had to miss an event. It ministered to her that I was able to come to her in humility and say, "I'm sorry."
I know that children are going to appreciate effort. None of us is going to get this stuff right. Not to compare, but moms don't get it right all the time either. Just be intentional. Just be intentional in your fathering. Part of it is just doing it — fathering on purpose and fathering in a natural way.
This whole journey should be fun. As guys may be feeling stuck — and it is, Jeff, we talk about dads and daughters, especially how uncomfortable it is to kind of step away during those teenage adolescent years — well, we just got to step harder. Because if we realize that what we're doing is impactful, then we just have to come out of our comfort zone.
No matter what your kid is involved in — it could be something that just bores you out of your mind — but who cares? When your daughter or your son looks up and sees you there — like, I'd rather them be playing football than be on the chess club. But if you're going to be on the chess club, I'm right there. "Great job today!" I'm going to sit down and learn how to play chess with you. Whatever it is. Because it's really the relationship. All the other stuff is going to be over, and they can just look back and have that strong bond with their dad, knowing that they're going to emulate that with their own kids.
Jeff Ling: From a research standpoint, this is just a curiosity I have. If resources weren't limited, you could fund a whole team for three years of research to go study fatherhood — is there anything you're like, "I'm really curious" or "Man, this would be helpful to help turn the tide toward more present fathers, more equipped fathers"? Is there anything top of mind that if you could have all the funding in the world and a team, you would want to go find out?
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: I would really like to study this whole idea of generational fathering — I have tangential information, but I really want to dig into it. Because that's where the encouragement is, trying to help fathers see that the generational impact is really important.
Doing a longitudinal study of how fathering is passed down. A prime example — my grandfather raised my dad, my dad raised me, and I raised three girls. So we have a qualitative study looking at my daughters' reflections on being raised in three generations of fathers. A lot of times, that's not the case in a lot of communities.
I actually had my daughters interview me and my dad. My dad talked about his dad and things of that nature. It's kind of hard to research because it would be a whole lifespan type deal — with recordings and following families over three, four, or five generations. But yeah, that's something I would love to do — to have really impactful research evidence to help men realize that my Grandpa Shears, his life and how he raised my dad, has impacted his great-great-granddaughters that he never met. He never met them.
Stuff that my dad talks about and my girls — it resonates. Our little thing is, my dad would talk about my grandfather: they couldn't spend the night at other kids' houses. And my daughters are like, "Is that why you did that?" I was like, "Yeah, I think so. I don't know if I consciously remember that as a kid, but yeah — you all could never spend the night. You could stay there until it's time to go to bed. You guys came home. I'd take you back over in the morning for breakfast. You can hang out." Just those little things about — to my mind, that was a protection thing.
If I had the research funding and a hundred-some years to do it, that's what I would study. Again — driving home the point that what we do, man, is so important. We might not ever really reap or see the benefits, because the benefits of what we're doing as a dad are going to manifest in our great-great-grandchildren. I think that really drives home and maybe makes us be more impactful and intentional about what we do as dads.
Jeff Ling: That's fascinating. And it's biblical, because the Bible says it will pass down to generations. But without a teaching mechanism — without documenting "your grandpa taught in this way and your dad taught in this way and you taught in this way" — a study like that could potentially capture what values just seeped their way down, what priorities, habits, or rhythms seeped their way down from generation to generation. That's amazing. So grateful for that insight.
I have one quote I've heard you say, or maybe I read it from the book, and I want to land here. You said, "All men can be a risk or resource to a child." How do we move them from risk to resource?
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: Yes. Part of that really comes from how we work with dads in social services, where we tend to isolate men. Sometimes we think if they're not a good spouse, they can't be a good dad. And also to look at what risk factors men may have experienced in their childhood that may increase issues with fathering — either being there or being involved for their children.
But if we go into this understanding that all men want to be a good dad — in the years I've done this, I've never met a guy who said, "I don't want to be a good dad." Now, he might not have the resources, he might not have the support. But I think innately all men want to be good fathers.
What I try to put on our social service system is — how do we help these guys? How do we move men from risk to resource?
All parents can potentially be a risk. We start thinking about child abuse and neglect, and we tend to think the father is the perpetrator. But if we look at the data, mothers are much more likely to commit child abuse and neglect, which makes sense because most children live with their mom.
So how do we — if we're looking at men as risks — what is our responsibility to assess the risks? And then how do we move him to be a resource? How do we provide him with resources, with support, with mentors?
We know that men emulate. We know that a lot of times men won't ask another man how to do something by default. So sometimes we just have to provide models. Sometimes we have to provide visuals for the man and show him, "This is what I need to do. This is how this looks." This is how rough-and-tumble play looks with a two-year-old. This is how Tuesday-night nachos look. How do I start this kind of thing? Man, they just need those little cues.
That's the thing about how do we move men from risk to resource. Every man can be a risk to children, families, and community. Every one of us can be a potential risk. But also, every one of us can be a potential resource to children, families, and communities. How do we navigate that? How do we move men from risk to resource?
Jeff Ling: I'm so grateful for everything you're creating and the resources. I'm going to make sure in the show notes we send all of our dads toward your book, your research, your website, and other resources you've created. Thank you.
I want to invite you, Jeff, to pray over all of us dads who are listening.
Dr. Jeffrey Shears: Sure thing. Father, we just bless You. We honor You for who You are. Thank You for Your mercies that are new every morning. Father, we thank You for the opportunity that You've blessed us with to be fathers. Father, we are thankful for the children You've blessed us with. And Father, we are thankful for the responsibility that You've given us to father the next generation.
Father, let us not take this responsibility lightly. For as we stand before You one day, we have to give an account of how we discipled our wives, how we discipled our children. And so, Father, as we give account, we want to have discipled our families and children, Father, in a way that You'll be pleased with our actions.
Father, give us strength as fathers. The world has given us a bad deal on what a father really looks like. Help us father in a manner that You intend for us to follow, as Your Word says. Father, we bless You. We honor You. Again, we thank You for the opportunity, Father. Help us mentor men to be better fathers and help us seek resources to help us be the fathers we want to be.
Father, Your Word says if we seek wisdom, to ask You. And so, Father, in our daily pursuit of career and money, let us be wise. Let us seek You and wisdom to be the fathers that will lead the next generation and be the fathers that You're pleased with, Father. We bless You again. We honor You. Thank You for this opportunity. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Jeff Ling: Thank you so much for joining us for Episode 420 with Dr. Jeffrey Shears. The show notes, the links to his website, his books, some of the research findings, along with all the other things we've talked about will be found at dadawesome.org/podcast — just look for Episode 420.
One more reminder — the advance team. We've got about 25 to 30 copies of the book left to send out. We're mailing those out today, the day this episode launches, in early February. And then the book launches March 17th. So if you want to wait and order the hardback official book, you can wait until March 17th and you'll receive it then.
Guys, thanks for listening. Thanks for being dads who are choosing to lean in, to grow, to be present, to be dads of action. Let's not sit back and ponder. Let's not be dads of intent. Let's be dads that go and make a difference and love our families well this week. Praying for you guys, cheering for you. Have a great week.
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"You are literally responsible for your son-in-law's marital satisfaction. What you do with your daughter impacts generations."
"I never met a guy who said, 'I don't want to be a good dad.' The desire is there—they need support."
"Every man can be a potential risk, but every man can also be a potential resource to children and families."
"Kids don't remember the stuff you bought. They remember the time, the conversations, the intentionality of hanging out with Dad."
"If your father tells you that you can do something, you internalize that. Dad's words build a confidence nothing else can."
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