Dedicated Dad Journal

[scottindenver]

I needed to start doing this journal thing a long time ago but at least I found a community where I feel safe writing and posting this stuff. This journal will be mostly to help me but I will make an effort to share stories and stuff I found helpful so you (the reader) can pickup a few helpful things as well.

Quick bio: Grew up in the US, lower middle income in semi-messed up family (no drugs or alcohol thank god). Moved out when I was 19. Bounced around in college a bit but eventually I got my credits at community college, then completed a BS and eventually a MS and PhD. Overall probably overeducated but I learned how scientific research is done. Met my wife in Ohio and we got jobs on East Coast but eventually moved to Denver. We have two kids and are pretty lucky, no health problems and kids are doing well overall. Wife is in academia so pretty safe job but its not tenure track.

Current major hurdle: We are nowhere near financial independence and I haven't worked in 5 years because I stayed home with the kids while my wife went back to work. I am very independent minded and don't like working in big organizations. I do have some skills and can fix things but my training was very research focused so finding jobs has been difficult. Overall we are very frugal and don't eat out and I fix anything that breaks, but we need much more cash inflow to establish any kind of path to financial independence.

Now I am going to list the Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

The Good: We are frugal and don't shop. I fix what we have and keep the old cars running. I have changed a timing belt, replaced ball joints, and I even used a multimeter to fix our furnace one time for zero money. I hate consumerism culture and I try to get things off craigslist free when I can. One of my favorite shows growing up was MacGyver as he would always find a way to make something using materials at hand. Regarding finances we have some savings and some in retirement accounts so we aren't starting from nothing. Also we have emergency cash cushion so we could last a year with no income.

The Bad: We don't have great marketable skills for the job market. I am a overeducated PhD and my wife works in academia. My work habits aren't great, sucks to write that but I think its objectively correct statement. My focus is easily distracted by small things that I think need to be improved but in the big picture it doesn't really matter. I have a hard time staying on task and easily distracted (although some of this is media saturated environment we live in). I think my work habits are a correctable problem and I am working on some strategies to help with that.

The Ugly: I struggle with perfectionism and negative self-talk. Its a toxic combination as they do more damage than either alone (trying to make something perfect sets you up for failure and then negative self-talk knocks you down more). I seem to be above average in these two categories so I have now accepted that I need above average strategies to deal with these two problems.

To finish with something positive:
I got to spend 5 years with my kids. I realize now that of hundreds of millions of fathers before me, very very few ever got to do that. We got to play a lot, do pull butt cover where I pull them on a blanket, and make up stories about Hazel our cat. The time goes by so quickly. One of my favorite memories was I picked up my daughter from preschool and we went to local cafe and sampled every dessert and it was a special moment. She doesn't remember it now as she was too young at the time so that memory will only live with me. I wish we could back and relive those moments.

That's it for now, I will work on some stuff and try to update this journal later this week.

[scottindenver]

Quick update, got a job offer this morning. Its a good job and probably best outcome given my circumstances. Obviously I wish I didn't have to take the job and I wish we were financially independent but I have to take the best path given where I am right now.

[CS]

Outside perspective and suggestion:

Write up the stories you tell your kids.

1. You can relive your memories.
2. You are starting to make your own IP. (Intellectual Property).
3. You could look into publishing them. Easy these days.

Being an author might suit you best.

In the meantime, congrats on the job offer.

[Dave]

Welcome @scottindenver, nice to have you here. I like your DIY ethos and commitment to fatherhood.

To second @CS, congrats on the job offer and that's a cool idea of writing up the stories.

How would the job offer change your situation with the kids? Need to use daycare/etc.?

[ertyu]

I'm happy for you, you were stressed out about this and I'm glad you landed something. Even if it's not ideal, your foot is in the door. Congrats!

[scottindenver]

Update: I accepted the job. Its with a university which is more laid back and they are very open to me coming in early sometimes and leaving early so I can pickup my kids from school. This was probably the most ideal outcome and I should be grateful. But I still have a pit in my stomach thinking about all this. I keep thinking about how if I had made different choices I wouldn't have to take a job and my family would be financially independent. I don't know if I can let go of that, I think its hard especially for me and my personality. Plus I wasted years on academic research in grad school that was just a waste of time and looking back it puts you in a vulnerable position because you have no other skills to draw upon (I was good with equipment which helped me land a job after grad school, my research didn't help at all).

Thanks for responses, yes I have been thinking about stories and I need to move forward on that. If nothing else it will be nice project. My kids and I came up ideas for this crazy cat the kids take to school in secret and the cat does all kinds of crazy things like pooping on the art teachers head (my kids art teacher is a moron, objectively).

For now I am going to play with my kids today while I wait on background check stuff and start date. My daughter made me a "DAD FARTS" necklace so I think I will wear that today.

[scottindenver]

Followup question, is there a writers group in this community? I would be interested in connecting with other writers if anyone would be so kind to connect me with others.

[jacob]

Followup question, is there a writers group in this community? I would be interested in connecting with other writers if anyone would be so kind to connect me with others.

viewtopic.php?t=12565

[Salathor]

That is hard. You're probably going through the same thing moms do in general when they go back to work after several years at home. I applaud you for being a stay at home parent for so long. If things go well, perhaps you can be back to it sooner than you think. Maybe your wife gets a tenured position, or you use the next few years to save like crazy.

Don't think of taking the job of being a lifetime sentence of having to put your kids in daycare. Maybe it's just a couple years. Maybe you keep your eyes open and eventually find a job that lets you work only school hours, and you can be home with your kids every day once they're in school.

There are a ton of paths ahead of you here, especially if you use the next couple years to make good references and build toward something intentionally.

[Hristo Botev]

Glad you started a journal; I'll be following along for sure as I always appreciate reading about the journeys of other dads with kids at home. FWIW, one of our biggest regrets was both of us working full-time+ when our kids were in the daycare and preschool ages, which meant that our kids were often spending 10+ hours in daycare, which frankly seems somewhat criminal of us in hindsight (also absurd given how expensive it is to do it that way). So, good on you for having not gone down that path and having made dad-time a priority at a time when they really needed it.

[Jean]

A warm welcome to you.

[scottindenver]

Just spilling a couple more thoughts on the page. I realize now it was dumb luck I found that job posting and I happened to fit most of the qualifications and the job happened to be close by. What bothers me is it was dumb luck and I was in a very very weak position (no job, 5 year gap and not a super stellar resume). I don't ever want to be in a weak position like that again. I have to make better decisions going forward and somehow someway figure things out and even build other income streams even if I have to bust through 8 brick walls to do so.


By the way, Jacob if you are reading this I just wanted to say THANK YOU! Thanks for hosting the site and thank you for creating the message board.

[scottindenver]

Well fuck fuck fuck. I just signed acceptance letter for job and have start date. Already I feel sick, fuck. This isn't good sign.

[mathiverse]

You got this. Feeling apprehensive about a new job is normal. I would not take it as a bad sign at all. Congrats on the new gig!

[Western Red Cedar]

Welcome to the forum!

I'm curious what makes you desire financial independence? What would you be doing with your hours, days, weeks, months and years if you were financially independent? In the parlance of the forum, what is your freedom-to?

I didn't post a reply to the question you posed on what one would do differently: viewtopic.php?t=12896

The major thing I would have done differently is focus less on financial independence, or the end goal, and just let things evolve. Ironically, I heard this advice from the MadFientist and other bloggers. I tried, with some success, to implement it over the last seven years. I think focusing too much on FI robs you of the present and traps you in the future.

I'm guessing that if you stay on this path and ultimately reach FI, you'll be glad you took the time to spend the first five years with your children and took a longer route to FI. Those are the most formative years in a child's life.

[scottindenver]

Apologies for previous post but the new job sent my anxiety sky high. Also it sent me in a negative doom loop due to recognition of the choices I made.

Spending time with my kids was the right things to do. That was a good decision. I don't regret that.

What I didn't do was seriously plan for what to do and how to plan for financial future. I didn't take it seriously even though I knew it was important. So part of this whole process has been recognizing I didn't do a good job of being a leader for my family. Another factor is my wife has high anxiety around money and I can't talk to her about anything money related. She is frugal but many of her friends have husbands who make shitloads of money which just sends her down a doom spiral. Her parents raised her with very high anxiety around money and very few skills in regards to finances. Unfortunately I have come to understand there is no way to fix that and its not realistic beyond a certain age to expect regular people to change. From what I understand the only way most people can alter their behavior and habits is some kind of major catastrophic event that fundamentally rewires their brain. Short of that its just not realistic for regular people to change their underlying thinking.

Some of these insights are coming in waves so its causing extreme emotional swings and thats just part of being human.

[scottindenver]

Just another follow on post but something I know about but hard to change. I developed some bad diet habits as a kid due to lots of junk food growing up. Man that has cost me. The good news I cut out almost all junk food a while ago and cannot stand McDonalds or Burger King (many years ago I got violently ill from Burger King and then again a year later, lesson learned).

The problem is that although I didn't eat fast food anymore as about 10 years ago, I also never really onboarded nutrition knowledge and better cooking knowledge. In all honesty my cooking skills are piss poor. Which means I am missing a critical skill for making healthy meals. Damn these revelations suck.

[scottindenver]

Okay, another post because fuck it, that's what journals are all about.

I really want to raise my kids with wisdom, and frankly modern culture has very little wisdom. Whether secular or religious doesn't matter. I grew up religious but I am now secular. However, I don't see much wisdom in the secular world either. This is tough for me and pisses me off because the kids grandparents on both sides make piss poor choices and have very little wisdom despite being on this damn planet for over70 years (all 4 of them are like this). And they don't fucking help out and seem to have no capacity for self-awareness. Long story short, my kids need wisdom to make better choices when they grow up but the older generation isn't helping and modern culture is endless choice of unwise choices.

I have been thinking on this for over a year, especially as my kids are a little older now and now its much clearer to me how little wisdom there is around me and in the modern world.

[Hristo Botev]

I find it’s helpful to look to the classical world for wisdom.

[Salathor]

You can find a lot of wisdom in great fiction as well (as opposed to just nonfiction). Middlemarch is an excellent portrait of several lives. One of the stories would likely really speak to you (about a young man trying to decide what path his life is going to take).