re: As a Dad, do you feel like your actually raising your kid?

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I thank god for my father. Best man and best friend I know. Dads don't get enough praise these days. I don't have kids yet, but I know that I've had a great role model to fatherhood with my dad.

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This is great. Having a Dad like that makes being a Dad easy... you just do as he did. ...and my Dad wasn't just a sports Dad, he would challenge me on an almost weekly basis by introducing a wide spectrum of activities. My graduation present for every grade was always a new baseball glove but throughout the year he would come home from business trips with everything from Origami books, microscopes, old coins and coin collecting books... all the way to build-from-scratch kits for working gasoline engines, scale modeling of cars, planes, ships, buildings and landscape, free weights, and power tools / projects. He never stopped challenging me with opportunities to expand my knowledge and skill. And let me tell you, I took to it like a fish to water.

Today there is still a bit of magic attached to just about everything around me.... because so many concepts were introduced to me at the most impressionable times of my life. I literally do everything with my kids exactly the same as he did. For any new fathers out there wrestling with the responsibility, I know this for sure.... a little TIME.. EVERY DAY...not just being-in-the-same-room-time, I mean FOCUSED, CONCENTRATED, ATTENTION... even if only 30 mins. that, and open as many new doors for hands on opportunity and exposure to a wide range of experiences... and I promise you will watch your kids flourish while others appear unmotivated and lack direction.