In addition to the incredible sense of loss as a man who desperately wanted the attention of the dad in his life and never got it, I was also left with a void in my experience of what a father should do with his children. I could guess from what I wished I’d had but when it came time for me to be a dad it wasn’t something I’d seen done very well.
Without good role models, I was always unsure of myself. I used to think this was an isolated problem until I started hanging out with other men who were working through personal pain and life issues. One night, as we sat in a circle and shared, man after man acknowledged the pain suffered at the hands of a father. And many echoed my experience of being really uncertain about how to be a father themselves. Hearing all these men was an epiphany for me and, as I alluded to in the introduction, it was the moment that inspired the writing of this book. I wondered how many more men like us were out there wondering what being a father looks like and hoping to get it right.
Jared writes...
The day after that meeting Tim was telling me about all the guys the night before who had talked about the struggles they had with their fathers and the struggles they had with being a father. Everything he said hit home in a heartbeat. I felt like if I were old enough I could be in that group talking about my dad. When he told me about the book idea I got really excited and told him…pretty much insisted…that he write that book. I’m sure this book can help a lot of people. It can help men be better fathers and there are a lot of kids out here waiting for their dad’s to show up…like a knight on a white horse…to save them. That’s what my heart has been longing for. There’s a part of me that hopes my dad reads this book and gets a clue about what I need from him.
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