Feels strange to type “YEAR FIVE” atop the Notion page that acts as a digital greenhouse for what eventually lands in your inbox. This newsletter—which has become my third child in all but biology—is not quite half a decade old, but now into his fifth year. If TNF follows my son’s trajectory—he was nine months old when I first hit publish here—this will be the year when the newsletter starts obsessing about Hot Wheels and Lego.
The changing of the year is a natural time to think about what the next twelve months might look like. It has become a regular conversation in The Dadscord over the last few weeks. Some dads returned to the Year Compass to reflect on the year and plan for the next one. Another resurrected 2023’s advice on how to pull yourself out of a funk, something I’ve returned to regularly in the years since. The #personal-growth channel saw dads sharing their “compass word” for 2025 (a term coined by Summer Koester, with a hat tip to Sean).
I started doing this myself in 2022, when this ‘sletter was nothing but fields. But this year, I struggled to land on a theme that felt right. There were two areas I felt myself gravitating towards as the year closed. The first was the idea of healing/rebuilding; the second was around focus/execution, with the magnetic force of a looming book deadline pulling the needle closer. I shared this with the dads—other words were suggested, I landed the plane down on an island called Progress.
Progress feels right for me because it holds space for both movement and meaning. It speaks to the steady, sometimes messy, but always forward movement required to finish this book—chapter by chapter, piece by piece, bird by goddam bird. Progress doesn’t demand perfection—it is, in fact, its enemy. Progress only asks me to keep going. It reminds me that even when things feel stuck or heavy, growth is always happening beneath the surface. It's a word that celebrates the trying, the showing up, the small victories that add up to meaningful change. And for that, it feels exactly right for this year.
The book occupies a constant 50% of my headspace at the moment. If you had asked me last month, it would have been more like a third. I’m sure that number will only increase as time passes. For the next few months, I’ll continue building in public, writing a book and a weekly newsletter, on top of everything else. Wish me luck.
What does that mean for the newsletter? You’ll no doubt see bleeding between the two, early prototypes of ideas that may end up in the final product, refined after the rubber hits the road. The emails you send, the comments you make, the conversations in the Dadscord are all woven back into the thread of TNF; as I’ve said from the very first day: The New Fatherhood is less about me than it is about us. It’s every dad who decides to do things differently, who pushes back on the status quo because “that’s what dads have always done,” and is willing to accept that choosing the more difficult path is worth the reward it brings. When we progress, we progress together. Our rising tide lifts all boats.
The strength of a group like this isn’t having all of the answers to hand—even though we’re a bright bunch, and if it’s answers you seek, then ye shall find—but it’s knowing that some questions don’t have simple solutions, we’re all learning as we go, and we’re both supporting and being supported by others doing the same. Every shred of narrative shared, every vulnerability exposed, every "yeah, me too" moment is a tiny light illuminating the path forward. That's what makes the hard path worth it.
Don’t just take my word for it. Just listen to Ivor:
3 things to read this week
“How to Watch a Baby” by Kristen Radtke in The Verge. Ignore The Verge’s confusing is-it-a-paywall-or-not and venture merrily into this digital comic exploring the oddness of inviting a tiny human into your house, then finding fake solace in apps that help you manage the unknown. “I opened the app dozens of times throughout the dreamy yet punishing expanse of a day, the tracker neatly converting our care back into minutes and hours, which had otherwise lost all meaning. There were so many mistakes that I could make, but the data was unimpeachable.
“It Wasn’t You. It Was Your Parents” by Jessica Roy in The New York Times. Roy tracks the resurgence in popularity of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, finding its popularity growing “at a time when young people may be feeling especially estranged from their families — politically, emotionally, generationally — and searching for answers to explain why.”
“The Agony of Texting With Men” by Matthew Schnipper in The Atlantic. This analysis of men texting was the best thing I read all week. I felt it deeply in my soul, and it came with a resonant share of horror stories: “One guy told me he left a sports-themed group chat after his friends failed to acknowledge his mother’s death. Another said that he texts constantly with two other dads, but that it took 10 years for them to figure out how to hang out on their own, without their families.”
Which is a perfect segueway into …
Dadurdays in 2025
Men texting each other? That rings a bell …
If you’re wondering, “What the hell is going on with Dadurdays?” you’re in luck. 2025 will see us continue to meet up in real life. I’m terrible at keeping track of things, but we ended 2024 with somewhere more than 20 and less than 40 meetups under our global belts: some with kids, others without, a lot of learnings and a network of Dadmins doing the Lord’s work.
We’re in the process of dealing with a few spam issues—mostly harmless crypto bros, and the occasional scantily-clad woman who—let’s give her the benefit of the doubt here—is looking for a man to help her get pregnant. Some city groups—the Skynets of the class—are becoming self-aware and self-organising, meeting each other with very little organising required on my part. For others, we’ll continue to suggest regular dates to get together and find the time to get more good dads into your life.
Head on over and find a place near you.
An LA dad requests your attention
I contacted the LA x TNF group to see how they were doing, and to see if there was anything we could help out with. Michael responded:
“My son’s school, the Pasadena Waldorf School, was completely burned to the ground, along with about 30 homes of faculty and families. I am the head of the PWS Parent Council (our version of a PTA), and we are the center point for aid for displaced faculty and families.”
They have a GoFundMe halfway towards its target. They are also searching for “large, multi-room spaces near Pasadena that could serve as temporary education spaces for multiple classes.” Their ideal is to keep groups of classes together. If you have any leads on suitable spaces, reply to this email, and I’ll connect you with Michael.
Finally, wrapping up
Two family highlights from the holidays. First, we may have “broken through” with the kids and board games. It’s been a journey—making our way towards the blessed grounds of understanding “It’s OK if you don’t win every time.” Losing still leads to occasional tears, and they’re not always mine. Our current rotation includes SkyJo, Skull, Monopoly Deal, Catan Junior and The Chameleon. I’ve heard very good things about Azul and Cockroach Poker, so they’ll be on the birthday list. (Theirs, not mine. Mine list is always “more records, specifically this one.”)
Secondly, we marked the end of the year with what I hope will become an annual household ceremony—not the airing of grievances, but its polar opposite: releasing the jar of joy. Every week-or-so in 2024, we’d sit down during a weekend meal and write something we were grateful for that week. On New Year’s Eve, we tipped them all out and read them to each other. If I made a word cloud (remember when they were all the rage?) then “Ice cream” and “Sweets” would overwhelm the eyes, but there were plenty of movie nights, sibling love, and quiet considerations there, too.
Highy recommend you take this habit up in 2025.
End Credits
Welcome back to you all but especially the dads who opened this email thinking, “He’s talking about GTA, right?”
Loved | Great | OK | Meh | Bad
In the spirit of perfection being the enemy of progress, this email may include additional typos. If you spot them then congratulations, you win.
Here’s to a great 2025. See you next week.
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The links were so good this week Kevin. I particularly loved the cartoon you shared.
Here's to progress!
I missed the sound of your voice in my inbox! HNY buddy ✨