When I first read it, Kent Nerburn’s views on the different kinds of strength in Letters to My Son, really helped me clarify and understand strength in its different forms.

“Every man has a different strength. A man who chooses to live at home with aged parents, or a man who devotes himself to endless hours of labor to learn the violin or the secrets of quantum physics has a quiet strength that few will ever know. A man who masters his own desire for independence and gives himself over to being a kind and loving father is strong in a way that many others could not match, but his strength is never seen. You need to find your own strength”

Before my second child was born, I was chatting with a jiujitsu friend of mine. He is about a year further down the '“two children road” and I was asking for his thoughts on how he was juggling training consistently and present fatherhood. He said that there is a phase when you find yourself thinking it really would be easier if you just gave up jiujitsu rather than trying to fit in a training session on a regular basis. 

Six months later, I knew what he meant. But I think this impulse applies to more than hobbies. There’s a moment some fathers talk about in hushed tones, usually after the kids are asleep, and the house is quiet enough to hear ourselves think. It sounds something like this:

“It feels easier to just give up. On training. On hobbies. On any kind of regular rhythm that was just mine.”

We’ve all been there. Our partners call us selfish (directly or subtly). We’re fuming because our partner did something selfish. Our children are so selfish. 

Everyone’s selfish.

There’s all sorts of guilt that comes with being labelled “selfish”, which is why we spend so much time and energy trying not to be.

But here’s the great news… we ARE selfish. All of us.

Read on.

Fatherhood invites us to grow, learn, and rethink what we thought we knew.

It’s not just about raising children but also about how we show up in their lives.

Here are seven books that spark new ideas and challenge us to build stronger, more intentional relationships with our children.