Dadly Men

Originally posted: Saturday, March 5, 2011

Dadly Men

Note:  Hoping my dear husband will do a response post to this on his blog.

My husband is one of those dads who gets on the floor, rolls around with his kids, has massive amounts of energy, and lots of endurance.
Kids gravitate toward him--- kids of all ages.
We were just at a birthday party for a 3 year old girl and everyone was jumping in a huge bounce house.  Seth entered and within 5 minutes all the kids were all over him.  Jumping on him, saying, "get me!  get me!", laughing, even hugging him.  (By the way, our 3 year old does NOT appreciate sharing her Daddy.)
I watched all of this for over 20 minutes with a smile on my face and then suddenly felt a little sad.  It made me wonder if it meant that they didn't get a lot of attention from their dads-- or at least physical attention.
I grew up without a dad and did a brief research project in college on daughters who grow up without dads--- there was not much out there at the time--but one study struck me:  that daughters who don't experience the roughhousing/play of a father grow up with emotions more out of balance.
To be fair, I did see two other dads go in and play with their kids in there (though those weren't the kids flocking to Seth), and I am sure some were working today.
I am wondering if playing with their kids might be the single most important duty in the job description of "Dad".
Still thinking about it all, but wanted to share.