The Way Home

Fellas,

Some men inherit blueprints.

Their fathers hand them down in silence or in gestures. How to shake a hand. How to lace up work boots before sunrise. Hold a flashlight steady.

Look a man in the eye and keep your word. For others, there is no blueprint at all just scattered nails, and bent tools.

Fatherhood can feel like building a house mid-storm. You’re up on a ladder, tools rusted, hands raw, trying to steady the frame while the wind pushes hard against your back.

And when you’ve made mistakes when you’ve been absent, or quiet, or simply didn’t know how to show up you might wonder if it’s even worth finishing the build.

But Fatherhood can also feel like building in the calm after the rain.

The sky is clear, the wood is dry, and the frame rises with steady hands. Every board fits where it’s meant to go. You can hear your children’s laughter in the distance.

The wind’s still there, but now it’s at your back, pushing you forward instead of trying to knock you down. And in those moments, you don’t just believe the house will stand… you can already picture the light in the windows.

The Vision You Still Get to Build

Let’s start here.

You don’t need to have started right to end up somewhere beautiful.

A lot of fathers, especially post-divorce, carry around this unspoken shame: “I should’ve been better. I should’ve been there. I should’ve known what to do.”

And listen I get it.

The problem is that “should’ve” becomes a loop in your head.

You start defining yourself by the missed events, the birthday you forgot, the unanswered text you never followed up on.

Psychologists call this negative self-schema when your brain builds a mental “file folder” of every failure, then uses it to predict how you’ll act in the future.

You begin to believe, “I’m the kind of dad who messes up,” so you avoid situations where you could prove yourself wrong.

That avoidance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The less you show up, the more “evidence” you create for the belief that you’re not a good father.

Break the loop with small, repeatable actions that run against the old belief. Don’t wait to feel like a good dad before acting like one; act first, let the feelings follow.

Instead of aiming for a full weekend of bonding right away, commit to a 2-minute check-in call each week. The brain starts logging these small wins into a new “file folder,” slowly rewiring your identity from “absent” to “present.”

Over time, this isn’t just about doing more it’s about becoming the father your child experiences as steady and reliable, even in small doses. That’s how you build a vision, one choice at a time.

Numbness is a Hell of a Drug

For some men, who went through divorce, custody battles, betrayal, heartbreak; numbness is what kept us afloat.

It doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a survival response where your brain dampens both joy and pain to protect you.

In the middle of disastrous circumstances, this is a gift. It’s like your nervous system says, “I’ll carry the heavy load for now, just keep walking.”

The problem? That same protective shield becomes a prison when it overstays its welcome. The brain can’t selectively numb. It dulls everything. You don’t just avoid sadness; you also avoid connection, playfulness, and intimacy.

Here are some ways to rebuild with presence:

And remember, it’s not about how fast it goes.

It’s about not quitting.

A Note on Grief

I’d be lying if I said all efforts work out the way we hope. Sometimes the door doesn’t open. Sometimes, they’re just not ready.

It’s easy to see it as rejection, but what looks like avoidance is often your child creating emotional space to shield themselves from possible hurt.

They’re not saying, “I don’t care about you.” They’re saying, “If I don’t get too close, it won’t hurt if you leave.” But that grief doesn’t mean your love was wasted.

Your effort is still a seed. And sometimes seeds grow in seasons we never get to see. There are fathers whose children didn’t reach back until they were 30. And when they did? They said, “I always wondered if you still cared.”

Show them you do. Even if it’s years from now before they’re ready to say it back.

The Way Home

They say a compass is only useful when you know where you want to go. But fatherhood? Sometimes it feels like you were dropped into the forest without a map and told to “figure it out.”

You don’t notice how far off course you’ve wandered until the trees start whispering things you’d rather not face.

One day you look back and see the path behind you is overgrown; the way forward, unclear.

But the forest isn’t endless.

The way home is still wide open.

You’re not lost. You’re here.

You’re holding the compass now.

And no matter how many turns you’ve taken,

the needle still points forward.

Until next time

Barkim

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