What You’re Doing Is Important

<p><a href='https://dailydad.com/how-fatherhood-has-changed-over-the-years/?utm_source=sendfox&amp;utm_medium=sendfox&amp;utm_campaign=doing-is-important'>These are strange times to be a father</a>. Fathers have never been expected to do more—around the house, in their children’s lives. This is wonderful. It’s also challenging and confusing because societal expectations and the actual process for preparing new dads for doing these things are not quite in alignment. At the same time, the word “masculine” is not indelibly connected to that idea of “toxic masculinity.” So much of what it has and continues to mean to “be a man” are now denigrated and criticized. The modern picture of a dad is somehow simultaneously an overweight oaf who tells lame jokes and a patriarchal tyrant. A control freak and a checked out layabout.  </p><p>And this isn’t even getting into the extreme theories about how <a href='https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190920-the-couples-reconsidering-kids-because-of-climate-change'>having kids is unconscionable in an age of climate change</a> or feminist arguments for <a href='https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdzwb/sophie-lewis-feminist-abolishing-the-family-full-surrogacy-now'>“abolishing the family.”</a> </p><p>The point is: It’s confusing and overwhelming to be a dad sometimes. Who should you be? How should you act? Are you doing the right thing? Or are you a monster?</p><p>Blake Masters, the founder of Spar! (an awesome fitness/habit app that will help you get better and stay healthy) and the co-author of Peter Thiel’s <a href='https://geni.us/Yv1INy'><em>Zero to One</em></a>, has a rather refreshing and inspiring message for dads out there. <a href='https://dailydad.com/what-is-fatherhood/'>We asked him what fatherhood has meant to him</a> and his answer cuts through so much of the noise:</p><p>I am *proud to be a father*, not only in the sense that my particular children have this or that specific quality, or that I teach them x or I learn from them about y. I&apos;m proud to be