The Unhinged Father
Welcome to The Unhinged Father (TUF), a podcast that brings a relatable and unapologetic look at the challenges of modern fatherhood and life as a millennial dad. Each week, we dive into the ups and downs of parenting, personal growth, and navigating a world that sometimes feels like it’s lost its way. This is a space for young dads, parents, and anyone on a path of self-improvement who wants to hear real talk about life’s struggles, triumphs, and everything in between.
As your host, I’m on this journey alongside you. Sharing ideas, life tips, humor, and even some unfiltered takes, we’ll confront societal expectations, challenge common beliefs, and tackle issues affecting everyday families and young men. Here, it’s okay not to have everything figured out—whether you’re a step ahead or behind, we’re all in this together.
Tune in for honest, irreverent conversations on personal development, fatherhood, parenting, mental resilience, and staying grounded in a world of extremes. Expect episodes filled with humor, empathy, practical wisdom, and a sense of community for anyone striving to be a better version of themselves.
TUF is where personal growth, dad life, and real-world challenges intersect. Join the conversation, embrace the journey, and let’s navigate the unhinged side of fatherhood and modern life together.
The Unhinged Father
Creating Safe Havens: Open Conversations on Building Family Trust
In this week’s episode of TUF, we explore the delicate balance of being a “safe space” for your children while maintaining boundaries and guiding them toward growth. Inspired by personal parenting moments—like late-night visits from scared little ones—we dive into the importance of providing emotional safety without over-validating irrational fears.
As a millennial dad, I share my thoughts on why it’s essential to support our kids through their emotions, acknowledge their fears, and still help them develop resilience and independence. From navigating the challenges of tough love to avoiding common pitfalls of “gentle parenting,” this episode tackles the nuanced role of being a parent kids can turn to in their toughest moments.
Key topics include:
- Exploring the concept of being a safe space for children
- Personal reflections on handling kids’ nighttime fears
- The balance between validating fears and promoting strength
- Navigating discipline within a nurturing framework
- The importance of not dismissing children's concerns
- Implications of children seeking help outside the home
- Handling personal slip-ups and the power of apologies
- Building a trusting parent-child relationship
Whether you’re a new parent or a seasoned one, this episode is a candid, unfiltered look at modern parenting’s ups and downs. Tune in and join the conversation!
👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, share your thoughts, and let me know what topics you want to hear next!
Send a message about the episode!
https://linktr.ee/unhingedfather
All right, everyone welcome in. Hope you're all having a fantastic day so far, having a great week, hope 2025 is still off to a good start for you, and that you're making some traction on whatever goals you put into place. I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions, but if you made them, I hope that you're sticking with them. Being a better parent, getting in shape, stopping so much, whatever it is that you've got, hope that you're on track with. With that, I personally am not with a lot of the things that I wanted to do like. One of them was actually planning out the episodes and not just free balling it every week the day before I'm gonna release the fucking episode, but at least I'm staying true to releasing one per week and I'm gonna. I'm gonna stick with that, but got a good episode or at least a good concept plan for you today. I'm going to try and make sure I don't go completely off the fucking tracks with this one. That being said, before we get going, I ask for it at the end of each episode with whatever the automatic thing that I say in the beginning, at the end but if you're listening, if you're a regular listener, you enjoy the show and you've got something that you'd like me to talk about, please hit that little. Send me a message about this episode. Let me know what you think about the episode. Let me know if there's anything that you want me to touch upon in other episodes. Whatever it is, you can also shoot me an email. All the links are provided on the website or on the Instagram page, but I'm definitely looking for what you guys want to listen to, since I am seeing that there are a couple of regular listeners out there, and I really appreciate you guys and want to make sure that whatever I'm talking about is relevant and pertinent and not just whatever the fuck is going on my life at this point in time. That being said, let's go ahead and jump into what I wanted to talk about today, and it's kind of funny, it's.
Speaker 1:This has been something that I've thought about for quite some time being a parent and just having my own parents growing up and some of the things that I went through when I was a kid not to say that my parents were terrible, but we all have different things that we go through when we're growing up. My son, my elder son he's five and a half. Sometimes he'll get scared at night and he'll come crawl into my room with us or crawl into bed, and I remember that I used to do that when I was young too. I would get scared in my room by myself and either go lay on the floor next to my parents' bed or go tell them that I was scared. Whatever it was, I would go to them because I was scared, and it's definitely super annoying as a parent to be woken up and sometimes a little scary. My son the other night he came up to me, grabbed me by the neck to climb into bed and woke me from my sleep. I already tend to wake up in a very defensive way. I've jumped out of bed before thinking that there was an intruder in the house. There was no one there, I was just dreaming and I went straight into the wall, my head went through the drywall and I had to patch it up before we sold that house. It was a thing my wife's been scared ever since that. I'm just going to absolutely demolish one of our kids when they wake me up in the middle of the night because I'm a psychopath. That being said, he came in and he grabbed me by the neck. I woke up a little defensive, but I realized it was him with his little hands, pulled him into bed, gave him a hug, picked him up, walked him down to his room, rubbed his head, told him it was time to go back to sleep it was about one in the morning laid down next to the bed next to him for a little bit and waited for him to fall back asleep. And then I went back to bed, fell asleep and that was that.
Speaker 1:But it got me thinking about this concept of safe spaces, but not the way that you think about it. In today's society, you always hear people talk about like, oh, I need a safe space. Or in college, someone has a differing opinion and they're like oh, I need my safe space. These people are attacking me with their different ideas and their logic and reason, attacking me with their different ideas and their logic and reason. It's not that type of safe space that I'm talking about. It's being a parent and being a safe space for your kids, being a place where they go when they're scared or where they're in a place where they're dysregulated and they don't know what to do, and so they come to you, they rely on you and you're that place that they can go to for safety, for comfort, for whatever it is that they need in that moment. And I've got that with my kids right now, thankfully. I could obviously fuck this up in the future. I don't want to fuck this up in the future, but it's just something to be mindful of.
Speaker 1:This concept of being our kid's safe space is something that I really like, and I wanted to just kind of go into a couple of different things with that today. As I think about it and I realize that I have differing feelings when it comes to this concept of the safe space because, as we talked about in last week's episode and previous episodes is that I do think that we should be pushing our kids to strive towards greatness, that we should be helping our kids grow up, that we should have tough love, that we should let them know when they're doing something wrong, and that we can't just sit there and affirm everything that they say or let them do whatever the fuck they want. We can't let them sit there and be these little tyrants. Kids don't know what they want, they have irrational fears, they have all these other things that go along with them. But at the same time, you can be that I can be the dad who has tough love. I can be the dad who's pushing my kids towards greatness, towards being a good person, towards constantly improving, but also be the person that they come to when they don't feel safe. I don't have to be a dick to push them forward. I don't have to be a fucking cocksucker who's always just sitting there ragging on my kids.
Speaker 1:Or, if they come to me and they're afraid of something, be like oh you're stupid, there's nothing to be afraid of. And invalidating their fear, because even though there may not be a fear, that or whatever they're afraid of, that that may not be real, right, they're afraid of the boogeyman. Obviously you're not going to be like, oh, the boogeyman's real and dad's going to kick the shit out of it. You don't want to validate the fear that they've got, but you also don't want to invalidate the feelings that they've got, because I remember when I was a kid and I was scared, shitless, like it didn't matter what anyone told me, my mind wasn't ready to believe that that was true, and I can still be fearful of it. It's just like today.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm afraid of heights, I'm afraid of flying. I don't like doing that shit Is flying relatively safe, 100%, doesn't matter. What the fuck you say to me Doesn't matter. If you tell me that turbulence is completely normal, I don't fucking care. I don't care at all. I'm still afraid of it. And why would I expect my kids to be any different with fears that are just as quote unquote irrational? So yeah, I just don't want it to get conflated that what I'm talking about today, in terms of being a safe space for your kids, being a place where they come to you when they're afraid, with letting them do whatever they want, or validating things that are completely irrational, or telling them like, oh, this is true or I don't know, just not being apparent about it, just letting them run rampant, letting their imagination run rampant and letting them have these fears and let them continue growing. You can be somewhere in the middle to where you can try to squish the fears but, at the same time, just hold them and let them know, hey, it's okay. And that's what I try to do quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Not in a lot of other areas of my life. I really struggle with empathy and being gentle in so many other aspects of my life, but when it comes to my kids, for some reason I don't know if it's because I'm able to look back and see the little kid that I was, a little scared kid that I was and the fact that I had to grow up a little bit quicker when it came to those fears. I was constantly scared of things. People made fun of me. Parents made fun of me for certain things. Parents tried to scare me and it almost forced me to kind of grow this tough exterior in order to not feel those things, to not be afraid to fall in line in what society or what my family or what others thought that I should be With me and with my kids.
Speaker 1:I personally think that creating a safe space and being the person that they come to and not being the one that they have to worry about we already have a ton of shit we need to worry about in this life. There's plenty of people out there that are going this life. There's plenty of people out there. They're going to fucking scare us. Plenty of people out there that are going to try and tear us down. Plenty of people that are going to try and poke holes in us and what we do. The world is full of slings and arrows and I know this, I know it's true, and I don't need to be an additional sling and arrow for my kid. I don't need to be an additional obstacle for them or an additional hardship to them, because they're going to already have a tough enough time going through life as it is. So why would I add additional pressure, additional stress and be an additional obstacle for them in these things, as opposed to being the loving parent that's there to help them guide through these things?
Speaker 1:But then, at the same time, they can come to me with their fears, with their concerns, with all these things, because if they're not bringing them to me, they're going to take them somewhere. They're either going to internalize them and have issues that pop up later in lives. They're going to take it to their friends, who are going to guide them in the wrong direction. Shit in a scary world. They may take it to an adult, another adult who you don't know, who you don't trust, who can guide them in a completely, absolutely terrible direction, just away from you, away from family, away from love. And that's a huge concern of mine is that if I'm not the space that my kids bring their concerns, bring their fears, who are they going to? Where are they going to? Are they going to the internet? Are they going to another adult they go into? I don't know. I'm not sure where they would be going and luckily, right now, like my kids are young and, as I've said, I am a safe space for my kids right now they come to me, they come to me with those when they're afraid.
Speaker 1:They cry for dad or mom, sometimes too. Obviously you know, me and my wife are a team, but I'm just speaking about me directly. Right now they come to us, they give us a hug, they bury themselves deep in my chest and maybe it's the part of me that thinks that I'm a superhero and wants to be the big, strong protector that just relishes in the fact that when they don't feel safe, they come to me and I can wrap my arms around them or give them a hug or give them a kiss, and that just helps so much to make them feel relieved, to feel like they're safe again and to feel like they can turn around and face whatever the issues are. And don't get me wrong, there have been times where I've violated this trust or this quote unquote safe space that I've tried to create for them.
Speaker 1:There have been times where my eldest gets you know he's at that age, he's five, five and a half. This is where they start pushing buttons and try to be annoying and they got the weird voices and they say weird shit that they're picking up from school. And there have been times where I've yelled at him, I've gotten gruff, I've raised my voice quite a bit, told him he's doing something bad and I can see the points in where he's actually afraid of me and luckily I haven't done it too much where he's like legit afraid of me. There have been maybe one or two times where I've raised my voice a little too loud and been a little too intimidating, which it doesn't help that I'm already larger than most adult males and have been told that I have a presence that can be intimidating sometimes Not my words other people. That doesn't necessarily help, especially with young children. I don't realize that my intensity is already like it at this level and so if I just get a little bit more angry or a little bit more animated, it's like I've taken the fucking intensity from a, from like a six, five, six up to like an 11. Just took that dial, turned it to 11.
Speaker 1:But I'm lucky because I've grown up and have learned that I do have a short fuse and I can get angry, and I've had to become more and more aware of the fact that that has a bigger impact on my kids than it does other people or I'm sure I have a big impact on other people as well, but I just don't give a shit as much with other people or with my kids. I really care because I never, ever want my kids to be afraid of me. I don't want them to withdraw from me with their fears, with their hopes, with anything. I want my kids to be able to come to me for anything that they need Now. That doesn't mean that we're not able to still have discipline and still have boundaries and still help guide them along the way.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times with many millennial parents or gentle quote unquote gentle parents or whatever the fuck you want to call it nowadays I don't really give a shit about the titles, but anyone who's a mindful parent I feel like sometimes it's very easy to go down the path of just letting them do what they want, validating the fears or like saying like oh yeah, that's really scary. Or you're afraid of the boogeyman? Oh yeah, I'd be afraid of the boogeyman too. Instead of being like, hey, the boogeyman's not real, but I know that you're afraid right now, and it's okay to be afraid, you validate that emotion as being something that's okay, that's rational, without verifying that whatever they're afraid of is real or that it's something that they should be afraid of, and that happens in a lot of areas. I feel like today I don't have any data to back that up, besides the fact that I just kind of see how people raise and treat their kids and a lot of the things that I see from Insta psychologists, insta moms, insta dads on validate, verify whatever your kids are feeling or whatever they're going with. That's what it is.
Speaker 1:Kids know what's going on. Your job is to be a safe space, but also to be a guiding hand with the kids and take them down this path and help them find the right way. And you may not know the right way. When I say the right way, there is no objective right and wrong in a lot of the things that we're going to come across. It's more so just how you were raised, the type of person you are and the way that you feel like is the best to guide them through this world and ultimately, my hope with all of this is not just for them to come to me in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1:Or, you know my son. He's a procrastinator. He's just like his father. He's a huge procrastinator. He's even better at me in some instances, and bedtime is one of those times where he is a master procrastinator. He will find any reason not to go to bed whatsoever and he's a person of habit and routines and so if you do something one time, he latches onto it and he wants to do that routine again.
Speaker 1:But I was kind of thinking about there was a night where he was hungry and he wanted a snack and it was bedtime but it wasn't too late to where he couldn't stay up a little bit longer. And so instead of being like nope, you go to bed hungry, you didn't eat enough for your dinner or you should have eaten more dinner if you didn't want to be hungry, we let him stay up with us. We let him stay up. I was cleaning the dishes. His mom was, you know, doing something else in the in the kitchen and we got him some peanut butter pretzels or something like that Peanut butters and apples. It doesn't really matter what it was, and he got to sit down and sit there with us and and have his snack and drink some milk and then, you know, brush his teeth and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:But it was just such a different interaction because he felt safe enough, he felt comfortable enough to come to us with the fact that he was hungry and it wasn't anything that he had done wrong, he was just still hungry and he was getting to that age it was like right at that transition period where he was kind of starting to stay up a little bit later and also starting to eat more food. I think it was when he was like four years old. So we were starting to think like, hey, he might need these nighttime snacks to help him stay satiated until he's waking up in the morning. Anyways, it was just nice to feel like he felt comfortable enough to come to me as his dad, to come to his mom, to come to the people that are like the disciplinarians, the adults, to ask us for this and to not feel fear in asking for something this simple, because I know that even me as a kid, or people growing up or kids out there today who live in not necessarily the best situations. They may be fearful of retaliation or getting yelled at or getting smacked from their parents if they're like I'm hungry and it's right at bedtime, or something like that, and so it just felt good that he felt safe enough to bring that to me.
Speaker 1:And ultimately, my goal with both of my kids or however many kids that I have hopefully we'll have at least one more my goal is for them to be able to come to me even when they might be scared or they don't feel comfortable. I want them to come to me when it matters. I want to show them when it's these little things like getting a snack, or they're scared at night and they come into my room and kind of wake me up or whatever, or they ask me for something that they know they're probably not going to get, like when he asked me for candy or chocolate or something like that. I don't want to be the dad that just fucking blows his lid and loses my shit, because that's going to show them that if they come to me with something hard or if they do something that's wrong or not the right time or whatever it is, they're afraid, but it's dad sleeping. I don't want him to lose it.
Speaker 1:I don't want to start showing them that stuff on these little things, because that means that when they're older they're already going to be in this rut or this routine of thinking that I can't bring these things to my dad because he's going to lose his shit. He's going to of thinking that I can't bring these things to my dad because he's going to lose his shit. He's going to get angry and I don't want him to get angry at me. I don't want to face those repercussions Not necessarily that I don't have repercussions for any wrongdoings they do right now, but it doesn't have this emotional burden that comes along with it. If dad lost his shit, dad's disappointed in me. Dad fucking yelled at me. It doesn't have all that stuff with it.
Speaker 1:I want them to be able to come to me when they're older, say they go out, they drink alcohol, their friends drink alcohol and their friend wants to drive. Their friend who was supposed to drive him home got drunk. I want them to call me. I want them to call me and be like dad. I need them to call me. I want them to call me and be like dad. I need you to come and pick me up. I had alcohol, I drank and our friend drank and I don't have a safe way to get home. I want them to come to me with these hard things. I never want them to feel like they're not going to be loved anymore, that I'm going to be so disappointed or so angry. I don't want to have this harsh emotional reaction to when they do things like that, because then they're not going to come to me with them, especially when it matters.
Speaker 1:I want my kids, as adults or young adults or teenagers, to trust in me and to be able to face the consequences that may come, knowing that they're going to have consequences, knowing that there's going to be something bad not necessarily something bad, but like there is going to be a consequence to their action. But the consequence is not going to be that dad loves me less. The consequence is not going to be that dad loses his shit and yells at me and screams at me and doesn't let this go and holds it over my head for fucking ever. I don't want that for them, I don't want that for me and, in all honesty, if I do do shit like that, like I say all the time, we're constantly modeling for our kids how we should behave, how we should act, and what we're showing them is that if we have this huge blow up reaction to something small, especially when they're younger, it shows them that dad can't handle these things. I don't have the emotional maturity to handle the things that they're bringing to the table, that I can't handle when they do something wrong, or that if they are scared or they have fears and they have questions that I'm not emotionally stable enough to be the support that they need, I'm not the safe space that they need in their lives, and so it's my job as a dad to be that to. It's okay. If we slip up, you're gonna get mad, you're going to yell, you're going to break that trust once in a while, it's more so acknowledging it. If you do do it, apologize. There's nothing wrong with apologizing to your kids. Apologize, repair and then try to be that space for them. I want that for my kids.
Speaker 1:I'm a dad who loves. I like tough love. I'm someone who can be very hard, very harsh. I have disciplinarian tendencies for sure, but at the end of the day, I never want my kids to be fearful of me. I want them to have respect for me and I want them to listen to me, and I'm sure that some of that is going to be fear. I'm sure a lot of people are like, oh, they need to fear you to respect you. They can be your friend later. I'm not even saying they need to be my friend.
Speaker 1:I want my kids to know that I have unconditional love for them, that I'm a safe space for them to go to and that, regardless of whatever happens, that I will always love them and I will always give them the support they need, and that they can come to me with their fears. They can come to me with their hopes, their dreams, their questions, anything they have. Dad can handle it, because dad is a stable, safe force in my life and I don't need to go other places to look for it. Because guess what? I don't want my kids going to other places. I don't know what those other places are going to push on them and I know that what I've got maybe not the best, but it's pretty damn good. It's led me down my life in a decent direction so far and I want to make sure that I'm passing that along to my kids.
Speaker 1:So that's what I wanted to talk about today. I'm not sure if it was a coherent path that we went down. I didn't have any notes today whatsoever, so hopefully that that was a good episode. Hopefully you guys enjoy just some of the thoughts that are going through my head and, like I said, if you have anything you want me to talk about, if you have any comments on this episode, click the little, send me a message about the episode button in the description of this podcast. You could also go to the Instagram page. Click the links. Send me an email and if you would like to be a guest on the Unhinged Father show, or Tuff as I like to call it, just shoot me a message. Let me know I'm happy to have dads, moms, professional psychologists, whatever the fuck you are. If you have something that you think would contribute to other listeners of this show, let me know Love to have you on. But that's going to do it for this week. I hope everyone has a good rest of the day.
