Happy Sunday, dads.
Andrew here. We’re deep into summer now, and if your house is anything like mine, the routine has shifted, the days are longer, and everyone is figuring out what this season is actually going to look like.
This week, I want to talk about something that comes up a lot in the summer but doesn’t get named enough. Freedom. And what it actually means when you’re a dad.
Most dads think about freedom the way they did before kids, the ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Answer to nobody. Go where they feel like going. And then you become a dad, and that version of freedom quietly disappears. Replaced by school schedules, bedtimes, permission slips, and the general chaos of keeping small humans alive and somewhat well-adjusted.
But what I’ve come to believe is that you didn’t lose freedom when you became a dad. You traded one version of it for something better. You traded the freedom to do anything for the freedom to actually matter to someone. And once you’ve felt that, really felt it, the old version feels pretty small.
This issue is about that. What freedom actually means now. And how you raise a kid who knows how to use theirs.
Let’s get into it.
And if you’re new here, welcome to The Dadder Dispatch. You picked a good weekend to show up.
Summer has a way of shifting everything: the routine, the pace, the rhythm of the week. And with that shift comes an opportunity most dads miss: the chance to be more intentional about how you show up when the structure isn’t doing it for you.
This week’s two challenges are about exactly that. One is about protecting the time you give your kids before the summer fills up around it. The other is about giving your kids the space to start making their own decisions. Both are about freedom, yours and theirs.
Open your calendar right now. Look at the next seven days. Count how many hours are actually blocked for your kids, not “around” them, not “I’ll be home by 6,” but specifically blocked for them. A window that can’t move.
If the answer is zero, that’s the problem. Hope doesn’t show up on a calendar. Decisions do. Pick one window this week, even just an hour, and block it like it’s a meeting with your most important client. Because it is. Block it today, before the week fills up around it.
Today, give your kid one real choice. Small but real. What’s for dinner? What movie tonight? Which way to walk home? Then honor it, even if you would’ve picked differently. Especially if you would’ve picked differently.
Here’s the thing about freedom: it has to be practiced. Kids who never get to make real choices grow into adults who struggle to make them. The flex here isn’t giving them the choice. It’s letting their choice stand. One decision. Theirs. Honored. That’s how you raise someone who knows how to think for themselves.
The DadderUp app drops a fresh Dad Flex daily, built for the kind of dad who doesn’t wait for the new year to level up. Download it and start tomorrow.
From our conversation with Kyle Beats, music producer, YouTube creator with millions of followers, and new dad.
Kyle built one of the most influential platforms in modern music culture. Views, revenue, momentum, he had all of it. And then he had a kid. And something shifted that no algorithm could have predicted.
Before fatherhood, Kyle described his version of freedom the way most young guys do. The ability to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Build what he wanted. Go where he wanted. Answer to nobody. That was the dream, and he was living it.
Then his daughter arrived. And that definition of freedom didn’t disappear. It got replaced by something bigger. He told us that becoming a dad gave his life a kind of meaning that views and money never could. The late nights weren’t just about building a brand anymore. They were about building something for her. The discipline it took to show up consistently in his work sharpened, too, because now the stakes were real in a different way.
What Kyle figured out is something a lot of dads eventually land on: freedom doesn’t go away when you become a dad. It gets redefined. You trade the freedom to do anything for the freedom to actually matter to someone. And once you’ve felt that, the old definition feels pretty small.
On the day after Independence Day, that’s worth sitting with.
“How do I give my kids more independence without feeling like I’m losing control?”
— Darnell, dad of two, DadderUp community
First, that feeling of losing control? That’s not a warning sign. That’s just what growth feels like from the parents’ side. Your kid is supposed to need you less over time. That’s the whole goal. The discomfort you’re feeling is actually evidence that you’re doing it right.
Here’s the reframe that helped me. Control and influence are two different things. When your kids are little, you have a lot of control, and you’re building influence. As they get older, the control naturally decreases, but if you’ve done the work, the influence stays. The dad who tries to hold onto control as kids grow up usually loses both. The dad who intentionally builds influence, through trust, through consistency, through being someone safe to come back to, keeps it for life.
The practical move is to give independence in layers. Start small. Let them make a real choice and watch what happens. Let them fail at something low-stakes and figure their way out. Give them a responsibility and don’t swoop in to fix it when it goes sideways. Every time you do that, you’re not losing control. You’re building the thing that replaces it. You’re building a kid who makes good decisions because you trusted them enough to practice making them.
The goal was never to raise a kid who needs you forever. It was to raise a kid who chooses to come back to you because you were worth coming back to.
I know this sounds like something a finance bro would say, but hear me out. Think about your relationship with your kid like a bank account. Every interaction is either a deposit or a withdrawal.
A hug in the morning: deposit. Showing up to the thing they asked you to come to: deposit. Putting the phone down when they’re talking: deposit. Keeping a promise: deposit.
And on the flip side: losing your patience over something small, breaking a commitment, saying “in a minute” eleven times in a row, being physically present but mentally in a completely different zip code: withdrawals. All of them.
Here’s the part that got me. You can love your kids more than anything in the world and still be overdrawn. Because love doesn’t make deposits. Actions do. And I was making withdrawals I didn’t even know were withdrawals.
The canceled plan I didn’t think was a big deal. Turns out, it was a big deal. The times I half-listened while pretending to fully listen. They clocked it every time. The moments I said “good job” without actually looking at what they made. Kids know the difference between real attention and performance attention. They always know.
So I got intentional about it. A hug at the start of every day, non-negotiable. Time blocked on the calendar, not “I’ll get to it” but actually blocked. Words that are specific, not “good job” but “I noticed how hard you worked on that, and I’m proud of you.” Acts of service are doing things before they have to be asked for.
Simple stuff. Obvious stuff. Stuff I knew but wasn’t consistently doing.
The balance in that account is what gives your kid the confidence to go out and be independent. To take risks. To trust themselves. A full love bank account is basically the whole job. Make a deposit this week. A real one.
What’s your biggest deposit into your kid’s love bank account this week?
Kyle Beats built one of the biggest creator platforms in music. Then he had a kid, and everything shifted. We talked about sleep deprivation, identity, real-time reshuffling of priorities, and what freedom actually means once someone depends on you. If you’re a new dad or remember what those early days felt like, this one’s for you.
I started treating my relationship with my daughters like a bank account: deposits and withdrawals. Sounds weird, I know. But it changed how I show up every single day. This breaks down the five specific things I do to maintain a high balance. Worth the watch, especially if you feel like you’ve been making more withdrawals than you realized.
We’ll keep showing up with the emails. All we ask? If this week made you think about the deposits you’ve been missing, send it to a dad who needs the same reminder.
