Happy Sunday, dads.
Andrew here. July 19th. We’re past the halfway point of summer, and I don’t know about you, but it feels like June was just last week.
Before we get into everything else, I want to ask you something. When you think about this summer so far, the moments, the memories, the stuff you did with your kids, how does it feel? Not compared to some imaginary perfect summer. Just how does it actually feel?
Because I think most dads start summer with a lot of intention. The list. The plans. The “we’re definitely doing that this year” energy. And somewhere between the work schedule, the heat, and the general business of life, some of that gets pushed. Not dropped, just pushed. And the summer just keeps moving.
Here’s what I’ve been sitting with lately, though. At the start of every summer, most dads have this mental list. Things they want to do with their kids. Trips. Traditions. Spontaneous stuff. And I’m not here to tell you what you haven’t done. I genuinely don’t know what your summer has looked like. But what I do know is that there’s still a real chunk of summer left. The days are still long. The kids are still home. The window is still open. The second half of summer can still be the best half.
So this week is about taking stock. Not to measure yourself against some “perfect summer standard,” just to figure out what’s still on the list, what actually matters most, and what one thing you want to make sure happens before August closes out and everyone shifts back into school mode.
Let’s get into it.
And if you’re new here, welcome to The Dadder Dispatch. You picked a good weekend to show up.
We’re past the halfway point of summer. Which means this week’s challenges aren’t about grand gestures. They’re about the small, unglamorous stuff that keeps you strong enough to actually finish the season well. Taking care of your body so you can show up tomorrow. And knowing when to step in for your kid without stepping in.
Tonight before bed, five minutes of stretching. Floor or standing, it doesn’t matter. Hips, hamstrings, shoulders, back. Wherever you’ve been holding tension all day, which is probably everywhere.
Here’s the thing most dads don’t connect: the stress you carry in your body during the day doesn’t disappear when you lie down. It just sits there and wrecks your sleep. And bad sleep means less patience. And less patience means a worse version of you showing up for your kids tomorrow morning.
Five minutes tonight changes that chain reaction. That’s the whole flex.
Today, when your kid is struggling with something hard, a school assignment, a chore, an emotion they don’t know what to do with, don’t carry it for them. Carry it with them.
Sit next to them. Take one corner of the load. Let them carry the rest. Because the dad who finishes everything for his kid raises a kid who can’t finish anything on their own. But the dad who stays in the room while his kid wrestles through something hard, that’s the one raising a kid who knows what it feels like to actually get through something.
Don’t take the wheel. Just stay in the car. That’s enough.
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 Julien J. Marion, father of six, men’s coach, and founder of a practice helping married entrepreneur dads stop shrinking and lead with strength at home.
Julien was born in the Congo, raised across continents, and is now raising six kids while building a business with his wife. He works with dads who are successful on paper but quietly losing themselves at home, and he knows that territory personally.
The thing that hit me most in our conversation wasn’t about yelling, discipline, or any of the tactical stuff. It was this: presence matters more than perfection, even when you’re not physically there.
What Julien means by that is that your kids don’t need you to be flawless. They need to feel you. Your steadiness, your emotional availability, your willingness to be in it with them even on the hard days. A dad who is physically in the room but emotionally checked out is less present than a dad who’s working late but emotionally connected to his family in the way he communicates, follows through, and shows up when it counts.
As we’re doing our summer check-in this week, I think that reframe is worth sitting with. The question isn’t “Did I do enough?” It’s “Was I actually there?” Those are two very different questions. And the second one is the one that matters.
“How do I stay present with my kids during summer when work doesn’t slow down?”
— Marcus, dad of two, DadderUp community
This one’s real, and I think most dads are dealing with it. Summer looks different from the outside: school’s out, the vibe shifts, but for most of us, the workload doesn’t actually change. The kids are home more, and the calendar is just as full. That gap creates a lot of dad guilt if you let it.
Here’s what I’ve learned. Presence isn’t about hours. It’s about the quality of attention. You can work all day, come home exhausted, and still have thirty minutes with your kid that actually means something, if you’re actually in those thirty minutes. Phone down, eyes up, genuinely there. That half hour of real presence does more than two hours of distracted togetherness.
The practical move is to create hard transitions. When work ends, it ends. Not “kind of ends,” it ends. The phone goes somewhere else. You take five minutes to decompress before you engage. You show up as a dad, not as someone who brought their laptop energy into the living room. That switch doesn’t happen automatically. You have to build it into your routine deliberately.
And then, be honest with your kids about it. They’re more understanding than we give them credit for. “I’ve got one more hour of work, and then I’m all yours” lands better than disappearing into your phone without explanation. Kids can handle the truth. What they can’t handle is feeling like they’re competing with something they don’t understand.
You can’t control how busy work gets. But you can control who walks through the door at the end of the day.
I’ve told this story before. Most of you might have already heard it or watched it on the DadderUp Podcast, but I’m telling it again anyway because we’re in the middle of summer, dads are putting pressure on themselves to make every moment count, and this story is the most perfect example I have of what actually matters.
I took my daughters to Kalahari, the big indoor water park in Pennsylvania. Upgraded room, early entry passes, and the VIP lounge. I planned the whole thing. I did it right… Or at least I thought I did.
On the drive home, my girls couldn’t stop talking about the trip. But not one thing they mentioned had anything to do with what I spent money on. It was the car ride up. The songs we sang. The games we played. The fact that I wouldn’t let them on their iPads meant that we actually had to talk to each other for four hours. And something that happened in a bathroom that I won’t get into, but trust me, it became legendary.
I had planned the perfect summer experience. And the thing they remembered was the stuff I didn’t plan at all.
This is what I keep coming back to, especially this time of year when dads are trying to cram the perfect summer into whatever weeks are left. The pressure to make it special, make it memorable, make it worth it. And what your kids are actually going to remember is the car ride. The conversation that happened because the screens were off. The random moment that became a story they’ll tell for years.
You don’t have to build the perfect summer. You just have to show up for the imperfect one that’s actually happening right now.
How has your summer with your kids actually been so far?
Julien is a father of six who works with married entrepreneur dads navigating pressure, identity, and emotional weight. This conversation gets into why good men shrink, how unhealed wounds show up in fatherhood, and what it actually looks like to lead your family with strength and presence, not control.
I spent a lot of money trying to give my daughters the perfect trip. What they actually remembered had no price tag on it. If you’ve been putting pressure on yourself to make this summer special, watch this first.
We’ll keep showing up with the emails. All we ask? If this week made you think about how you’re spending the second half of summer, send it to a dad who needs the same reminder.
