Dads are more than a meme

Issue 12, June 2021

Hi ,

Dads have become a meme. We apply a “dad” label to anything that seems out-of-date or out-of-touch. AC/DC, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin and the likes have become Dad Rock. Still rockin’ those cargo shorts and baseball hats? Yep, Dad Shorts and Dad Hats. An unoriginal or groaner pun went from being a bad joke to a Dad Joke. Any man carrying a few extra pounds has a Dad Bod and I’m pretty sure any film with a battleship or submarine is a Dad Movie, lol.

For the most part, these terms aren’t mean-spirited, laying more in the realm of playful joshing, and illustrate a modern version of the “relatable dad” archetype. This labeling points to an evolution of how caricatured dads are perceived. Gone is the exaggerated image of the authoritarian patriarch who was mostly absent from raising children, and good riddance for that. That said, I do hope the dad image grows out of its current dumpy-and-bumbling-oaf stereotype.

Dad,

Thanks for putting in the time. I didn't appreciate that when I was a kid, but I do now. Thanks for letting me observe you frame walls in the basement without setting out to teach me carpentry. And when I got bored watching you hang drywall, you let me run off to do kid stuff.

I thought it was cool to hold the strobe light thing while you adjusted the timing on your car.

You took me to see Jaws when I was probably too young, and I loved it.

I can’t imagine how hard it was being a single dad in the 1970s. You woke us up in the middle of the night to take us with you when you needed to solve a computer problem at work. But you remembered to bring crayons so we could color on reams of dot-matrix printer paper while you did hours of debugging. And keeping crayons in those magnetic tape storage cases made me a cool kid at school.

You took us camping in the back of a truck with a camper shell. In order for us to sleep comfortably, you built a plywood bunk bed with a cushion for me to lie across. I loved that bed. In the morning you fixed us instant oatmeal on a camp stove.

Thanks for coaching my little league baseball team when no other dad would. We never seemed to win, but you made sure that every kid on the team played and felt important. It was a blast. I don’t know how you managed it all.

I never felt inadequate because you couldn’t afford fancy gifts for Christmas, and honestly, my favorite meals were the nights when you served up a plate of Kraft Mac & Cheese.

Through it all, you taught me strength, patience, kindness, and understanding.

Happy Father’s Day. But remember, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn't even be a father!

There’s a theory that if an infinite number of woodworkers are placed in an infinite workshop, eventually they will all emerge with a cutting board. Trust me, it’s science.

I’ve made my share of cutting boards and there’s no shortage of cutting board videos on YouTube, but it didn’t seem like there was one definitive resource. So I created The Ultimate Guide to Making an End Grain Cutting Board.

Cutting boards make great gifts, aren’t particularly difficult to make, offer a lot of creativity, and will challenge your attention to detail. Give it a shot!

Community Highlight
Workshop transformation

Back in 2017, as David was getting into woodworking, he found my channel on YouTube and shortly thereafter joined The Weekend Woodworker. He loved the course and kindly described his experience in this testimonial video.

Fast forward to the present day, he has transformed his first woodworking space (an empty garage) into an amazing workshop, complete with a framed copy of his course certificate, and has his own woodworking YouTube channel.

Great job, David! We're sorry you have to move but we can't wait to see your new shop!