My mother called me the other day to share that she had watched the “Stay-At-Home Dad – Redefined” segment, which I recently posted.
“I loved it, Dana, but there was one part which really made me cringe.”
“What was that, mom?”
“Where the dad throws the pillow at his kid. I cringed.
“Mom, it was a pillow.”
“I know, but it still bothered me.”
We got off the phone soon after and for a split second I became rather worried about it. Would other people react the same way? I mean, this was my mom – the one who usually gives glowing reports. I mentioned the conversation to my wife and she shared a similar feeling. My sister-in-law had reacted to it as well.
And then it dawned on me: this brief, three second shot was the line-crossing distinction between the way most moms and dads typically handle their kids. The dads and men I’ve shown the clip typically chuckled at the pillow toss. It goes along with wrestling on the carpet, tossing the kid in the pool, carrying the kid through the air like a fighter plane around the house....
Do most moms do this? I’m sure some do as much as I’m sure some dad out there is going to watch that pillow hitting the boy and cringe – and not only is that fine by me, but it’s part of the point of the film. We’re in a time right now where women are doing men’s things and men are doing women’s things. The old rules no longer apply. There is an openness in the air about how to live, affected by changes in technology, economics and social movements. The evolution of dad, mom, family, society – it’s all connected. The key is becoming more open minded to new models and respecting differences of approach, if they’re beneficial – and especially if they involve pillows.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Redefining the Stay-At-Home Dad - From Director Dana Glazer
I have so many hopes for how the finished film can potentially help the American dad as well as the family unit overall. There really is the possibility of changing people’s perspectives on how we see fatherhood and creating an impact not only on father/son/daughter relationships but to possibly influence corporate and governmental policies regarding paternity leave. However, if nothing else happens, I hope the film can redefine what it means to be a Stay-At-Home Dad. This was the initial impetus for making the film and although the scope has changed, fundamentally it’s still extremely important to me.
Personally, I have felt the angst surrounding being an at-home dad. In the past I felt emasculated, angry, alone, helpless and belittled. God bless my wife for the continual emotional/financial support and reminders that what I was doing regarding care of the kids was the most important thing I could have been doing at the time – and still is.
I used to think I was cursed in some strange way. I have always had a passion for filmmaking and have always had a talent for making films but the segue from being a starving artist to a paid filmmaker has been a struggle for me. It’s been frustrating to watch the years go by, trying to screenwrite my way up the Hollywood chain with some success but not enough to push things over the edge. The values they have over there are somewhat poisoned and I found myself writing things that neither fit what they were looking for nor was satisfying for me on a deeper level; and after ten years of banging my head against the wall, I let it all go to focus more on family and to do this project on the side.
It was the best choice I could’ve made.
Making a film about fatherhood is the most integrative thing I could be doing with my life right now. Talking to so many people about what it means to be a dad and studying fatherhood in every possible way has allowed me not only to make something that goes to the core of my being but also to grow as a father and to really appreciate the precious time I have with my kids.
At this point I see jettisoning my former ‘sideways’ career as being the best blessing I could’ve been dealt. Had I not been granted this hand, had I succeeded in being that Hollywood director that my whole life had been geared towards, I would not know my kids as well – and they wouldn’t really know me, warts and all.
So, thanks for allowing this private digression and let me get back to point: if nothing further, I hope the finished film will allow you to view what an involved dad does from a more meaningful, empowered perspective. Below is a video I just put together for the possible supplemental inclusion in a Time.com article. It is a brief sample of what this larger film is about. Dallas Hayes, the subject this short piece focuses on, has the potential for redefining our cultural assumptions about Stay-At-Home Dads.
I hope you find him as inspiring as I have and look forward to hearing what you think.
Dana
Personally, I have felt the angst surrounding being an at-home dad. In the past I felt emasculated, angry, alone, helpless and belittled. God bless my wife for the continual emotional/financial support and reminders that what I was doing regarding care of the kids was the most important thing I could have been doing at the time – and still is.
I used to think I was cursed in some strange way. I have always had a passion for filmmaking and have always had a talent for making films but the segue from being a starving artist to a paid filmmaker has been a struggle for me. It’s been frustrating to watch the years go by, trying to screenwrite my way up the Hollywood chain with some success but not enough to push things over the edge. The values they have over there are somewhat poisoned and I found myself writing things that neither fit what they were looking for nor was satisfying for me on a deeper level; and after ten years of banging my head against the wall, I let it all go to focus more on family and to do this project on the side.
It was the best choice I could’ve made.
Making a film about fatherhood is the most integrative thing I could be doing with my life right now. Talking to so many people about what it means to be a dad and studying fatherhood in every possible way has allowed me not only to make something that goes to the core of my being but also to grow as a father and to really appreciate the precious time I have with my kids.
At this point I see jettisoning my former ‘sideways’ career as being the best blessing I could’ve been dealt. Had I not been granted this hand, had I succeeded in being that Hollywood director that my whole life had been geared towards, I would not know my kids as well – and they wouldn’t really know me, warts and all.
So, thanks for allowing this private digression and let me get back to point: if nothing further, I hope the finished film will allow you to view what an involved dad does from a more meaningful, empowered perspective. Below is a video I just put together for the possible supplemental inclusion in a Time.com article. It is a brief sample of what this larger film is about. Dallas Hayes, the subject this short piece focuses on, has the potential for redefining our cultural assumptions about Stay-At-Home Dads.
I hope you find him as inspiring as I have and look forward to hearing what you think.
Dana
Sunday, July 1, 2007
From EvoDad Subject Dallas Hayes...
I asked Dallas Hayes to contribute to our blog and here's what he wrote. Enjoy! - Dana
Good Enough Dad:
I'd like to thank Dana Glazer for his kind words, calling me an 'amazing father', however I want to point out that that is not how I see myself. I worry that as a subject of this film that I will be held up as an example of 'how to be a dad'. Perhaps I'll be seen by others as presenting myself as some kind of authority on how to be a dad. Please know that nothing could be further from the truth. If anything I see myself as a 'good enough dad', but more on that later.
My reasons for participating in this project are varied but most important is not to make a statement about the quality of parenting but about the quantity. I know that to others, the focus of my experience is that I'm a man who is a full time stay-home father. For me the focus is that I'm a parent who chose to stay home.
When it comes to the actual parenting we follow the tried and true practices that first-time parents have followed for millennia: we're winging it. What is important to us is that whether our parenting is good or bad, that there is a lot of it.
My only advice would be to be confident. After all humans have been parenting for close to 200,000 years, and there are over 6 billion of us on earth now. Surely it can't be that hard. Fortunately, in my opinion being the best parent you can be requires only that you be yourself. Your parenting ought to be an expression of who you are, a representation of the life you've led and lead. After all, you are you; your child is your child. The rest happens on its own if you let it. I am aware that society does not share this view. Our media is filled with admonitions and dire warning of how our screwed-up parenting is screwing up our kids. Our media also fosters the unrealistic expectation that all children are by default perfect and only become less so in the hands of their parents. Ignore this. My position is not that I'm perfect, nor is my child, neither is my parenting. My position is that as human beings with almost 200,000 years of evolution built into us, if left alone we'll do a job that is GOOD ENOUGH! Provided of course we’re there to do the job.
I know "Good Enough" is a tough cry to rally around when it comes to parenting. I'm aware that we all have hopes and dreams of greatness for our children and "good enough" just doesn't seem like it's going to get the job done, does it? I can't answer that for you. As I said above your parenting has to be an expression of who you are. For me, when I thought about parenting I was forced to realize that my hopes and dreams as a parent were ancillary to my responsibilities as a parent. I'll start off by saying that to me the 'hopes and dreams' are wish-fulfillment, they represent what I want for my child and they need not to be realistic at all, in fact they should be unrealistic. Better call Child Protective Services if I'm not dreaming of raising the next Einstein, Bill Gates or Shaq. The 'responsibilities' are more concrete, they represent what I think my family needs, what my child needs, and what society needs from me in my role as parent of a new member of society. The responsibilities as a parent and the hopes and dreams of a parent are not exclusive at all, but I think it can be said that all too often nowadays having hopes and dreams is seen as being the same as fulfilling the responsibilities. Let me tell you the hopes and dreams I have for my son, and as I see them, the responsibilities. I'm a simple man. If my son is happy by his own definition of happiness, and rich enough to buy his poor devoted parents a canal house in Amsterdam, and a villa on the French Riviera before we're too old to enjoy them, I'd be happy. Needless to say, that represents my hopes and dreams. The responsibilities were a little harder to formulate. Took me a little while to figure out how to put into words what I feel my family, my child and society needs from me as a parent. Finally I boiled it down to this: My responsibility as a parent is to raise my child to competent independent adulthood. I know it doesn't seem like I've set the bar too high, but remember these are responsibilities, they represent the minimum of what I expect to achieve as I perform the duties of a parent, what I keep in mind as I go about my day with my son. Our society encourages setting the high bar, the higher the better. In fact you may be seen as a neglectful parent if you deprive your children any conceivable opportunity for greatness, but not if you deprive them of yourself. My parenting is based up rejecting this conventional wisdom.
To sum up: Ignore the experts, be yourself, be realistic and most importantly: be there as much as you can.
-Dallas
Good Enough Dad:
I'd like to thank Dana Glazer for his kind words, calling me an 'amazing father', however I want to point out that that is not how I see myself. I worry that as a subject of this film that I will be held up as an example of 'how to be a dad'. Perhaps I'll be seen by others as presenting myself as some kind of authority on how to be a dad. Please know that nothing could be further from the truth. If anything I see myself as a 'good enough dad', but more on that later.
My reasons for participating in this project are varied but most important is not to make a statement about the quality of parenting but about the quantity. I know that to others, the focus of my experience is that I'm a man who is a full time stay-home father. For me the focus is that I'm a parent who chose to stay home.
When it comes to the actual parenting we follow the tried and true practices that first-time parents have followed for millennia: we're winging it. What is important to us is that whether our parenting is good or bad, that there is a lot of it.
My only advice would be to be confident. After all humans have been parenting for close to 200,000 years, and there are over 6 billion of us on earth now. Surely it can't be that hard. Fortunately, in my opinion being the best parent you can be requires only that you be yourself. Your parenting ought to be an expression of who you are, a representation of the life you've led and lead. After all, you are you; your child is your child. The rest happens on its own if you let it. I am aware that society does not share this view. Our media is filled with admonitions and dire warning of how our screwed-up parenting is screwing up our kids. Our media also fosters the unrealistic expectation that all children are by default perfect and only become less so in the hands of their parents. Ignore this. My position is not that I'm perfect, nor is my child, neither is my parenting. My position is that as human beings with almost 200,000 years of evolution built into us, if left alone we'll do a job that is GOOD ENOUGH! Provided of course we’re there to do the job.
I know "Good Enough" is a tough cry to rally around when it comes to parenting. I'm aware that we all have hopes and dreams of greatness for our children and "good enough" just doesn't seem like it's going to get the job done, does it? I can't answer that for you. As I said above your parenting has to be an expression of who you are. For me, when I thought about parenting I was forced to realize that my hopes and dreams as a parent were ancillary to my responsibilities as a parent. I'll start off by saying that to me the 'hopes and dreams' are wish-fulfillment, they represent what I want for my child and they need not to be realistic at all, in fact they should be unrealistic. Better call Child Protective Services if I'm not dreaming of raising the next Einstein, Bill Gates or Shaq. The 'responsibilities' are more concrete, they represent what I think my family needs, what my child needs, and what society needs from me in my role as parent of a new member of society. The responsibilities as a parent and the hopes and dreams of a parent are not exclusive at all, but I think it can be said that all too often nowadays having hopes and dreams is seen as being the same as fulfilling the responsibilities. Let me tell you the hopes and dreams I have for my son, and as I see them, the responsibilities. I'm a simple man. If my son is happy by his own definition of happiness, and rich enough to buy his poor devoted parents a canal house in Amsterdam, and a villa on the French Riviera before we're too old to enjoy them, I'd be happy. Needless to say, that represents my hopes and dreams. The responsibilities were a little harder to formulate. Took me a little while to figure out how to put into words what I feel my family, my child and society needs from me as a parent. Finally I boiled it down to this: My responsibility as a parent is to raise my child to competent independent adulthood. I know it doesn't seem like I've set the bar too high, but remember these are responsibilities, they represent the minimum of what I expect to achieve as I perform the duties of a parent, what I keep in mind as I go about my day with my son. Our society encourages setting the high bar, the higher the better. In fact you may be seen as a neglectful parent if you deprive your children any conceivable opportunity for greatness, but not if you deprive them of yourself. My parenting is based up rejecting this conventional wisdom.
To sum up: Ignore the experts, be yourself, be realistic and most importantly: be there as much as you can.
-Dallas
ANOTHER FIX OF...FATHERHOOD - From Associate Producer Tracy Russell
Too much information running through my brain...and yet I'm SO driven to seek out more and more and more... I fear I have recently fallen victim to that curious 21st century condition, web junkieitis. And the really nutty thing is I don't mind! Thanks for joining me, by the way, for this late night nosh. This weekend I concentrated on two information gathering agendas- finding companies to approach for sponsorship and finding contact information for our "wish list," of well known people we would like to have appear in the movie. I have gleefully been plugging away at these tasks with the utter satisfaction that only an internet addict could muster. As I travel further into the maze, down the rabbit hole and occasionally off on a delicious tangent that can't be ignored (which I then foward into piles of emails to Dana- sorry Dana,) I am beginning to fully realize the enormity of our subject matter, FATHERHOOD and the enormity of our responsibility to our subject matter and to the subjects of our subject matter. It's daunting, yet absolutely magnetizing. And, as I consider this, I see more clearly now that it's not the gathering of information that's so intoxicating, It's the educating of oneself about what is really going on "out there." It's the grappling with tough issues in order to come to some kind of understanding. It's the playing a little part in the making of something big.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
A BALANCED MEAL OF...FATHERHOOD - From Associate Producer Tracy Russell
"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste..." Actually, I am a woman of taste...and debt. The debt part, well, that's for another blog (the single mother's in debt support group blog, maybe.) But the taste part, that's relevent here. I have had the good fortune to become involved with this tasty project- at once innovative (the salad of microgreens,) challenging (the raw oyster appetizer,) substancial (the pot roast entree,) and comfortingly sweet (the chocolate pudding dessert.) My name is Tracy Russell and I am working with Dana on Evolution of Dad, as an associate producer.
Since Dana last wrote, shortly after Father's Day, we are cooking! The Father's Day Video on YouTube peaked at over 368,000 viewings! One of the many contacts resulting from the Father's Day Video posting is Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a freelance writer for Time Magazine, who called Dana last week and interviewed him for a proposed article about fatherhood. Check out her blog bite about our project at http://time-blog.com/work_in_progress/
for the date of 6/26/07. This week a local publication printed an interview with Dana that really goes into some nice detail about his motivation behind the project. Check out the article at http://www.hudsonreporter.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18535926&BRD=1291&PAG=461&dept_id=523592&rfi=6 .
I am beginning to carve into the daunting task of finding sponsers to help support the filmmaking process. If anyone has ideas of specific companies who may be inclined to want to align themselves with a positive film project about fatherhood- let me know.
Hungry for more updates about this project? Sit down with me tomorrow for another juicy morsel...
Since Dana last wrote, shortly after Father's Day, we are cooking! The Father's Day Video on YouTube peaked at over 368,000 viewings! One of the many contacts resulting from the Father's Day Video posting is Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a freelance writer for Time Magazine, who called Dana last week and interviewed him for a proposed article about fatherhood. Check out her blog bite about our project at http://time-blog.com/work_in_progress/
for the date of 6/26/07. This week a local publication printed an interview with Dana that really goes into some nice detail about his motivation behind the project. Check out the article at http://www.hudsonreporter.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18535926&BRD=1291&PAG=461&dept_id=523592&rfi=6 .
I am beginning to carve into the daunting task of finding sponsers to help support the filmmaking process. If anyone has ideas of specific companies who may be inclined to want to align themselves with a positive film project about fatherhood- let me know.
Hungry for more updates about this project? Sit down with me tomorrow for another juicy morsel...
Monday, June 18, 2007
Happy YouTube!
I posted the Father’s Day videos about a week before the big day and the hits were a mild trickle at best. I would excitedly come upon an occasional email sent to my account that a comment had been left. By day 5 the main video had reached just under 500 hits and I was happily resigned to the fact that my viral marketing idea had kind of flopped on its face. Oh well. It had seemed to be a good idea when it struck me in the shower six weeks earlier. At the very least all the people involved could share the video with their dads and I could do the same with mine.
And then Father’s Day arrived. Strangely, I tossed and turned that night, literally imagining a flood of email comments in my inbox. I did expect that there would be a little more activity and if the hits broke a thousand I’d be all smiles, but the dream seemed like a ridiculous exaggeration.
Wrong.
Upon opening my computer yesterday morning I encountered what can only be described as an email deluge. I tried to keep up with it but realized fairly quickly that it was going to be near impossible. Like someone reaching to close the valve on an overflowing toilet I changed the YouTube settings to halt sending me notices.
The views counter seemed to freeze at 22,554 and I left for Father’s Day dinner feeling vindicated, yet expecting that would be it. Then, two hours later, my ever-faithful associate producer, Tracy, called to share that the views were now around 68,000 and we were at the #1 spot on the YouTube.com homepage.
I'm still a little dizzy with excitement even as things are starting to subside. The video as of this writing has about 144,00 hits. The comments I've received have been so touching and heartfelt.
Making this film -- no -- making films in general is ultimately about connecting with people in a heart-to-heart manner and to do so with this many people is incredibly uplifting for me. So, if you watched the videos and shared a comment on YouTube, I thank you. This has been a very special 24 hours for me personally, soaking in people's reactions and their outpouring of feeling. God bless YouTube for allowing a small video like the one I posted to be shared by so many so quickly. What an amazing site.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Just in time for Father's Day...
It’s been an incredibly intense six weeks since I last wrote in. In mid-May a small film crew and I went around New York City and filmed near to 150 people, talking about their dads. The purpose for this endeavor was to make a short Father’s Day Video. The result was amazing. The candor that some people spoke about their relationships with their dads was incredibly moving. We were also amazed at how many people were happy to be on film until they learned that they would be talking about their dads; and how some people spoke about their dads with incredible anger. The experience really drove home how important the father/son/daughter bond is and the extent to which so many suffer due to their lack of it. It is just confirmation about the importance of a film about involved dads.
I want to thank all the people who generously agreed to be in the video as well as Tracy, Pat, Angelica and Brittany, who schlepped around the city with me, working extremely hard. You guys are the best!
I hope you enjoy the Father’s Day video, which is now posted on the main page, and, if it speaks to you, please share it with those you care about….
Lastly, please check out the 'clips' section to meet one of our amazing dad subjects!
Until next time…
I want to thank all the people who generously agreed to be in the video as well as Tracy, Pat, Angelica and Brittany, who schlepped around the city with me, working extremely hard. You guys are the best!
I hope you enjoy the Father’s Day video, which is now posted on the main page, and, if it speaks to you, please share it with those you care about….
Lastly, please check out the 'clips' section to meet one of our amazing dad subjects!
Until next time…
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