Welcome to Real Dads Forever

Occasionally, without warning, the drunken wreckage of my father would wash up on our doorstep, late at night, stammering, laughing, reeking of booze.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Beating on the door, pleading to my mother to open it. “These my boys just like they is yours!”

He was on his way home from drinking, gambling, philandering, or some combination thereof, squandering money that we could have used and wasting time that we desperately needed. Sometimes he was a stone’s throw from our house in rural northern Louisiana. As a parting gift, he would drop by to bless us with an incoherent 30 minutes of drunken drivel, crumbs that I hungrily lapped up, time that would be lost to him in the fog of a hangover by the time day broke. It was as close as I could get to him, so I took it.

Struggles and Successes

I have been privileged to share in the lives of a vast array of fathers and family men of very diverse backgrounds.  Dads, step-dads, big brothers, uncles and grandfathers are all included.  I have heard lots of their stories.  I have celebrated with the new father, hours after the birth of his first child.  I have swapped delivery room stories with a group of men who winced with painful expressions as they related, with passion and empathy, the labor pangs they shared with mom. 
Some men have only completed 7th grade, and some have completed college.