Tag: fatherhood

It’s Not Babysitting if it’s Your Kid.

The featured image for Forty Days for Father's Day #8 featuring Casey with his youngest son in a baby carrier.

Last updated on June 5th, 2021 at 12:49 pm

Why the World Has Fatherhood WRONG.

It took me until we had our second child to feel like I was getting a handle on fatherhood, much of the awkwardness I’d had from those early days with our first son melted away as I just sprang into action the second time around.

But I’ll never forget what happened a few weeks into being a family of four when Sarah and I decided to do some grocery shopping with our newborn while our oldest was away at daycare.

Grocery shopping as new parents is always easier when you have two or more people do it together, because trying to manage a baby and shopping cart on your own ain’t easy!

(Putting a car seat on top of a shopping cart is a no-no, so how do you carry you baby and have room for your groceries, too? Do you get a second cart? Get a stroller with generous bottom basket like the Uppababy Vista and take smaller trips? You have to get very creative to make it work, but a parent’s gotta do what a parent’s gotta do.)

So, with two of us there to share the load, we decided to split up and have me walk our baby around the store for his nap while Sarah got everything we needed. And as I did a lap past the meat aisle, an older woman not much lighter in complexion than myself decided to strike up conversation about my baby and me.

“Awww—look at your baby! He’s so cute!”

“Thank you!”

“Oh, I miss those days—he looks so sweet while he sleeps!”

“Well, so far so good, anyway.”

“Where’s the mother? She let you take him out on your own?”

I’m sorry—what???

Continue reading “It’s Not Babysitting if it’s Your Kid.”

#BlackDadWorries

Last updated on March 30th, 2021 at 10:21 pm

Yesterday, thanks to the advice from a friend to save my Instagram story to my profile, I came up with a new hashtag #BlackDadWorries that spells out how I feel in the face of all this death. And death isn’t even calling it what it is—murder, with Black lives continually cut short, and the message made clear: there’s nowhere out there where Black people should reasonably expect to be safe from a world that’s trying to get them.

My boys are still young, but they’re growing up quick, developing worlds and lives of their own. And while I’d love just to sit back and let them develop on their own so they can build senses of self in the truest sense of the phrase… the world we live in won’t let me do it. Yes, they’re six and four, but they’re six- and four-year-olds who hear they look “dirty” because their skin is darker. Six- and four-year-olds who hear they’re not white enough to play with other kids. I’d love to take things slow, but their world’s developing quickly, and it makes me wonder when I’ll need to sit them down and tell them what the world’s really like.

CONTINUE READING about my #BlackDadWorries and the things I know I’ll need to teach them in the not-too-distant future 😕 “#BlackDadWorries”

Why I Made The Corona Chronicles A Series

Last updated on November 4th, 2020 at 04:25 pm

Is this what the world’s end looks like? Credit to André Proulx.

What do you even write about when the whole world’s burning down? Multibillion-dollar sports empires ended their seasons early. The travel industry shut down in one fell swoop. I didn’t start talking about COVID-19 right away because it was all anyone could talk about, but as soon as we closed schools down for three weeks across Ontario, how could I not?

When I first published The Corona Chronicles on March 13th, though, I was so short-sighted. I called the three-week quarantine “March Br3ak”, thinking this would all somehow resolve itself by April. I didn’t jump on long-term prep right away, figuring I could do some catch-up once things calmed down a bit.

But then our businesses shut down on the 16th. Travel another four days later. We learned that this was no small thing—we needed to learn a “new normal” with a very uncertain future ahead. This was no three-week ordeal.

And as the days dragged on and I kept writing about the experience, it only grew clearer there was more going on than a single post could contain. I needed a full series.

So here, in week eight of The Great Quarantine, I’d like to welcome you to The Corona Chronicles: The Series, where we talk about life as a family in Toronto, trying to stay sane each day as we find new ways to adjust.

I, for one, look forward to returning to some semblance of normal soon, but until we do, you can expect me to keep writing about it.

Be well, everyone, and keep doing what you need to to make it in these times!

Until the next, I remain,

The Year That Was… 2019.

Last updated on April 7th, 2021 at 01:53 am

“Reality tells you what you can’t do.”

— Rick Rubin on HBO’s The Shop: Uninterrupted, Season 2, Episode 4

It’s the end of a decade, and I can’t help but reflect on where I am now versus where I was back in December 2009.

This entire decade, pretty much, has been the balancing act between the blog, the family, and the day-to-day work as a public servant for Ontario.

Back then, I’d just started my first job out of the Ontario Internship Program, putting my time and energy into that and the time I spent with Sarah. I didn’t even really use Facebook at the time, much less everything I’d get up to on Twitter just a year later—the world I spend all this time on now as a Canadian Dad was utterly inconceivable to me back then, because so much less was on the line. Nor was I married. Or had any kids. So many of the things that make me a better man and keep me coming back to do the best that I can for all that are things I wouldn’t appreciate until I had them.

But a decade later, my friend Ramy put it to me best—the more you do something, the more your capacity grows to take on even more, and that’s the mentality I’m keeping with me as I get ready for 2020. Work smarter. Plan better. Make better decisions. I’ve come this far this last decade while doing whatever I wanted and getting better at it along the way. But you eventually hit a point where that just doesn’t cut it anymore, and in 2020, I think I’ll finally learn what I’m made of.

LESSON ONE: Success is More Than Just a Number on a Screen

One thing I can tell you that separates the me today from the person I was a decade ago is that I think differently.

When I started this blogger journey, I treated success like it was a quantifiable measure. That I was the sum of the followers I had. Or that I should measure my happiness by the number of comments I got on my work. I would chase after engagement rates, post frequencies and Domain Authority scores, thinking that they were the keys to my success, but what I understand now is that they’re all just indicative of something much larger at play.

It goes back to what I’ve been saying all along—the medium doesn’t matter if you’ve got an amazing story to tell.

When I took a break from creating as intensely as I usually did in the last few months of the decade, it made me understand that it was what I probably should’ve been doing all along—taking the time to make my work great instead of just good. You get used to trying so hard to be first or trying to be on trend that you forget that great work usually doesn’t just pop out of thin air. If you don’t spend the time and nurture it, you’re only doing yourself a disservice.

What that sweat equity looks like for me is bleeding pens dry. Blazing through as many notebooks as I can. I’m trying to spin gold from a dining room table full of straw every night, and as much as it pains some right now to see me work as hard as I do, I keep doing it because I know there are higher heights I can reach if I try.

CONTINUE READING about a few more lessons I learned and what I look forward to in the ten years ahead! “The Year That Was… 2019.”

Rick Campanelli | I’m Where I Need to be Right Now

Last updated on April 21st, 2021 at 09:32 pm

‘Tis the season for holiday parties, holiday traffic, and a whole gaggle of germs with cold and flu season upon us… just in time for the holidays.

With our youngest hit by a pretty nasty cough over the weekend, productivity ground to a halt. You can easily take for granted how much you’re doing until something more important comes along and forces you to reprioritise. I learned over time to feel the pressure a little less and accept that my family doesn’t need me to be the best creator in the game—they need me to be present.

And so as I lay down in the bottom bunk of my sons’ bed with a kid who woke up for maybe the twelfth time that night, I put all thoughts of podcasting aside and took care of home as Dave Hollister aptly put it back in 2000.

But now that he’s up and running again, so am I, and it’s time to continue our storytelling journey with Chatting with Casey, Episode 15—I’m Where I Need to be Right Now.

It’s Chatting with Casey Episode 15 with Rick Campanelli! Come check it out! “Rick Campanelli | I’m Where I Need to be Right Now”
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