I’m a singer/songwriter and a single dad of Asher Nicoletto, whom I’m in the process of second-parent adopting. I had a partner (and Canadian-marriage spouse) of 13 years. Shortly after Asher was born through surrogacy, my ex broke up with me and left us for a co-worker. We now do a visitation arrangement, but I’m the primary parent. Asher is my joy, my number one. I used to think I was born to make music, but the minute he came out of the womb, he was handed to me and I knew I was born to be a father. Six-weeks old, Asher even came on the road with my last band and me. He can say his first rock concert was seeing his papa perform in Asheville, NC, opening for Travis Tritt!

In New York, second parent adoptions are legal for same sex couples, but I was in the middle of the process when my ex left us. Technically, I have no legal rights right now but my adoption papers are in and the social worker has come to study my home for the first time. Asher will turn 3 on June 15th and my Indiana mother (who used to curse me for being gay) will fly here to celebrate it with us. Once I had Asher, my whole family accepts him and me like I’d never seen. He is spiritually mine and I forget we’re not biologically related sometimes. He’s amazing and hilarious. I fed him his first bottle, stayed with him nonstop through his first six months until I had to get a babysitter so I could do some work. In September, Asher starts pre-K. From day one, I’ve gotten the comment that I have a natural and strikingly maternal instinct. I see this as the highest of compliments.

 “My name is Derek Nicoletto. I was born to be a father and to entertain you. Asher, your constant “I love you, papa” and, “Papa, pancake please” are how “words will wing us high.” I love you, Bubba. (I’ve called him “Bubba” since birth) I can’t imagine a papa loving his son more than I.

I’ve gone to hell and back for the blessed pleasure of being Dad. My father worked all the time and I only saw him when he’d have to pass through my room to get to his closet in the early mornings and the lateness of night. When he graduated and became a nurse I never saw him again except on Sundays, late nights with Jonny Carson and most holidays until he retired as an A.M.E. ordained minister and associate pastor. I still see him walking to the bus stop from his master bedroom window in the 100 degree blistering heat of summer to the 10 degree winter blizzard frost of Big Apple’s concrete gentle jungle.

I vowed then to never leave children for work. This innocently misguided promise would later continue to influence my life.

Today, the Jobson-Larkin family home schools by attending a litany of outsource educational providers such as: The Horticultural Society (Plant and Nature Sciences); The New York Museum of Natural History (History, Humanity, Biological, Earth and Space Sciences); The New York Chinese School on Mott St. In Chinatown (Mandarin Chinese Immersion School); Co-Op Physics and Biology (Parent Taught Classes); School for Strings (Suzuki Method); and Circus Arts & Movement (Physical Education).  I share this experience with our son’s every day, as their personal Chaupair (Chauffer and Aupair).

Scarlett was born in October 2010. She is a very beautiful, funny little lass. She calls Daddy “Daddy” and calls Mummy “Baby”. She has a brilliant sense of humor and (like her mum) is getting very good at hide and seek. Everyone always says “You’re going to have to lock her up when she is older” – I (probably) won’t go that far, but I will buy a large stick for whenever any local lads come round. In fact, I am already devising a plan on how I deal with said chancers. It will aim to be a very stringent door-policy, while amusing me at the same time.

Either way Scarlett is Daddy’s little girl, and I fear the day when she won’t be. Until then we’re going to carry on having a good laugh, taking the mickey out of each and preparing her to be the first person to win an Olympic Gold Medal, Nobel Prize and Oscar in the same year. She’s cool and has taught me more in the last 18 months than I have gained in my previous 30 odd years. She does a great monkey impression (even when she sees a cat or a pigeon) plus she is brilliant at spotting planes in the sky.

I am a father without a father. My name is David Quinlan and I was born in Dublin, Ireland. I am the fourth of five children. I have three older and one younger sister. I now live in Vancouver, Canada with my wife, Melissa and our two beautiful children, Cait (4) and Asher (2). My dad, Henry J. Quinlan died when I was 26yrs old. At the time, I was travelling through Australia with Melissa. All of my memories of my dad are silent. This is harder to admit than I thought it would be. There are no major life lessons that he taught which jump out at me. To this day, I cannot hear his voice inside my head. Any advice on parenting was only what I may have picked up in passing. Our relationship could best be described as basic. He worked a night shift his entire life as a printer for an Irish national newspaper, so we didn’t really spend a lot of quality time together. He was a good provider for our family. I barely knew him and that leaves me with much regret.

However, I do love him and for years I have wondered why. I now know why. I love him because he was my dad. Circumstance was what it was. Choices were made for the better and times were hard. Now I am a father to two amazing children who are the absolute joy in my life. Since my dad’s death I have lived in Vancouver as an Irish immigrant. What, who and where do I draw my knowledge as a father from? My dad is gone and I now have questions he cannot help me with. Ironically, what has happened is that as I search for answers, I am finding my father within me. The part of him that was kind, caring and gentle. These are the best qualities I could have inherited from him.

I was drawn to acting because of my dad’s love of movies.  By day I manage my time between caring for my children and family, auditioning and bartending at night. It is certainly a juggling act. My children are growing fast and I worry about their future constantly. Am I much different from other fathers. I try very hard to do the best I can, and isn’t that all you can do?

So far my children are loved and cared for by a large, warm and supportive family. We have done many things to ensure their success in these early years. My wife and I taught them sign language from infancy to speed up their communication. They participate in sports and generally have plenty of fun. We goof around, have dance parties, tea parties, play dress-up, bounce on our trampoline, tell stories, sing songs, laugh and cry. My daughter loves dinosaurs and tells everyone she wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up. My son, at two, is hilarious and a dare devil. If it’s high enough he’ll jump off it. They are very loving and caring kids. So far, so good, right?

In September my daughter Cait will be starting kindergarten. I have most of my day times free and my wife only works part-time. This summer will be an extra special time for us all before Cait starts on her own journey without our ever-watching eyes upon her. It is a milestone, but so bitter sweet. We are going to spend as much time as we can together for the next few months. Our backyard will be the hub of our activities with a clubhouse, sandpit, trampoline, and kiddy pool to play in. I would love to be able to document this time so as to show our children in the future that their dad was young, determined and passionate about being a father. I endeavor to fill their memories with joy to the best of my ability. As my father loved me in his own way, their daddy loves them.

One of my, if not my actual, favourite things about being a father is that I got to be Florence’s father.

Flo’s start to life was turbulent, to say the least. Born with an unexpected and life-threatening heart condition that had the knock-on effect of also debilitating her other vital organs meant that my and my wife’s start to parenthood could be billed as us being ever-so-slightly thrown-in at the deep end.

That said, I was already aware that, despite all the books I had read, all the people I had spoken to and sought advice from, and from the antenatal classes I had attended, there would still be a million and one things, both large and small, I wouldn’t (and couldn’t) be prepared for when my child entered the world. If I’m being honest though, Florence’s heart condition wasn’t one of all those things that I was expecting to happen.

Nonetheless, some two years down the line and Florence is now, to put it mildly, thriving, and has been since she was finally discharged from hospital at three months old.

I can honestly say that, to me, my daughter is a marvel, a joy; an inspiration and a miracle – for all the usual reasons parents say such things about their children, and the not-so-usual.

Florence makes me laugh. Daily. That’s quite an achievement by anyone’s standards.

This amazing little person also has the ability to make me stop and wonder, to reminisce about my own childhood and want to play games and use my imagination in ways I haven’t done for years, and of course drive me nuts in that oh-so-special way that only two-year olds can. And yes, she sometimes makes me want to cry, just for being who she is, and I find myself being so glad and grateful that, not only did I end up with this wonderful little person as my daughter, but that I got to be her dad.

I’ve never felt able to please my father.  Growing up in rural Ontario I liked to read and write and act and draw and play sports and make believe; all these things my father disdained as a waste of time.  My only pursuit meriting his approval was our shared passion for draft horses.

Horses for me were always a pleasure; for my Dad they were the means with which his family scratched out a hardscrabble existence.  While my grandmother raised  four children in a series of rental shacks with dirt floors and no plumbing, my grandfather bought and sold horses and used them to cut and haul lumber from the local bush.  Horses also fostered an intense connection between my Grandpa and I  from a young age, a connection that faded as I grew older and discovered some previously unspoken family history.  I discovered my grandfather could be a violent alcoholic and at the age of ten my father quit school to work full time in a local sawmill to support his family while my Grandpa periodically disappeared on drunken binges.  My Dad never had a chance to enjoy much of a childhood of his own; no time for leisure or fantasy or imagination; no time to just play and indulge in the wonder of being a kid.  It was only after I grew older and moved away from home that I began to understand how my father’s upbringing had impacted our own sometimes troubled relationship.

When my own son, Finnegan, was born two summers ago, I was determined to break this cycle.  The legacy my Grandpa passed on to my Dad was a complete inability to express his emotions through anything other than anger, an emotion I have also struggled to control.

As a father, I hope to model a different way of being.  I want Finnegan to feel safe enough to speak his mind on anything without fear of judgment or censure.  I want him to know he is loved by me always and without qualification, no matter what choices he makes.  I want to share my love of horses with him and show him the magical powers of these magnificent creatures.  As a child I was taught that a horse is a thing that must be subdued; broken by brute force to bend to the will of its master.  I never believed it as a child but was always too frightened to say so.

Now that I’m an adult and a professional educator of both children and horses–and most importantly, a father–I never again want to force any living creature to bend to my will.  I’ve learned it is better to ask instead.  So I will try every day to love my own son unconditionally and show him all the ways I know how.  I will follow my own path and offer my hand, and hope that some of the time Finnegan chooses to follow.  And when he chooses otherwise, I can only hope I will love him all the more for having the courage of his convictions, and be man enough to follow his lead.

I’ve never been one to care about money. Earning more than I needed to survive was simply an indulgence, until I became a father. It was shortly before getting married that I first began to feel the responsibility. “You have to start earning more money,” said a friend of my fiancée. “That’s what husbands are supposed to do.” I was taken aback by her antiquated comment. Nonetheless, I recognized that raising a family meant a new financial reality.

I began to focus more on building a “career” and not just having a series of jobs. I was still determined to do what I loved to do; I just had to find a way to earn a decent living doing it. “Honey, I’m pregnant!” “Congratulations, you got the job!” I found out I was going to be a father and that I had landed a dream job in the same week. Everything was falling into place. We could now start-planning renovations on the little tear down we’d bought, and my ascendancy to adulthood would be complete. When my son was born, my heart opened in ways I never knew possible. I would have gladly been an at home father, but with the added cost of a new baby and renovations going well over budget, I was grateful that the work I loved could provide security for my family.

And, then it was a year and a half later. “You’re fired!” The news devastated me. I felt like a complete failure. I hid my pain like a good alcoholic can hide his drinking. But little did friends and even family know that, on most days, my wife came home to a messy house, an empty fridge and a shell of a man. I used to feel so virtuous whenever I changed a diaper or when my toddler son would scream for “dada” and not his mom when he fell down. But it’s easy to be virtuous when you are making eighty five thousand a year. Was that it? Was this all about money? I was taken aback by my own reaction. Me—the man who never cared about money is now feeling totally powerless for not making any? Without that breadwinner title, society was now defining me as a failure. I believed it. I felt useless to my family. My wife’s old-school friend was right. Emerging from this depression I found my life’s purpose: I was born to be a father, and I was born to help other men embrace fatherhood to the fullest. I am a champion of fatherhood—a “dadvocate” who now earns his living by helping corporations thrive by recognizing and adapting to the changing needs of working fathers. It still feels good to be the breadwinner. It always will. But to know I am helping to promote fatherhood and am helping to redefine for my now two boys what it truly means to be a man, feels even better.