Brian Seim | Choosing Fatherhood: From Bonus Dad to Hero in the Backyard

D Brent Dowlen: [00:00:00] Every dad has that story, the one that makes their heart just swell every time they tell it. For Brian Seim, it’s not about a funny moment or a messy mishap. His favorite story is the one where he became a dad the moment he said, I do. You see, Brian didn’t just marry a woman. He married into fatherhood, instantly becoming dad to a high functioning autistic son and two daughters who followed his lead.

What happened next? Redefined family in the most unexpected heart hitting way. It’s not a story about biology. It’s a story about becoming a father by choice and being chosen back. But he almost missed it because like most high performing men, he thought fatherhood required grandeur when all it really demanded was his presence.

The real dad wins. Don’t come from big vacations or well-planned bonding moments that we try and create. They’re born in the backyard, wielding, imaginary swords and hunting zombies. Or when a little hand silently presses your phone down [00:01:00] during movie night. Check out Brian’s favorite story, and then we’re gonna check in with our sponsor real quick, and then we’ll drive straight into today’s episode of the Dad Hat Shenanigans podcast with Brian Se.

Brian, every dad has that story that just lights ’em up. It’s that story you love to tell about your kids that makes you smile. And some of them, some of ’em are funny, some of ’em are gross, some of ’em are just, they’re dad stories, right? They’re those amazing stories. So what is your favorite dad story?

Brian Seim: I think my favorite story is when I got married.

I got married directly into Dad hood. We had a 10, 12, 10, 11-year-old, I should remember his age. Um, stepson coming into the story for me and he was high functioning autistic and then had two little sisters, and we had been dating for about nine months after being separated for 17 years. Uh, [00:02:00] we came back together.

I’m like, oh, wow, this isn’t gonna work. You got kids and stuff? I thought she was happily married and we got married. And prior to the marriage it was Brian, you’re Brian. You’re Brian. It’s Brian. Mom’s girl. Mom’s girlfriend. Yeah. Mom’s boyfriend is Brian. And then we got married and it instantly, and that autistic beauty was dad.

And that modeling from him for the daughter or the two daughters, um, that I was dad was just. Um, a godsend. One of my greatest fears was just that we were talking before the call about churches and comparing to the old guy, comparing to the old dad and all that, and just the black and white nature of that boy.

Um, our oldest, he was 25 now, was your dad, and that’s the model he set for everybody. Um. [00:03:00] We just had. And that was, that was key. ’cause we never really talk about step kids in our family. The kids mention it in context where it’s important sometimes, but it’s really being dead

D Brent Dowlen: and

Brian Seim: having them

D Brent Dowlen: be my real kids.

That’s an amazing story, Brian. I I love that. I understand why that’s your favorite story entirely. Um, it’s

Brian Seim: not entertaining or anything, but it’s, it’s impactful. I talked to the 16-year-old that just, or she was 16, she just graduated. She’s 18. Um, and she was six when we got married and we were just, I don’t know what we were talking about exactly, but she looked at me and she said, you’re my dad.

Like there’s no one else. There’s nothing else to consider and whatnot. And that just hit me right in the heart and was like, yeah. Wow. Thank you Lord, for the ability to. To blend this family [00:04:00] and follow your will most of the time

D Brent Dowlen: that that actually hits home. Uh, my best friend is a stepfather and his oldest son is autistic and, uh, mo higher functioning, but definitely still needs a lot of extra help and extra, extra love, and it was such a unique situation for him.

To not have any kids and marry a woman with three. It just so like that, that touches my heart. ’cause I remember that phone call from him. It’s like, oh my god, they call me dad. Right? It was great moment. Yes. I

Brian Seim: absolutely love it. A couple years ago I was reflecting on that and in that eight years I raised every age of kid from zero to 18.

And in 10 years I did it with a boy and a girl.[00:05:00]

So talk about parenthood on steroids, right? Jump

D Brent Dowlen: right into the deep end.

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So thank you in advance and. Guys, I love their stuff. You can go to my website and check out a full list of all the amazing things I’ve reviewed for them. But I’m a MyPillow guy and I hope you love [00:06:00] MyPillow and continue to support great American companies and your favorite podcast. Let’s get back to the show.

Welcome to the Dad Hatch Shenanigans podcast, the unfiltered truth of being a dad. Real dads real stories, unfiltered, candid conversations on fatherhood. I’m your host, Brent Dowlen, and today my special guest is Brian Seim. Brian, welcome to the Dad Hasnas podcast.

Brian Seim: Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be here. I love being a dad, even if I have to wear the kids hat sometimes.

D Brent Dowlen: Well, Brian, I, I gotta give you, uh, kudos. That is certainly the most amazing dad hat I, I’ve seen so far on the show. Uh. Uh, you know, I, I, I actually generally tell my guests ahead of time, you know, bonus points for creativity on the hat, and I’m loving hat. If you guys are listening on the audio, uh, you know, we, we are a podcast first and foremost, but if you’re listening on the audio, [00:07:00] you need to go jump over to our YouTube or rum channel just to see Brian’s hat ’cause this is amazing guys.

So right off that, we’ll just start with the dad hat story ’cause there’s gotta be a great story behind this hat.

Brian Seim: All right, so it is a Paw Patrol hat. It’s got the sticking up ears and uh, we had a real hat, but I lost it because we just recently gave it to Goodwill, but it wasn’t the first hat of its kind.

We were camping in the North Woods, well, not North Woods. I’m in Minnesota now, so it’s North Woods. But at the time we were in Colorado and it was in the remote woods up in the mountains, and it was great with the teenagers because there’s no cell phone reception. But I was sitting out by the fire in the dark, the best time of night.

All the campsites are quieting down nearby. My Spencer is in my arms falling asleep with his Paw Patrol hat on his head. [00:08:00] He is sound asleep, half wrapped up in a blankie and I just kept going until it was my bedtime. And as I got up and he wore it, he wore it like every day, like all the time. He gets into this thing with hats for six months and then he won’t wear ’em again for a while.

And he is in one right now with a new hat that he’s got that he’s, I’m, he’s wearing it all the time, so I lean up to lift him up out of the chair. In front of the fire and the hat falls in the fire and starts on fire. And my wife’s walking out from the camper. She runs and grabs it and she’s, I don’t think she really grabbed it.

I’m like, honey, it’s, it’s really in the fire. Like the late night fire that’s just coal. So it’s like. It’s all sizzled up. So we take him to the camper and put him to bed. He doesn’t know any sound asleep. Sound is a bug happy. Um, just that [00:09:00] one-on-one peace and joy of having your kid fall asleep in your arms.

But I gotta tell I burnt his hat in the morning. So that’s kind of the dad hat story. We got him another one a couple weeks later. We gave him the apologies and Sorry, we’ll get you one. We know you were wearing it every day and everything, and I think he wore it three times once we got the new one. So it was this spring, um, just not too long ago that we took it out to Goodwill.

So I had to print a new hat and put it on my, my sailing hat to fill the role today.

D Brent Dowlen: I appreciate the effort, uh, to make up for it. It’s one of those things, you, you have things that you’re like, I keep this and I keep this and I keep this because one of it is like that, that box of cables that almost every guy has, like, why do you keep all there?

Right? [00:10:00] Why? Well, I, I might need it, and I can’t count how many times I pulled the cable out to charge something that someone’s lost a charging cord for, or, you know, I, I have my. Box of three or four of cables, but hats are the same way. You like, you keep them and keep ’em and keep ’em. And it’s like, we could probably give that away.

And then like right off the bat, you’re gonna find something that’s like, man, I needed that hat. Why, why don’t I have that hat? So

Brian Seim: I’ve got I think over 20 hats. I was counting ’em as I went through. I’m like, what am I gonna put this on? Where am I gonna do it? And uh, I was like, wow. I convinced him to give away his hat that he didn’t wear at all.

And I’ve got,

D Brent Dowlen: right, I, I was going through a stack of my hats ’cause I have a ton of hats. Uh, getting ready for one of the episodes where I kind of explained the whole concept behind the dad hat thing and I was picking selectively, ’cause I changed hats throughout the [00:11:00] entire episode Right. As I was explaining the metaphor of the dad hat.

And my daughters were just amazed like they had a filled day. ’cause they had never seen all these hats I had stacked up in my closet and I mean, I got everything I got. I got my brother’s original sailor hat from his basic training when he was in the Navy, like the Little Bowl thing they wear in the Navy.

And uh, I have a knit fedora that has this. Got jokers sewed into the brim all the way around for gambling and crazy hats. My daughter’s like, where did you get all these hats? I had ’em longer than I’ve had you. What did you do? I’ve been longer. I’ve

Brian Seim: been alive a while.

D Brent Dowlen: Right. It’s something about hats, man.

We just stack ’em up. So I do appreciate the effort. Like said, it’s great. I think

Brian Seim: it’s hats like the shoes, right? Right.

D Brent Dowlen: Yeah. My wife has shoes. I have hats. We both have sweatshirts and, I dunno, I have no idea what it is. We have so many sweatshirts. Brian, how many kids do you, you said you have three kids, is that right?[00:12:00]

Brian Seim: I, I signed up for three kids that day mm-hmm. When I got married. And, um, Leah always wanted kids and I said, well, we can’t have one kid. Because one kid is like a only child when they’re separated by, yeah. That many years. Six or eight years. Let’s see. Yeah, seven years. Um, from our, her youngest to our oldest.

And so, ’cause they’ll get in trouble. They need a playmate, they need all this stuff. So the story today is, well you said we needed two kids. I said, no, no, no. I said we couldn’t have one kid. We had to have zero or two. So we’ve got five kids from nine to 25. Wow. 25 year olds getting married in August. The 18-year-old.

Uh, she just graduated from high school and taking a gap year and, um, playing [00:13:00] and spending and learning finances again. She’s had a great learning curve the last two years. Um, I missed a 21-year-old. Nope, not yet. In two weeks. Our 20-year-old is a 21-year-old, so I’m not sure what that’s gonna look like, but she’s well-rounded, got a good boyfriend, and then we jumped down to Elizabeth, who’s 11, and Spencer, who’s nine, and Spencer’s the hat guy.

So three years ago is the hat escapade Four years ago.

D Brent Dowlen: The The age cap is always an interesting. Thing to run into with a family. Uh, my wife’s youngest brother was a late in life surprise. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll say that. How’s that? Is that more polite? Um, she is 14 years older than he is. Her other siblings are like a year and a half to two years behind her.[00:14:00]

And then there’s this huge gap. He was, he was five when we got married. Uh, and so I went from being the youngest kid in my house to inheriting three younger siblings when I married my wife, but the little one was little, and yeah, that age gap between them made life very, very interesting around their house.

It is,

Brian Seim: it is. It is interesting. I remember we were 40 and going to the doctor for the first pregnancy and getting the geriatric treatment like. She’s not dead. She’s, she’s spry and 40 and you guys are treating her like a geriatric. And then we were at a, a scout picnic with Hawkin, our oldest, and the two little ones are running around and the gap older ones we’re like managing it.

And I looked at Leah and I’m like, how would we do this without their assistance? [00:15:00] And she’s like, oh, I’ve already done this once. I don’t know what your problem is.

D Brent Dowlen: Yeah. My wife and her sister helped a lot with the younger brother, and then later in life we, we had some hand in guiding him as he got older into those difficult teenage years.

Uh, and so subsequently, like, you know, years, many years later, we have a really close knit relationship with her youngest brother. Um, he’s, he’s a major part of our life, so. You know, it’s fun to see how that all plans out. Brian, tell us where we’re, we’re going on and going on. Uh, so let me put a pin in this for a second and go, Hey, tell us about who you are so our audience can, can get to know who Brian is.

Brian Seim: Well, I’m a recovering software engineer. Um, still do a little bit of that to keep the, uh, keep the food flowing and the thing going as I, I put out, uh, kingdom Family Leader. Ministry business [00:16:00] coaching Christian men as husbands, fathers and leaders. Um, we do one-on-one coaching and mastermind groups. Um, I play with the kids as much as I can.

Um, go to soccer games, volunteer at church, um, just try to be the best husband, father, and leader that I can be.

D Brent Dowlen: I like it straightforward and recovering. Software engineer is a great joke for all of us who have been in the IT industry at any level. My, my best, uh, my other best friend is still like, like he, he works for Microsoft. He’s a engineer, uh, in exchange. And I, I worked in IT for over a decade. Uh, so

Brian Seim: Oh, you’ll appreciate this joke.

Um, how many. Software engineers, does it take to change a light bulb? Hmm. Sounds like a hardware problem.

D Brent Dowlen: Yeah. [00:17:00] Yeah, I was a hardware guy. I heard that a lot, lot, lots of, oh, it couldn’t be anything. I did. You guys, you guys got something broken there? Yep. I, I worked in the data center world, so I fixed a lot of server and network hardware and. Reloaded systems when software engineers screwed it up, you know, things like that.

Brian Seim: I’ve always tried to tear down that fence between the two.

D Brent Dowlen: So Brian, you said you’re into a ministry now and, and you work with men one-on-one. So we’re kinder spirits here. Uh, what are we diving into today? What do you wanna talk about? I mean, we’ve had some great fun already, but what do you wanna talk about?

Brian Seim: Yeah, this is dad hat shenanigans. Um, I think a lot of the leaders that I work with are like, I’m leading here and everything else is crap. And at home. That’s, that’s one of those areas, um, that uh, [00:18:00] leaders in business are like, everything works here. And I’m, I’m not feeling so great about my parenting.

That’s what Dad hat shenanigans attracted me to. Hey, let’s talk to them and just talk about Dad. Um, it’s a hard job, but it’s not that hard. It’s really simple. Which kind of stinks ’cause it took me 12 years to figure it out. Not, don’t let, don’t hear that wrong. I didn’t figure it out yet.

D Brent Dowlen: I think that is one of the, I I, that’s so funny. We are definitely kenry spirits. Uh, I, I work with men who have lost those connections with their family while they were chasing that job or that position or, um, so yeah, it’s a, a major, major thing. And I dunno what it is about being a father that [00:19:00] we all feel so unprepared for.

I mean, yeah, I get it. It’s different. It’s especially that first time out, but you get such high caliber men who are capable of doing so much and they work so hard and, and then they’re like, uh, I don’t know what to do here.

Brian Seim: Yeah, I was. Trying to make that quality moment the other day. And I’m like, well, we can do this and we can drive 20 minutes up the North Shore and go to the waterfalls and go hiking and do all this stuff. And I started sharing the ideas around and Spencer looks at me and goes, well, let’s go kill zombies in the backyard.

And I’m like, oh my gosh. I hate killing zombies. But it’s so simple. So we went out in the [00:20:00] backyard and killed zombies in the woods, and it was his design. It was what he wanted to do. It didn’t take all the extra orchestration and scheduling. And I think one of the biggest BS of the 13 and younger is a car ride.

I don’t want to take a car ride do we? Do we really have to take a car ride? It better be something really worth it if we’re gonna take a car ride. I hate sitting in the car. ’cause we’re kind of a tech free, they do have car long car rides, warrant tech, but we try to have a lot less tech than the average kid.

D Brent Dowlen: It’s a constant fight with my 11-year-old. It’s like, honey, we’re, we’re gonna be in the car for 15 minutes. You do not need your have tablet if you can’t like have a conversation or with your sister or with us, or watch out the window, bring a book. You do not need your tablet to travel 15 minutes. It’s,

Brian Seim: yes, [00:21:00]

D Brent Dowlen: we got them originally for those really long, ’cause it’s a three to three and a half hour trip to go see like, uh, grandma and grandpa over on the west side of the state from where I live.

Um, so we got ’em for those kind of trips because my wife would take that trip a lot by herself ’cause I was at work and so that was for her peace of mind. Yeah. But that was what they were for. Yep. And like she wants to take it everywhere.

Brian Seim: It’s gotta be a couple hours to, to warrant the tech pulling out

D Brent Dowlen: what, what’s the go-to weapon when you were hunting zombies in the backyard?

Brian Seim: Um, I don’t know. I did great last night. We did a similar thing. Mm-hmm. But, uh, it’s like zombies and stuffies and. It’s like, I, I can’t do stuffies, but I do board games and role playing games, right? Mm-hmm. So isn’t playing stuffies and killing zombies like a role playing game? [00:22:00] Yeah. Yeah. And so, so last night I just started talking to Spencer.

I’m like, I imagined a character in a role playing game, and I became that character. And instead of just the hack and slash of the zombies, we had a dialogue. And it was neat to see him. Evolve his character. ’cause the opening phrase was, we just had built the campfire. What’s your weapon set, dad? Come on.

What’s your weapon set? I’m like, what weapon set? We’re building a campfire here trying to avoid the inevitability of killing zombies. But he got me a weapon set. I got him, I offered him a weapon set. It wasn’t good enough. So we adjusted it. I gave him a name. He says, why do you come up with all these.

Weird names. They’re all like role-playing names and stuff. I’m like, well, maybe it’s just, the guy was texting here about our sailing trip next weekend and he looked at my phone and he laughed [00:23:00] and just really asked him questions about, ’cause he came up with his sword and goes, what are you doing? I’m like, Hmm.

I’m walking through the woods as a little man in a robe. And you point your sword at me and say, what am I doing? So I put the role playing into it to get it out of the, just the killing the zombies. Um, and it works for stuffies and it works for playing with little peoples and stuff. And it’s, it’s great

D Brent Dowlen: the now guys, this is a shout out to all our DD dads out there.

’cause those skills can help your fathering, you just didn’t know it, but

Brian Seim: Yep.

D Brent Dowlen: Storytelling capability. Uh, I didn’t play DD for a very long time. I have a couple guys from my church that we play together a couple times a year that they got me into it. I never played before, and I, I, I grew up, I’m, I’m in the age group [00:24:00] where, you know, I, I grew up in, uh, a church that went, that’s bad.

That’s

Brian Seim: satanic panic,

D Brent Dowlen: right? And so I never, I had friends who played DD, but I never played. And started playing a couple years ago with some guys from my church, and I am closer with those three or four guys than I’ve been in this church for years. I’m closer with those three or four guys than anybody else with our church, like they are the ones I would call.

They’re the ones that I hang out with. We bonded so much and it was having that fun together and telling stories and using our imagination together, which you don’t see grown men usually doing. Uh, but there’s so much bonding capability in shared stories when you tell those stories with your kids, when you take that skillset and then are creative and imaginative with your kids, right?

Brian Seim: Yeah. Yeah. I was talking to the kids about it because we played a couple times with them, the nine and 11-year-old. [00:25:00] Mm-hmm. I think we played once with the older kids years ago, and, uh, the 11 year old’s like, well, I’m gonna. Instead of playing stuffies tonight, let’s play d and d. I’m like, okay. She knows like two rules.

So we sat down at the table with our little stuffies and played around and she said, okay, you need to roll and roll what to see if you hit him. Okay. So just made up numbers here and there. Okay? You need to roll to see if you can see him. He is hiding over there. She just, exactly. It was so cool. She just loved it.

’cause I was explaining to them how d and d works. It is Like when you guys are playing guns and you go, bang, I got you. And your friend goes, no you didn’t. Yes you did. That’s why adults need dice. ’cause we can’t get along like you guys and we gotta know if you hit me or not. And it can’t be you saying, you hit me the dice kind of [00:26:00] tell the story.

D Brent Dowlen: Right. There, there, there are not many decisions that GPI solved with D 20. I’m pretty sure at this point, after a couple years of playing d and DI was like, you know, this is kind of, I actually carry a coin around for decisions where I don’t actually care about, but I don’t wanna spend time on, so I have a coin in my pocket always for flipping.

Brian Seim: Isn’t that Euro and the, or something like that? Hmm. Scripturally, I don’t know. The red and white stones that the Yeah. Lead the, the pastor had in his little ephod on the front of his. Breastplate.

D Brent Dowlen: I’m, I’m pretty sure I got the idea from, uh, Two-Face on Batman, the animated series. Okay.

Brian Seim: Another biblical reference.

Right.

D Brent Dowlen: But my kids laugh so hard, so I’m like, Hey, you know, I’ll make ’em. I’ll be like, what do, what do you We’ll get ice cream. Like, what kind do you want? Oh, you want this one or this one? Like, uh, and they’re arguing about it. It’s like, all right, call it heads or tails. And they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. I was like, well, make a [00:27:00] choice.

You, you wanna sit here? I’m not gonna stay in the aisle for 20 minutes while you figure it out. And uh, my oldest is of the age now, she’s like, well, they say it actually will help you make the decision. Because no matter how it lands, when you put that coin up in the air, you know exactly what you actually want it to be.

And Oh, interesting. If you’re struggling between two things and statistically that’s what what research tells us is once you actually go to flip the coin, if you’re stuck between two things, your brain will automatically go, Ooh, I want it to land this way. And then you know what you actually really want.

So

Brian Seim: then do you go with the coin if it lands wrong or do you go with your intuition? And

D Brent Dowlen: I’ve had my kids try and go both ways. Sometimes I check them with a coin. It depends on if they can come out before it hits the ground, you know?

Brian Seim: Yeah. I think that’s a powerful thing to pass on to our kids [00:28:00] is choosing and it, it doesn’t matter what you choose.

Mm-hmm. And then it goes alongside with fomo, fear of missing out and recognizing and training. Um, I think the older ones missed it ’cause I learned more. But it’s like, you’re going to miss this and that’s okay because you’ve chosen this other thing. So I’m trying to train that and the younger ones since I got this gap here, to, to settle things in my brain and really get that.

But that the decision making and the choice making is, is so critical. I think all the, all the high level like Bill Gates and since we’re in tech and everything and uh, Steve Jobs, it’s all about decisions. Fast, solid and, and strict decisions, um, that are, are powerful and give, give that power and influence to those [00:29:00] people.

Uh, I was reading a book in our mastermind where I was a participant years ago. I wish I could remember the title, but it’s about a navy, important Navy guy. Who led a ship from rags to riches, basically in the military terms of a whole bunch of misfits to a high performing vessel. But in a part of his career, he was a consultant or assistant to one of the generals, and he was presenting to the Pentagon on this thing, but the assistant was given a stack of papers.

He said, I want you to read all this. Summarize it, and we need to give the Pentagon our recommendations on what to do. He couldn’t get through all the paperwork, he couldn’t get through all the stuff. There were two choices. This decision’s been drawn out for five years. Millions of Pentagon dollars being spent on it.

And the guy goes, I, I couldn’t read it all. I got this far and I’m not sure [00:30:00] what to choose and whatnot. And he went into the meeting. And the general’s like, uh, it’s the best interest of the nation and the Pentagon and our decision on researching these materials to go with this. And they left the meeting and the guy’s like, well, how, what did, what’s going on?

How did you do that? You just flat out made that decision. I’m like, they haven’t made a decision in five years. If we don’t give them a direction to head, they’re gonna continue not making a decision and blowing our, our money. So now that they have that coin flip done that can exert their efforts into creating the result, rather than wondering about which result to create,

D Brent Dowlen: uh, I think it’s actually one of the reasons why a lot of high performing men are intimidated by being a dad, right?

Ooh, we have best practices in business. We’re used to best practices in our [00:31:00] professions and the skills we built. Right? And we are so structured by the time we’re a certain level of performance. Right. Uh, I was a. Hiring manager and the lead trainer for my company’s division in what we did. Like I traveled, set up new data centers and stuff like that and trained the new teams.

I pioneered, uh, the company developed new software to manage all of our servers. And one of my jobs I got, I basically set for weeks playing with this new software, figuring out how to do everything we already did with this new software. We were switching over to. Writing all the processes for that so we can train everybody.

And, um, you get to, you know, a level like that where you’re at a very professional level and there are clear cut rules and best practices and ideals that you are guided by. Right? Right. And I think that’s one of the reasons [00:32:00] that we struggle sometimes when we become dads, and that’s our life already is because there’s, there’s not a.

For, what was, I read the number the other day. There’s like 80,000 parenting books written a year or something like it’s some absurd number. None of ’em are right. None of ’em are wrong. None of ’em are perfect. And that’s the problem.

Brian Seim: That’s the dad story right there.

D Brent Dowlen: That that’s, I used to laugh ’cause I, I was a gamer.

I hardcore gamer for years. And there are ideal builds, even in d and d, there are ideal builds for like each class of character. And it’s like, well, it doesn’t really matter what I, how I wanna play it. I want the best character and so I’m going to do this, this, this, and this is the character I’m going to build because they are the best character to win to.

Right? And that’s the [00:33:00] brain’s work. And I don’t think there’s a clear cut answer. Because every kid is different. Every kid has their own own solution to how is the best way for me to show up for them? What is the best way for me to dad for them? What do they really need for me? Um, I mean, my kids are at the age where I’m starting to see their personalities more, right?

And, and really watch them kind of. They’ve always had their own personality, but I’m, I’m really seeing some of the divergent, it’s like, okay, this one’s moving this way, this one’s into this. And what they need from me as a parent is very different with just two kids, right? My 11-year-old, this is how she needs me to dad, my 13-year-old, like, this is how she needs me to dad and.

There isn’t a set, this is the best model. This, this is the armor I’m gonna pick. This is the weapon I’m gonna use. This is skills. ’cause this is the best. And I think it [00:34:00] messes with our very logic, brace based brains as men. Yeah. How the rest of our world works.

You, you said something, uh, in the note on your profile when you and I were planning this out. About It doesn’t have to be right. It doesn’t have to be big. It you just, they they want you.

Brian Seim: Yeah.

D Brent Dowlen: And I

Brian Seim: don’t think all that stuff you just said, oh, go ahead.

D Brent Dowlen: No, I, I just, I don’t think as men were comfortable with that concept.

’cause that’s, yeah. The world works

Brian Seim: because I know everything and I know everybody should think like, I sh I think, and all these things are hurdles for me to get over. Um, I remember probably two, three years ago, um, I’m like putting, projecting myself onto these kids. [00:35:00] If we’re gonna sit down and play a board game, it’s an hour or two.

If we’re gonna play Dungeons and Dragons, this is two to four hours. If we’re gonna do something as adults and my peers, that’s what it is. So. If a kid wants to play, it’s two to four hours. And at that point, I don’t know how I figured it out, but I’m like, just leave the computer, set a 20 minute timer and go play.

And it’s awful. It’s everything. And at that point, I hadn’t figured out how to play, pretend and stuffies and things, so 20 minutes was all I could. Handle. So I would stop, I would go set a timer and I would play and say, oh, we got five minutes left. And they would wrap up the storyline and get the plot finished.

And um, and it was like, it’s so simple. I [00:36:00] think I spoke earlier about making the big plans to drive up the shore. That’s not what they need. They just need us. They just want us to be there to be with them. I got burned too recently to share, I don’t know, six months ago, nine months ago, my daughter came down.

I was wrapping up my day here and she’s like, dad, do you wanna play a board game? I’m like, why? Yes, in fact, I do. And we went and played the board game and then I did my best thinking either in the restroom or in bed. And, um, I was like. She had asked to play earlier than the day and the day before,

stuffies and things, and I was really busy. So she’s smart. 11-year-old, 10-year-old, whatever it was at that minute. Dad, [00:37:00] do you wanna play a board game feeding, doing what the parent needs to do? Feeding what I needed, when I should have been feeding what she needed. So the next morning I said, I am so sorry, Elizabeth, that you had to offer me a board game to get my time.

And so from that point on, I’m like, what do you really want? Was a question for a month or two there as she offered things to buy my space. It reminds me of the story of the guy. The parent, I hope I can never be this parent. But the kid was not getting the time he wanted. And he is like, dad, how much do you get paid?

And he said, $80 an hour. Wow, dad, that’s amazing. That’s great. And then a couple weeks later, the kid’s like, Hey dad, [00:38:00] can I have 40 bucks? I need 80 bucks and I only got 40, so I got half of it. Can you, can you gimme 40 bucks? And the dad’s like, you can keep working. I don’t know what you want 40 bucks for. I work for this and blah, blah, blah.

And, and uh, he goes on and, and the kid’s like, well, if I just had that 40 bucks, I could buy an hour of your time.

And that story just, I was like, wow.

Changing the context of that and just looking at everything I do and everything I hear and how I lead my family and lead my kids and making sure it has no relationship to that story is kind of an ever alert for me. It’s like making sure they have time. We, we do date nights with each of the kids. It used to be monthly, but now we got five, and every once in a while you miss a week.

We can’t go out to eat every night and not every date night needs to be [00:39:00] going out to eat. But, uh, we rotate through the five kids still, even the adult kids that live nearby. Mm-hmm. To continue that quality time. ’cause that’s, that’s one of their main things

D Brent Dowlen: I think a lot of dads are missing that. We’re looking for that great answer.

Right. Because we are so hard programmed that there is. Right way. There is a, this is the way you win at this, right? Our brains are so hardwired for this is how we succeed, this is how we win. And the simplicity of your children want your attention. Your un just totally abandoned attention then nothing else on your face but them.

I, it’s almost, I think, too simple for a lot of us to wrap our heads around. I, I had a moment with my [00:40:00] kids. One time I was sitting watching a movie with my daughter and, you know, I was like, what do you wanna watch, baby? And, and she picked something that we’d watched, you know, we’d seen a dozen times. I hate that you, every dad is shaking their head right now.

They all know. Right. We all, we’ve all had those movies with our kids. You watch a bazillion, you know. God bless the people at Disney frozen songs and, right. Uh, so she picked the movie. She picked this movie, and she’s sitting there under my arm, curled up next to me and I started scrolling through my phone and after a minute she’s staring at me, right?

And she was still like six, seven. I’m like, what is it baby? She’s like, you said you were gonna watch a movie with me. I said, I am watching a movie with you, honey. We watch. She’s like, you know, you’re on your phone. I was like, baby, we’ve seen this movie a hundred times, and she just looked at me. I said, do I need to put my phone down?

And she reached over and put her hand on my hand [00:41:00] and pushed my phone down, and it was this huge wake up call of being physically in the same room. It is not the same thing as being engaged and present with her. Amen. And it’s like it, it wasn’t about the movie. It was, I was doing it with her. We weren’t talking, we weren’t having a con.

We were watching the show, but I was doing it with her. Right. I wasn’t somewhere else. Thinking about something else. Doing something else. Yeah. That is almost too simple for a lot of us. To really wrap our minds around because we’re so used to cross this t dot this, I do this for six months, do this for three months, and we’re gonna get there and we’re gonna do, we’re gonna win.

We’re just gonna get that promotion, we’re gonna get another job. We’re gonna finish this project. [00:42:00] And we lose that because it’s just not so clear. Right. It’s, it’s so simple. It is so clear. But it is too.

Brian Seim: Yeah, it’s that internal and external ’cause. Part of that is what do I think the world wants to see as a good father? And kind of discounting that and remembering what does our father want us to see as a good father? And, um, taking evidence from the world, but not. Believing it, but testing it, trying it and being present is too simple that it’s easy.

Oh, well I can, I can check out something here quick and let

D Brent Dowlen: it go. [00:43:00] So many distractions. And your kids really just want you, the real you. Not the you that everybody else wants.

Brian Seim: Yeah. Yeah.

D Brent Dowlen: I think,

Brian Seim: and it’s, and it’s small stuff too, like, uh, I’m just learning more and more. This computer sits here in this corner and I work facing this way and people come in and they know the rules.

Um, when it’s this way, don’t talk unless it’s an emergency. Um, because I’m talking with someone and sharing with somebody. And, but when it’s the other way, they can come in. But until the last two or three weeks, nine times outta 10, I don’t turn around and look. I give answers without looking and I’m like, dad, husband, Christian, man that loves people.[00:44:00]

Take your eyes and put it with them. Give your answers completely. Stop what you’re doing. You work at home, you’ve got plenty of time to work, and you can make it up after they go to bed. Just stop and give it to them. It’s small, but for me it was huge because I was like,

I did that. I committed the foul and didn’t recognize it, but now I do, and now it’s a big deal to me. Probably, I was gonna say maybe less of a deal to them, but maybe it’s just as big a deal to them and not even recognizing it.

D Brent Dowlen: It’s a learning cycle. I don’t think there is such thing as perfect dads. I think there’s dads who try. But because every kid is so [00:45:00] individual what they really need to you, there, there are some overall good practices, but I think every kid is a unique learning situation. Finding out what feeds them, you know, understanding their love language.

So how you interact with them, uh, becomes really important because, you know, I’ve got two kids who speak two very different love languages, uh, which makes it very interesting. Some days it’s like, wait. Which 1:00 AM I talking to? Refocus, re read, adjust that dial. Alright. You know, reach over, hold her hand while I’m talking to her because that’s important with the younger one.

Brian Seim: Yeah. If you guys haven’t read five love languages, there’s different variations. There’s the adult version, there’s the parenting version. Um, apply that to your parenting.

D Brent Dowlen: I, I, I believe I’m a big fan of Apply that to your whole world.

Brian Seim: Oh yeah, for sure.

D Brent Dowlen: My last corporate, [00:46:00] but

Brian Seim: it took me a minute to take it and apply it to the kids.

D Brent Dowlen: My last corporate job, the Five Love Languages, was one of the most useful things I ever had for getting along with some of my coworkers, because understanding that their love language was radically different than mine made a huge difference in how it’s like, okay. I am speaking the wrong way for them.

Mm-hmm. Underst, right. So, yeah, I’m, I’m a huge fan of that. Any direction you want to go with it? Brian, you got a dad joke for us?

Brian Seim: Oh yeah. Dad joke.

D Brent Dowlen: I need a dad joke. It’s not a, it’s not an episode of the show without a dad joke.

Brian Seim: Oh, right. This is funny. For the age of the kids, I’m reading a book about anti-gravity.

It’s about my kids. I can’t put ’em down,

but we’ve been talking with the [00:47:00] 11-year-old that all the other siblings quit getting picked up after 10 because I can’t handle it. And I’m much older now.

D Brent Dowlen: That’s hilarious. Ryan is as, as we lay on this plane, what is the most important thing you want dad to hear today?

Brian Seim: Keep it simple, stupid.

Keep it simple.

D Brent Dowlen: I laugh because that is a guiding rule in my life that’s, that was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I ever got in my younger life.

Brian Seim: Yeah, be present. You’re not raising, you’re not, you’re not aiming for behavior. You’re aiming for creating awesome adults. The only re way you’re we’re gonna get connection with them is keeping it simple.

Making a 20 minute playtime, doing their thing, [00:48:00] enhancing what they’re doing, and making sure that I’m not taking over as dungeon master, but I’m leaving them as dungeon master as the lead, recognizing our mistakes and apologizing. Demonstrating the adult we want them to be and accepting the adult that they’ve become of their own accord.

It’s simple.

D Brent Dowlen: We’re gonna have all of Brian’s contact information, uh, where you can connect with him, where you can follow up with him. He is a men’s coach, and if you are looking for a Christian leader to walk with. In your life, life, you are in a place where you feel like it would be beneficial to you to have a men mentor or a coach, or a guide.

Uh, we’ll make sure you can connect with Brian and you can talk to him. Maybe, maybe Brian is the right person to walk [00:49:00] with for a while for your life. And that’s, there’s a lot here, guys. Uh, we, we had a lot of laughs in the conversation and talked very lightly. But really there was a lot to what was said today.

Um, even if, even if you didn’t pick up on it, re listen to this one again because there was a lot that was said today that will really help you as you make that journey as a father. Guys, thanks for joining us today on the Dad Hash Shenanigans podcast. We’re just a community of ads who are just traversing life’s challenges together.

Until next time, laugh, learn and live the dad [00:50:00] life.