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WYFP - Fathers for my Daughters?

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WYFP  is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
Evening all. If history is our guide, tonight's report will be peopled with creaky boomers who share their tribulations in the world of holistic healing, bad western medicine and drug interactions! But with the spirit of 'age is wisdom' in mind, can you help me negotiate a future for my daughters?

My twin girls (oh god he's on about them again!) were born when I was 44. Now I know in today's world 44 is supposedly the new 43, but now that they're 4 and still wanting pony rides on poppa's back and generally throwing their bodies around like the Invinicibles, I have to do some genuine planning. Specifically, who are the men in their lives going to be?

Nope, I'm not sick and beyond a bad lower back I'm in decent health. But I'm well aware that most of my high school classmates have seen their kids off to college and I'll be reaching retirement age when and if my girls choose that particular path.

And there are numerous intangible benefits of being an older dad both for my girls and me. The most dubious? Giving the stink-eye to the cashier who complements my "grandkids" on their politeness when they ask for stickers. It's happened more than once. The stink-eye is followed by "actually, I'm  their dad." And extra stickers.

Unlike my own upbringing, my girls are free to have their emotions;a big part of my job is to give names to those emotions and thoughts, and help them navigate their feelings and their lives to the best of my abilities. I am unabashedly in love with them and they are already the kind of people I'd like to know.

We are homeschoolers, not out of religious or anti-public school sentiment, just because we are semi-nomadic quirktoids. We mainly migrate between Missoula and Portland (for now). My wife is a linguist from the UK and together we are raising the girls multi-lingual. As the girls get older we'll be supporting their education in a kind of "world-schooling" so there will be more travel. We'll still be based in Portland but not year-round.

I've always been a bit of a gregarious loner in that I like the friends I have but none of them are close.  I don't have the boys club around me that many men do. As a writer and yoga teacher, I never developed any kind of professional association with colleagues. And in general, I just don't make "close" friends that easily. At least not the kind of decades-long friendships that others seem to be able keep and maintain. For whatever reason, that's not been my path.

However, thanks to my wife and to our past in the yoga world, there is no lack of good-hearted, diverse and very importantly, young women in our lives who can and will be big sisters, aunts and in general, fonts of all forms of feminine wisdom in their lives. And wisdom in general. They will have good women to help them navigate this life. Maybe that's all they need? And if my wife's family's genetics are any indicators, she will be around a long time too.

So where does one find decent, well-rounded, intelligent men who can, if needed, be role models and teachers for my girls? But in what feels like a bigger, weirder way: How does a man find other men?

That's my FP. Mortality and lack of omnipotence!

What's yours?


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