I'm not a dad but I can remember how my dad managed family and work when I was young. He's passionate about his business, he works for an organization called the Navigators kind of like a personal coach.

When I was younger he used to do a lot of work at universities and once in a while he'd take me along to things. Take me to watch him play hockey, a pick up soccer game, even to meetings and things like that. It felt awesome! Just being a part of his actual life, it blended the home life and the work life together.

I think family is far more important than work, but you work for your family so it's hard to distinguish the importance level between the two as they are so connected. Him bringing me to little things like that just showed me where he was when he wasn't at home. Kind of giving me insight as to why he wasn't always at home playing with me or my sister.

Hope this helps! Thanks for your thoughts.

Chad

Also, congrats on the 'at!' :)

The answer wasn't my business, in the back of my mind I thought that my business would suffer if I wasn't there to tend to every little detail or be around for the people I work with every stinking minute. But you know what? It didn't suffer, we started to do better than we ever did, I was happier and as a result the people who work for me (and most of them still do to this day) started stepping up and doing the things that I was obsessively doing.

The reality is you don't need to spend every waking hour working, you have absolutely got to take time out for the important things in your life, you just have to make a conscious decision to put your work/business behind the people you love and it sounds like you've figured out a way to do that yourself, bravo!

I'm so sorry about this! I didn't know it was causing so much problem :(

Ryan

What a palavar commenting here – was it something to do with me posting links int the comments? It's taken me three quarters of an hour! Erk! Should be with my kid :)

I know you're a web apps kinda guy, so I'd like you point you to http://odadeo.com and ask you to join up and have a look around. You're lucky in that you have a popular blog, can ask questions and get a lot of responses, but most dads don't. So Odadeo is a new (UK based) startup designed to provide dads with just that kind of platform. It starts with the question: "How am I going to be a great dad?"

Researchers into fatherhood look at three elements to a child's experience of their father that are all valuable, and it's worth looking at all of these.

1. Engagement – this is when you are really focussed on your child – undisracted, having quality time. It's definitely the most valuable element of fathering for children, and they get the most benefit from this in terms of cognitive, social and learning development. But engagement is in turn dependent on other factors that you need to pay attention to – it doesn't just happen. There's other things…

2. Availabillity – just being around is important – even if you are working on your laptop, or cooking something, you are available to your child if they want you, and you need to be available for enagement to happen. Try working from home a bit more – it's invaluable for children to see their dads working, to make a connection with what we actually do with our lives.

3. Responsibility – do you take responsibility for your child's health, education and social life, do you share it or do you delegate this all to his mum? Having some involvement at this level is really important for your connection to your child, and means you will have more of an understanding of their lives at a quite fundamental level.