On July 4th, of 2008, I got news that my father had passed away. It was also the weekend we were celebrating my daughter’s 2nd birthday. It was an intense and surreal experience celebrating life while preparing to mourn death. Solace was found during a call with an old fraternity brother of mine Rick. We began to talk about our respective families and shared many of the issues we were dealing with as new fathers. Both of us for the most part, were making this up as we went along. We knew the kind of fathers we wanted to be, but were finding it hard because we couldn’t draw from our own personal experiences or role models of great fathers. And so the Latino Dads Club was born.
So It Begins
After the call I started the Facebook group – LUL Dads, a place for my fraternity brothers dealing with the never-ending issues and learning curve that comes with fatherhood. I hoped the network of Latino fathers would come together to give the support many of us did not have. It started by design, as a closed group, more so, because it was an experiment. I had no idea how Latino men would take my inviting them to come together to talk about what? Kids? Diaper changes? Car-pooling? There were a ton of mommy blogs getting highlighted on the web, and it all seemed so “suburban house wife” to be thinking about this kind of stuff, especially for guys, most of whom lived or grew up in urban areas, and whose conversations previously consisted of fraternity business, women, sports, politics and well….women.
