Every other Week Dad

I wake up early on the Fridays before they come over. Always have.

It’s not like there’s a lot to prepare—a mental breakfast grocery list, clean sheets, a quick vacuum to make the living room look less like one man lives here. But still, I wake up with a sort of nervous energy, like I used to feel before a game. Not dread. Not quite excitement either. Just a hum in the blood. The sense that something matters today.

It took a long time to make peace with being an “every other week” dad. Even now, saying that out loud feels like a confession. Like I failed. Like I got benched in a game I swore I’d never walk away from.

But the truth is, we tried. Their mom and I both did. And when trying wasn’t enough, we did something harder—we decided not to turn our house into a battlefield. We broke the shape of the life we thought we’d have, so our boys wouldn’t grow up breathing in quiet bitterness and tension they couldn’t name.

And now, we co-parent. We trade calendars. We text about coughs and missing socks. We high-five at pickup, smile politely in front of teachers, and every once in a while, we laugh at an old inside joke we both still know by heart. It’s not perfect. But it’s kind.

And for the boys, that’s the whole world.

Still, I wrestle with the weight of those in-between weeks. The days I’m not there to remind them to be kind. The nights I’m not reading the bedtime story. The scraped knees I didn’t get to kiss, the tantrums I didn’t help walk off. I trust she handles those with the same care I try to bring when it’s my turn—but that doesn’t stop the ache of not being needed in the moment.

So the question I ask myself, often and quietly, is this: how do I teach them to be good men with only half the time?

I don’t have an answer, but I’ve started with what I do know.

I show up. Always. Even when I’m tired. Even when the last thing I want to do is assemble a Lego set with 400 pieces that will be knocked over by Sunday. I say yes to the walk around the block. Yes to the extra story. Yes to listening, even when the story makes no sense and has twenty plot twists involving dragons and garbage trucks.

I tell the truth. Not all of it—they’re still too young for the whole story. But enough. I let them know people make mistakes. That grown-ups get sad sometimes. That it’s okay to start over. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I just let them see that I’m still trying.

I apologize when I’m wrong. That one’s harder than it should be.

But they’re watching. Always watching. And I’d rather them learn that being a man means having the strength to say, “I messed up. I’m sorry. I’ll do better,” than to believe that being right is more important than being kind.

And I love them out loud.

Not in some performative, Disney Channel way. Just in small, steady acts. In folding their shirts the way they like. In remembering who likes syrup on the side. In sitting with them through boredom, tantrums, and that last grueling ten minutes of a soccer game where no one remembers the rules and everyone is crying and you realize project Pele is on its last breath.

It doesn’t feel like enough. But I think love often looks like not enough, until you look back and realize it was everything.

I also try—though not always successfully—to live by example. To be the kind of man I’d want them to become. Someone steady, someone honest, someone who doesn’t flinch from hard days.

I have a worn copy of Meditations sitting somewhere on a shelf. Somewhere along the line, I tried to make sense of my philosophy from it, and made my homebrewed idea of manliness for my sons.

Not the cold, unfeeling kind. Not the “boys don’t cry” nonsense I grew up hearing. But the quiet kind. The kind that says, “You don’t control what happens. Only how you respond.” The kind that holds the door open even when no one says thank you. That shows up for the people you love, even if you’re still healing from something they’ll never understand.

It’s not about suppressing feeling. It’s about letting those feelings pass through without wrecking the whole house on their way out.

And on the weeks I don’t have them, I try to stay grounded. To build a life that’s more than waiting. I work. I play soccer on Sundays with a group of guys who are also figuring things out. I call my dad. I fold the laundry slowly. I try to become someone they’d be proud of, even if they’re not watching.

There’s no gold medal for doing this well. No one’s handing out ribbons for “decent ex-husband” or “reliable part-time parent.” But maybe the reward is further down the line. In the men they’ll become. In the way they treat people. In the way they carry both strength and softness. And maybe, just maybe, in the day they come to me—not needing anything—just wanting to talk. Wanting to sit and laugh and share a coffee the way men do when they’ve been raised with love.

Forgiveness is a part of this too. Forgiveness for myself—for the ways I fell short. For the ways I still do. Forgiveness for their mom, even when things are hard. And forgiveness for time, which keeps moving whether I’m ready or not.

Every other week. That’s what the court calls it.

But I’ve decided to call it something else.

My time. Our time. The time I get to love them, teach them, and just be with them—without needing to be perfect.

And maybe that’s the real lesson I want them to learn:

That showing up matters more than showing off.

That real strength is gentle.

That love doesn’t always look like forever—but it can still look like enough.