By a Dad, for Dads (and Mums) doing it on their own

About two and a half years ago I became a single lone father, caring for my two children on my own.  There is nothing unique about that, a lot of parents end up in the same situation for one reason or another but what I have noticed when I have been using the internet to help me through various problems that have come up over time is that most of the places that offer support are extremely biased towards lone mothers.

So I thought to myself "Why should we lone fathers be excluded or ignored?"

I don't claim to be the best parent in the world, I haven't got all the answers, I don't know what I am doing as much as the next Dad but I am using this blog to offer support and ideas to other fathers who, like me, gave up their careers, and decided to put the children first.  Always.

So what can you expect to see here? Well, I will be documenting not just the crazy and naughty stuff my kids get up to but the minor (and major) achievements they make that make me a proud dad.  I will also be documenting how I see the various school interactions differently from lone mothers (or indeed just the mothers at the gate).

I am very lucky in having a support network around me that is awesome, both family and friends, but there are some things that come as a shock to all parents and the children they care for and when you are on your own its sometimes difficult to move past it.

Sometimes I will be coming here to rant and rave so that I can vent frustration, sometimes I will be the proud Papa, sometimes I will be what my 9 year old son describes as the "Man-child".

So lets start this process by meeting the kids, after all, without them I wouldn't have anything to write.

My oldest is my son, Dylan.  He is 9 years old and currently in Year 4 at Primary School.  He has experienced anger and frustration and therefore behaviour problems since my ex-wife and I split up.  He reminds me of me, I can see the frustration and its heartbreaking at times.  I can also see the intelligence in his eyes and the drive in his soul.

My youngest is my daughter Elliott.  She is 3 and goes to school Nursery in the mornings.  She is friendly, bold and articulate, and thankfully was too young at the time to have any lasting memory of the marital break up.  She also has a condition with her eyes called bilateral coloboma which makes her have strange shaped pupils and it affects her vision.  How much it affects it I am not sure, even after lots of hospital visits.

So why not keep tabs on how these two end up? Come along for the ride with me as I tell the story of the kids, the school and the local community from the eyes of a Dad who is working it all out as it comes, no gloss, no dramatisation,