The Words From My Son That Filled Me With Both Shame and Hope

I’ve spent my life trying to be someone else. Now I have to become the man he already thinks I am.

Sep 2, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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August 2025

Is 'F* Around and Find Out' Really the 'Anti-Gentle Parenting?'

What the buzzword battle misses about boundaries, consequences, and connection.

Aug 12, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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June 2025

What We See When the Light Dims

A story about fireflies, fatherhood, and finding your place in the universe—even if it’s not center stage.

Jun 30, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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The Discipline of Showing Up

What a failed breakfast taught me about freedom, fatherhood, and starting over.

Jun 23, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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April 2025

There's Still Time

On aging, disability, and the slow loss of play in fatherhood.

Apr 23, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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The Story She Never Stopped Believing

Part One of “The Book, the Hook, and the Boy”—on the story that shaped my wife, and what it means to see her pass it on.

Apr 21, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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When Fear Sounds Like Love

The Subtle Ways “What If” Shapes How We Parent

Published on unpopular PARENT • Apr 12, 2025

Living Despite the World

Refusing to be broken by a broken world

Apr 11, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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The One About Post-pandemic Parenting

If surviving the pandemic was hard, raising kids after it seems harder.

Published on Indian Millennial Dad • Apr 10, 2025

I Refuse to Be the Ghost That Haunts My Children

Every parent becomes one or the other: a ghost that haunts, or an ancestor who stays. For me, the fight to be the latter never stops.

Apr 9, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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The Childcare Crisis No One Prepared You For

Why Daycare Is So Expensive - and What It Means for Working Parents

Published on The Fatherhood Framework • Apr 8, 2025

This Too Shall Pass

On Raising Kids, Losing Time, and Letting Go

Apr 7, 2025 • Derek Moeller-Smith

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