This Father's Day, we meet Thiago Queiroz, a dad who has been absolutely on fire for supporting other fathers in his native Brazil since his oldest of 4 children was born a decade ago.

Many dads have been able to "meet" Thiago through his role in the American documentary, Dads. Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard, this film illustrates contemporary fatherhood through interviews with celebrities and everyday men what being a father means to them. Premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival in Canada, where it was named second runner-up for the People's Choice Award for Documentaries, Dads released in 2020 on Apple TV+.

Thiago is passionate about supporting fathers. We congratulate him on this work through his portrait on Dads.

Q: To begin, how did you find Nurturings?

THIAGO: When my first son was born, I was feeling a bit lost, trying to understand how I could raise my child. My own parenting references were not of the nurturing kind, and the only thing I felt was that I wanted to do it differently with my child.

Also, for being a father in Brazil, I didn't have any references of fathers who were actually involved in raising their kids, because our society only expects moms to really take care of their kids while the dads are seen as unable to take care of their baby. That didn't make any sense for me at that time, and still doesn't, so I started researching different views on child-rearing.

Gladly I found Nurturings, one of the best things that happened to me, because I started to understand how we can build strong emotional bonds with our children. More importantly, I understood how I, as a father, could do so many things with my baby.

Q: What are your thoughts about Dads as a film?

THIAGO: We need to have more examples and role models for diverse and loving fatherhood. Fatherhood is not a simple thing and being able to show the world how different men can care and love their children is not only important but urgent.

Those similar experiences are exactly what connect us. Having a mainstream documentary on fatherhood is a huge thing, especially when this documentary takes the subject very seriously, not portraying fathers as buffoons or mothers' helpers.

Q: What is it like to challenge the status quo of fatherhood in Brazil?

THIAGO: It's very challenging, because people around me, especially men, don't understand why I should be taking care of my kids so closely and lovingly if there's already a mother doing this.

We live in a society that has a strong "macho" culture, so it's difficult to find peers who understand the importance of creating strong and safe bonds between fathers and children.

Q: What tips can you offer men to rise to this challenge of choosing to be nurturing fathers?

THIAGO: My tip is, look out for other men like you. We might not be many yet, but we really need to get together and start talking about toxic masculinity, for instance, and how it affects the way we parent our children.

Being a nurturing dad is the best gift you can give to your child but also to yourself, your wife, and society. Let's find our peers and overcome these challenges, inviting other men to reflect on this, too. 

#normalizenurturing

My friend, Nichole, and her husband both work full-time. Their 2-year-old daughter spends the day with a childcare provider who has cared for her during work days since she was 6 weeks old. Nichole's husband picks up their daughter from the childcare center. 

Oftentimes, Nichole comes home after a 45-minute commute tired, wanting to relax and spend time playing happily with her daughter.

When her daughter was younger, Nichole would breastfeed to reconnect in the evenings. As her daughter grew into a toddler and weaned, the challenge of creating a peaceful evening has mounted. 

Her daughter, hungry for her mother's attention, seems to push the limits constantly, often bringing home acting-out behaviors she has learned from older children at daycare. 

While Nichole believes that discipline is important, she doesn't want to ruin everything so she tends to discipline inconsistently, choosing not to discipline when it appears her child is starting to tantrum.

Discipline is an important part of parenting, according to the Attached at the Heart Parenting Education Program. A key part of discipline is that it is focused on teaching the child, not by reacting to the child's behavior, but by proactively meeting the child's needs.

Reconnecting after being apart, whether for an hour or during the workday, is essential for families. Children may act out if they feel they aren't receiving enough undivided attention from their parents. 

To help ease the transition, include some of these simple activities into your transition times to fill your child with the loving attention they need and help them go more calmly into the next phase of the day: 

• Give a hug - Don't underestimate the power of nurturing touch in changing attitudes, your child's and yours.
• Involve your child in setting rules - Children are generally more enthusiastic about following rules that they've had a part in setting. 
• Include your child in your chores - Your child will feel empowered when you ask him for help instead of lecturing or scolding. Instead of getting angry that there are toys all over the floor of the family room, ask your child to help you clean them up.
• Regularly schedule special time with your child - Set aside some one-on-one time together with each of your children. Try 10-15 minutes a day and then build up. You could play a board game, play hide-and-seek, draw a picture together, turn on music and dance together, etc. Actually putting this one-on-one time in your calendar means you're making it a priority even when an evening is hectic.
• Take time to listen and share - Ask your child to share her happiest and saddest moments of the day. Perhaps you do this during your special time together, at bedtime, or some other set time every evening. Listen without trying to solve your child's problems, and then take your turn to tell your own happy and sad moments.
• Write a note to your child - Put a handwritten note in your child's lunch box, on his pillow, or tape it to the bathroom mirror. The notes, like hugs, give your child a boost during the day.
• Take advantage of errands - Whether you're going grocery shopping, to the bank, or dropping off mail at the post office, the drive time during these errands provides additional one-on-one time for your child. If you have several children, have them take turns. Take this time to listen to whatever your child wants to talk about, and share special stories from your life such as when you were younger.

By taking the time to reconnect with our children, we are not only fulfilling their child's needs but also giving ourselves exactly what we need: children who feel right with themselves and with their families, and who are less likely to act out. 

If a child does have a tantrum or otherwise acts out, it's important to remember that this is something all children (and adults) do sometimes. What they need most from us is sensitive responsiveness and guidance on their behavior from a place of empathy.

In what ways do you reconnect with your child after time away? 

#normalizenurturing

This morning, it snowed in Seattle. It reminded me of the night Max was born, almost exactly five years ago, when it was sunny and rainy and windy and then, in the middle of the night when we were upside-down with time and date, we looked out the window and saw snow swirling around. I don't remember much about those early days and hours, but I do remember the snow.

Five years ago, newly pregnant, my husband and I were full of expectation and wonder at how much our lives were about to change. Like many mothers-to-be, I was fixated on the labor and delivery part of this journey. I felt somewhat confident the newborn challenges would be manageable, but I knew the labor and birth were all on me. I diligently took the birth classes, read the books, talked to our midwife, and hired a doula.

The one piece of information from our birth class I recalled in the middle of a long and arduous labor was the phrase: "Transition is usually the shortest and most intense phase of labor, lasting about 30 minutes on average." 

Labor Detoured

When I arrived at the hospital birthing center, 24 hours into labor with Max and nearly fully dilated, I heard the nurses' whispers: "Transition; she's in transition." Five hours later, I was still "in transition," and nothing I had learned in class seemed applicable anymore. 

It would be another seven hours before Max would make his appearance in the world. During those hours before Max was born, a lot of things happened. 

It turned out that not only was he a "sunny-side-up baby" whose head position was causing me tremendous back labor, but he was also tipping his head back and up as though arching backwards to see us. Knowing him as I do now, this fit with his determined, strong, curious personality. At the time, however, it put us in a challenging position.

We ended up needing almost every intervention possible, despite our boldest attempts to avoid them. At the climax of the emotionally charged day, the obstetrician who'd been called in to assist told me I had three choices: vacuum, forceps, or Cesarean section. I opted for the first and second choices. 

I knew that a C-section was a major abdominal surgery, so we opted for the less invasive interventions first. I felt like we were prepared, well-supported, and certainly all ready to meet Max. 

As it turned out, the vacuum did not work, despite two attempts, so the doctor turned to the forceps. It was 5:30 p.m. on a Monday. The room filled with people, reminding me of a circus car with clowns climbing out, except this was not funny. Nurses, another obstetrician, two pediatricians, the anesthesiologists, and our doula filed somberly into the room. The next 30 minutes were a blur of pain, tears, hope, and a deep longing within me for Max to arrive safely and all of this  to just be over.

At 6:01 p.m., nearly 36 hours after active labor started, Max was born. 

Motherhood Born in Fear

I kept asking, "Is he okay?" and crying, "I'm so sorry, baby," over and over again. Specialists whisked him off to be examined. I later learned they had been fearful that they might have had to resuscitate him.

It was incredible how a single day could be both so joyous and terrifying. 

It would be many more weeks before I healed and many more weeks before poor Max, with his huge, cone-shaped head with bruises from  the vacuum and  forceps, would heal, too. Our midwife called him a "warrior" who had "been through the war."

I Am Still Grieving

I sometimes feel like I am cheating Max, because every year, as his birthday rolls around, I do not always feel joy and excitement. While there is grief in remembering our birth story, I am excited that he is growing older and doing more interesting things and blossoming into this amazing young person. 

Aging is bittersweet; when we are young, we don't realize it is happening. When we are old enough to appreciate it, many years have already passed. Didn't someone once say that "youth is wasted on the young"?

My emotions have been all over the map these past few days. My recent trip to California with just Max was important and wonderful. I am glad we made the time to do that together, but coming home was harder because all the stress of life was still here, waiting for me. 

This week, we hit the ground running: work and school and laundry and classes and planning his preschool birthday celebration. There was also his friends and family birthday party to plan and my thinking that hosting it at our house would somehow make it simpler. Good grief, what was I thinking? 

Now, here we are, on the precipice of his last day as a 4 year old. I know that tomorrow night, when I kiss him goodnight, he will still be the same Max he was today and the same Max that will wake up Sunday morning.

While his birthday is a celebratory day of Max and one that ultimately should bring us joy, it also marks an anniversary for me of one of the hardest and most difficult days of my life. It's complicated when the day that is supposed to be one of the highlights of my life is also one of my greatest hurts. I tell my students and my children frequently that you can feel two emotions in the same moment. For me, Max's birthday is the holding of two emotions, if not more. 

Time Has Allowed Healing

The further out I get from his actual birth, paradoxically the more I seem to recall. It has taken many months and several of his birthdays for me to realize that what happened the day he was born was not my "fault." It has taken me that long to find ways to have empathy for myself and our shared experience, but it hasn't been easy.

Yesterday in the car, I was listening to the kids' radio station and a song came on by the Okie Dokie Brothers called "Along for the Ride." The song, about life and traveling down a river, gets to one lyric that says how I will go along for the ride if, "child, you'll be my guide." I started crying right here in the car. 

I thought about how much I have learned about myself and life from being a parent to Max. I have learned a lot about parenting, too, but I do not think this evolution of self would have ever occurred for me, had I not had the birth experience I did with Max and had I never been Mom to Max. 

I realized how much Max is truly my guide, even though I am his parent. I cannot navigate these waters without understanding him, and every day he shows me how to do that better.

As the Hard Memories Fade...

Every day that we continue down this road, we also get further from the starting point. Mostly, that's okay, because it means leaving behind something painful and scary and sad, but also it is painful and scary and sad to leave it, because it means Max is further from being that tiny baby who fell asleep on my chest, who cried for us so often in the night, who fell in love with trains before he was even 2 years old. 

I keep thinking I will remember all this, and some of it I may, but much of it slips away as I make space in my mind for new memories.

This is the crux of parenting: not the diaper changing and the spitting up and the messes and the tantrums, but the shifting of older memories and experiences to make room for the new, and us trying to hold on to them just a little longer, to glean a little more of the sweetness of our babies, before they slip away and turn 5. 

How long has it been since your child's birth? How many times have you shared your birth story with others? How do you continue to celebrate the good and work through the challenges? 

#normalizenurturing