Brad Meltzer, the Dad 2.0 opening keynote, speaking on legacy. Photo: Steve Hall/Dad 2.0 Summit
We’re back, after our fifth Dad 2.0 Summit concluded last weekend in Washington, DC. And man, what a time!
Dad 2.016 was an amazing conference full of extraordinary people brought together for a common goal—the betterment and legacy of modern fatherhood. We’ve read all of your kind and passionate recaps, and we were just as excited to see you at the conference as you were to be there. We couldn’t do it without you, and we thank you for the opportunity to spend our time together.
Only 49 weeks until Dad 2.017 in sunny San Diego! We can’t wait.
IN THE NEWS
LEGO has been a great friend to the Dad 2.0 community since our beginning, so we’re very excited to see their new set which features a stay-at-home dad and a working mom to help the company “stay in tune with the world around us.” Not to be confused with this guy, who’s just plain rad:

It’s the official Dad 2.0 Summit LEGO minifig! Photo by northidahodad.
A Canadian dad was recently overwhelmed by the worldwide support for his video defending kids with Down syndrome.
Parenting suggests that it is time we stop swooning over “super dadding.” It’s just normal parenting. Seriously. We’ve got it.
South Korea wants dads to account for 15% of people on child-care leave by 2020, compared with 6% last year, and they’re using celebrity dads to make it happen.
A couple moved up their wedding plans and got married in a hospital so that the bride’s father could be there. You need to watch this:
A son’s poetic tribute to his father’s fight for civil rights.
Josh Levs takes to Time to explain why Full House mattered, especially for dads, then and now.
PORCHLIGHT POSTS
They say that life imitates art. Or maybe it’s the other way around. We’re not sure it matters. However, we’re pretty confident that the first ever DadSLAM, inspired by this very Porchlight Posts series, was simply amazing. There were laughs, tears, hugs, and lots of wonderful words. Here are five pieces that were read aloud to the wonder of the room:
- Daniel De Guia of Fit to be Dad read about the “Ripple Effects From a Man I’ve Never Met.”
- Neal Call from Raised by My Daughter spoke on the skipping of metaphors in “A Million Splashes.”
- The piece that Justin Connors read, about the lens of economics, was first written for the Dad 2.0 Summit blog (THE ONE YOU’RE READING RIGHT NOW). Here is “They Don’t Know.”
- The children of James Rohl, aka Portland Dad, had their hands full in “But don’t worry daddy, we took care of the problem.”
- Scotty Schrier from Dads Who Change Diapers, had the room “In Stitches” and left them in tears.
- Bonus post! The man running DadSLAM was none other than Mr. John Kinnear, and he kicked the night off with this happy meal of a story: “Why We Can Never Go Back to McDonald’s.”
In closing, this video of closing keynote speaker Derreck Kayongo leading the Dad 2.0 Men’s Chorus may not be the most polished thing you watch on the Internet today, but you won’t get a single complaint from anyone that was in that room. It was pretty special:
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If you have any fatherhood news or stories that you would like to share you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook using the #FatherhoodOnFri hashtag!