Best Three Dads Trying To Be Like The First Dad Podcasts (2025)

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Because Apparently Retainers Can Be 911 Emergencies 44:11

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20m ago44:11

44:11

Send us a text One minute your kid’s supposed to be asleep. The next, you’re calling 911 because her retainer is stuck in her throat. In this episode, we share what really happened — the chaos, the calm, the fire truck in our driveway — and what it taught us about dividing the mental load when life takes a sharp left turn. From staying calm under p…

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The Slow Work of Sharing the Load — Picking Up Where We Left Off 25:06

3d ago25:06

25:06

Send us a text If last week was about awareness, this week is about action — and continuing a conversation too good to rush. In Episode 15, we started unpacking what it really takes to share the mental load. The dialogue ran deep, so instead of cutting it short, we kept going. This week, we pick up right where we left off: talking about accountabil…

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Tiny Shifts, Big Changes: The Mental Load Check-In (Part 1) 23:50

11d ago23:50

23:50

Send us a text In this candid check-in, we talk about how things are really going as we try to share the mental load. From garlic confusion and weekend dinners to birthday parties and even an unexpected ER visit, this episode unpacks the tiny shifts that add up to big changes. We get real about what’s working, what still feels heavy, and how learni…

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How to Talk About the Mental Load Without Starting a Fight 30:25

17d ago30:25

30:25

Send us a text If you’ve ever tried to talk about the mental load and ended up in a full-blown argument — this one’s for you. We’ve been there. More than once. In this episode, we get brutally honest about what didn’t work (spoiler: “you never do anything” is not a winning opener) and what finally did. It’s equal parts laughter, therapy flashbacks,…

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Two Weeks, Four Backpacks, Seven Countries: Running Uphill With a Toddler on Your Back 37:23

1M ago37:23

37:23

Send us a text You planned it, packed it, and somehow still ended up carrying the toddler uphill to a castle. In this week’s episode — Two Weeks, Four Backpacks, Seven Countries: Running Uphill With a Toddler on Your Back — we wrap up our travel trilogy by unpacking what it really takes to “relax” on vacation when you’re the family trip planner. Fr…

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Two Weeks, Four Backpacks, Seven Countries: How We Packed 31:22

1M ago31:22

31:22

Send us a text Packing is never just about clothes—it’s about anticipating every scenario, lightening the mental load, and making sure the whole family can actually enjoy the trip. In this episode of The Mental Load Chronicles, we share how we packed for a two-week, seven-country European adventure with three kids… using just four backpacks. From b…

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Two Weeks, Four Backpacks, Seven Countries: The Mental Load of Travel Planning 37:45

2M ago37:45

37:45

Send us a text In this first episode of our three-part Travel with Five series, we dive into the mental load of travel planning. From researching flights a year in advance to sprinting through train stations with three kids, we unpack what it really takes to pull off a two-week, seven-country European adventure. You’ll hear: Why backpacks > suitcas…

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Dad's First Time in Charge: Birthday Party Mental Load Recap 27:45

2M ago27:45

27:45

Send us a text In this episode of The Mental Load Chronicles, we dive into what happened when Dad took full responsibility for planning our son’s birthday party—for the very first time. From scrambling for contact info and navigating RSVPs, to forgotten candles, late-night Target runs, and the chaos of seven laser-tag-hyped kids, we unpack the invi…

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Homework, Vet Bills & the Mental Load of Family Life 22:13

2M ago22:13

22:13

Send us a text In this episode of The Mental Load Chronicles, we continue exploring the caregiving portion of the Fair Play deck—this time focusing on the realities of pet care, parenting, medical needs, and school responsibilities. From managing a beloved pet’s cancer treatments to dealing with homework, school transitions, and never-ending paperw…

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Before They Say “I Do”: The Mental Load of Taylor & Travis 37:07

2M ago37:07

37:07

Send us a text What happens when pop culture’s biggest power couple collides with the everyday realities of marriage and mental load? In this episode, we use Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s whirlwind romance as a springboard to unpack the conversations every couple should have before tying the knot. From dividing household labor, balancing career d…

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Burrows, Bangs, and Balayage: Navigating the Caregiving Deck 29:09

3M ago29:09

29:09

Send us a text Tooth fairy fails, surprise haircuts, and why “helping” sometimes makes things harder—this episode dives into the caregiving side of the mental load. We work through the Fair Play deck and unpack how small tasks highlight bigger truths about partnership, parenting, and communication. Highlights include: Why surprise “help” (like an u…

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Cheese Pizza, Goody Bags, and Chaos: The Mental Load of Kids’ Parties 25:16

3M ago25:16

25:16

Send us a text Birthday parties look simple from the outside, but behind the balloons and cake is a mountain of invisible labor. He's offered to "own" birthday parties! Yay! So, in this episode, we unpack the hidden checklist of planning a kid’s party: RSVPs, food drama, decorations, thank-you notes, and the chaos of managing 20 kids at once. He sa…

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Wild: Navigating Life’s Unpredictable Moments 23:18

3M ago23:18

23:18

Send us a text From pet loss to home renovations gone rogue, we’re diving into the “Wild” section of the Fair Play deck. These are the unpredictable life moments that don’t fit neatly into a category — but still demand teamwork, compassion, and a good sense of humor. Check us out on InstagramBy A suburban family

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Dimmer Down on Caring 39:03

3M ago39:03

39:03

Send us a text This week, we continue through the Fair Play deck by Eve Rodsky to see how our family’s responsibilities stack up — and who’s really holding the cards. From civic duties to cultural outings, travel plans to kids’ activities, we talk through what’s working, what’s… not, and how we can better share the load. It’s part strategy session,…

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It’s Not Just the Thing—It’s All the Things 8:24

3M ago8:24

8:24

Send us a text In this premiere episode of The Mental Load Chronicles, one married couple kicks off their real-time journey to rebalance the invisible labor of family life. This episode gets brutally honest about what it really takes to “keep the household running.” It’s vulnerable. It’s relatable. And it’s probably your life, too. This episode set…

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Playing Fair: Our First Attempt at Rebalancing the Mental Load 29:58

3M ago29:58

29:58

Send us a text In Episode 2 of The Mental Load Chronicles, we do a thing: sit down with a literal deck of cards to sort out who does what in our household. Enter: the Fair Play method. We talk through the realities of managing a full house—three kids, two jobs, multiple dogs—and how it all becomes a blur of unspoken expectations, unbalanced respons…

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The Mental Load at Midnight 34:48

3M ago34:48

34:48

Send us a text This one’s for every parent who’s ever stayed up late wrapping birthday presents, stuffing goodie bags, or scrambling to explain why the tooth fairy forgot to come (again). In this episode, we get into the invisible labor behind the “magic”—from planning birthday parties and making cupcakes from scratch, to managing the ever-growing …

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Am I a Terrible Parent: Video Games + Screen Time 23:05

6y ago23:05

23:05

We introduce a new format called "Am I a Terrible Parent?" where one of them asks if something they do with their kids makes them terrible parents. On this week's show Dan shares his policy of sequestering his children in their rooms once they've reached their screen time quota. This leads to a comparison of our children's obsession with screens, u…

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Kanye West Declares Jesus is King 42:52

6y ago42:52

42:52

We break down the biggest event in Christian music history: Kanye West's new album "Jesus is King." There's a lot of angles to cover here: the divided Christian response, what it means for the future of Christian music, the best tracks, and where this album ranks among the rest of Kanye's music. Whether or not you are huge Kanye fans like us, this …

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Raising Strong Girls with Women of the Church 37:50

6y ago37:50

37:50

About half of all kids on earth are girls (statistics level: 1,000), and the challenges they have faced throughout history are numerous. Things are a lot better than they used to be for girls, but we've still got a ways to go. To help us think through what steps we can take as parents to raise girls well we bring in Ashley and Mandy from Women of t…

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God is Cool with Halloween 32:31

6y ago32:31

32:31

We tackle the holiday that makes Christians the most nervous, but is there anything to be afraid of? What are the historical roots of Halloween, and does it even matter? What does God think about Halloween? Is scary stuff inherently evil? Connect with us:Leave a reviewInstagram (@godisadadpodcast)Facebook (https://facebook.com/godisadad/)Website (h…

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Upside Down Leadership with Chris Cirullo 36:18

6y ago36:18

36:18

We all know we are supposed to lead our kids, but what does "leadership" actually mean? With so many different leadership types and methods displayed in society and culture, it's crucial we distinguish between the world's version of leadership and God's.To help us wade through this topic, Justin hangs out with Chris Cirullo of Man on Mission podcas…

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God is Not a Helicopter Parent + School Shootings 33:58

6y ago33:58

33:58

The guys follow up on their conversation about Violence by asking how much God "helicopters" vs. allows us to encounter difficult/traumatizing experiences in life. Then they break down the recently released video from the Sandy Hook Promise "Back-to-School Essentials" and discuss how the reality of school shootings affects our perspective on violen…

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Violent Content Will Not Ruin Your Kids 41:53

6y ago41:53

41:53

For as long as violent media has existed, parents have wondered: is it OK to let my kids see/hear/read/watch this? Will it cause them to be violent? Will it traumatize them in some way? Will they think violence is normal/good/appropriate behavior?These are critical questions to answer that, like most questions, have no universal answer for every fa…

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Is Parenting Hard? A Debate with Risen Motherhood (Ep 31) 31:43

6y ago31:43

31:43

Back this week with the fun part of our conversation with Laura and Emily from Risen Motherhood (the podcast AND the new book). They begin every episode with the statement "Motherhood is hard," so we thought we'd get them to dig deeper into what that really means. Is parenting actually hard, or do we make it hard? A friendly debate ensues and go fi…

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Gospel Hope for Fun Parenting with Risen Motherhood (Ep 30) 34:43

6y ago34:43

34:43

We "know" the gospel means salvation in the eternal sense, but what does it do for us in the meantime?For such an important question we had to bring in the heavy hitters Laura and Emily from Risen Motherhood to help us sort through all the implications the Good News has for us as parents. Fortunately for us they wrote an entire book on the topic so…

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Navigating Alcohol with Children (Ep 29) 44:39

6y ago44:39

44:39

Beer, wine, and spirits. To some they are the start of a great night, to others they are a sure fire sign of darkness and moral decline. It gets even trickier when you throw children and legal drinking ages into the mix...What does God think about alcohol? Is it a good idea for kids to be around it? How do we define drunkenness? What ages is it OK …

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Profanity: It's Not That Big of a Deal (Ep 28) 34:36

6+ y ago34:36

34:36

Profanity: the timeless linguistic art of arranging letters into words inappropriate in public and off limits to kids. What does God think of swear words? How much do we try to avoid our kids coming into contact with them, or can we? How important is it for our kids to censor their own language?Likely to be our most controversial episode to date, s…

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BONUS CHAT: Leveling Up Your Coffee Game 27:20

6+ y ago27:20

27:20

Who loves coffee? Dumb question, everyone loves coffee. But if you'd like to love coffee even more here's some advice from our resident connoisseur (Jake) to get even more enjoyment out of your daily cup of joe. He breaks it down from the most basic to the highest level, no matter how serious you are about coffee there's something here for you. Che…

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I'd Love to Play With You...but I'm Tired (Ep 27) 43:16

6+ y ago43:16

43:16

This is not a revolutionary observation, but parenting can be tiring. Also not breaking news: it's easier to parent our kids well when we are not tired. Are you seeing what I'm seeing here?In this episode we try to break the vicious cycle of parenting and fatigue. How can we have more energy for our kids? Is coffee the answer? Does it even matter? …

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Mom Guilt (Ep 26) 44:42

6+ y ago44:42

44:42

We bring back the Moms for their second episode to cover a topic many Moms can relate to (and some Dad's too!): Mom guilt (Or maybe we'll just call it parent guilt). Do you ever have the feeling like you never measure up as parent? Or that you are constantly letting your kids down? We get into the nitty gritty of all those feelings and process thro…

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When Ambition Goes Too Far + Spider-Man vs The Dark Knight (Part 2) 52:45

6+ y ago52:45

52:45

We pick up both conversations from last week's episode (listen to that one first if you haven't), first by asking the question how do we proceed when we our ambition is directed at something important, but with impure motivations, at least partially. Then at (26:30) Dan lays out his case for why Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse usurps The Dark Kni…

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When Ambition Goes Too Far + Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Ep 25) 44:27

6+ y ago44:27

44:27

It seems like there's always too many things in life to juggle: family, work, church, social life, school, plus any side hustles you have going on. Not only that but, especially in western cultures, the expectation often seems to be nothing less than excellence in every aspect of life, which sounds great but how do we know when it's all too much? U…

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The Fear of Death (Ep 24) 40:52

6+ y ago40:52

40:52

Our darkest episode to date! Some unresolved health issues are causing Justin to ask a lot of the classic questions we often ask when we suffer and enlists Jake and Dan to help him process through them.How do we find our hope, peace, and joy in God alone? What do we do if God doesn't feel "real" and "present"? Does God kill people? Can we ever be C…

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Avoiding Conditional Love + Lord of the Rings with Kent Spray (Ep 23) 41:14

6+ y ago41:14

41:14

Continuing off of last weeks conversation, we get into what we can do as parents to give our kids every reason to believe our love for them is unconditional. Nothing, not their good choices, bad choices, non choices, or sibling's choices can affect our love and acceptance of them, but this doesn't always come across. We need to work extra hard to m…

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No Shame Parenting with Kent Spray (Ep 22) 34:06

6+ y ago34:06

34:06

We're always on the lookout for intriguing questions to ask so we pull in our longtime friend Kent to throw a couple good ones our way.Should we tell our kids we're proud of them? If so does that create a dynamic of conditional love/approval? What about saying we're disappointed in them? Does that communicate shame and create a performance based re…

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Life Is Scary + Broken Engagements, Testicular Lumps, and Hernias (Ep 21) 40:34

6+ y ago40:34

40:34

All it takes is one bad thing happening to us to remind us how helpless we are and tempt us into fear. As children we deal with this fear by (ideally) putting our faith in our parents to take care of everything that could go wrong. Then as adults we often construct in our minds this little world that we feel relatively safe and secure in, but life …

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Adoption + Transracial Parenting with Natalie Seitz (Ep 20) 47:02

6+ y ago47:02

47:02

Since we know very little about adopting children we thought it would be wise to bring in a bona-fide expert: our friend Natalie who (along with her husband) have grown their family exclusively through adoption. Now a family of four, they adopted two children domestically and two internationally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition to…

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Don't Teach Your Kids to Be Loyal (Ep 19) 44:40

6+ y ago44:40

44:40

Is loyalty a value worth instilling in your children? Is God loyal? What does "loyalty" even mean? These questions might be trickier than they seem...For example, what happens when your child's friends are doing something wrong and they appeal to a sense of loyalty to keep them from telling someone? Should they betray their friends or stick with th…

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BONUS CHAT: Disney World vs. Harry Potter World 30:26

6+ y ago30:26

30:26

Who hates Disney world? Well, apparently both Dan and Jake thought they did...without actually going. With Dan returning from a recent trip to the Magical Kingdom, we find the magic of Disney fully took hold as he's apparently been fully converted. He shares about how all of his expectations were exceeded as well as some helpful tips on maximizing …

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Does God Spank? (Ep 18) 58:48

6+ y ago58:48

58:48

Spanking. The increasingly scrutinized discipline practice that some view as nothing less than psychologically traumatizing, while others would point out: "whoever spares the rod hates their children." Suffice it to say there's a lot to unpack here. We start by sharing our experiences with spanking as kids, discuss our family's current spanking pol…

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Meet The Moms: Love After Babies Pt.2 (Ep 17) 49:14

7y ago49:14

49:14

We've been looking forward to this one, only hearing us Dad's talk about raising our kids is like reading the first half of a book, it's can be good and all but getting the whole thing is much better. They give their perspective on romance after kids and hit on some much bigger issues than chocolate and flowers like arguing in front of your kids, t…

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Love After Babies + Valentines Day (Ep 16) 45:32

7y ago45:32

45:32

It's that time of year again...when couples try and muster up the energy to show how much they care about each other (oh and Hallmark ensures they make some money in February). In honor of this made-up holiday, we compare the state of romance in our marriages, our plans for Valentines Day, and ask ourselves why God created the desire for the romant…

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Discipline: All the Ways We Screw It Up + The Office vs. Parks and Rec (Ep 15) 51:55

7y ago51:55

51:55

Continuing off of last weeks conversation (Why Even Discipline Your Kids?) we get a lot more practical and compare our family's methods of discipline. Definitely not a "How To" segment (every family is different), we get into both things that have worked for us and the ways we most often mess it up.Then at the (35:17) mark we switch things up from …

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Why Even Discipline Your Kids? (Ep 14) 41:48

7y ago41:48

41:48

Discipline is such a crucial part of parenting and, arguably, the aspect containing the greatest amount of landmines. Children's disobedience can frustrate, exhaust, and confound even the wisest and most patient parent. Suffice it to say: it's easy to make mistakes in this area...And that's OK! We're all just here to get better, so we start by focu…

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Discovering the Power of Prayer with Drew Meyer (Ep 13) 56:10

7y ago56:10

56:10

With Dan off in Disney World, we sub in pastor and author Drew Meyer to talk about the power of prayer in family life. If you ever wonder about:how to stoke a passion for prayer in you childrenhow to maintain faith when praying for big things in your familyhow to answer the big "why" questions of Godhow to foster an family dynamic where everyone en…

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Staying Hungry for God When Your Family Life Is Full (Ep 12) 53:10

7y ago53:10

53:10

The more connected to and hungry for God we are the better parents we will be, full stop. But how do we cultivate and preserve a sense of wonder and longing for more of God? The guys wrestle with this question and discuss the role community and the Bible play in connection with God. Some memorable soundbites from the episode: "don't pray for a week…

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If New Years Resolutions Aren't Fun You're Doing Them Wrong (Ep 11) 56:08

7y ago56:08

56:08

If you have tried a New Years Resolution in recent years then you are also likely someone who has failed at your New Years Resolution in recent years. That's about to change.Most people approach their resolutions with a mindset that destines them to fail, don't let that happen to you again by listening to this episode where they guys discuss their …

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Christmas Bonanza + Santa Updates (Ep 10) 49:23

7y ago49:23

49:23

The guys go full on Christmas with this one. First they start out with some amusing developments on their family's Santa policy, followed by a brainstorming session on how they can enhance the Christmas experience for their kids. They start by answering the question of how to best incorporate their kids into developing traditions then give their ta…

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The Santa Question + Lying to Your Kids (Ep 09) 58:04

7y ago58:04

58:04

We get into the Christmas spirit by debating the value of incorporating Santa as a part of your family's holiday experience. Does Santa steal Jesus' thunder? Will kids become jaded when they find out he's not real?This naturally leads into the question of if/when lying to your kids is good and, as usual, they try to answer that question by asking w…