Caleb Foster, Author at The Foster Parenthood

You Don’t Really Care

September 8, 2015 by Caleb Foster

Many of you are aware of the recent imprisonment of Kentucky County Court Clerk, Kim Davis. Her decisions have created nationwide attention. Regardless of your particular views on same-sex-marriage (or heterosexual marriage, for that matter) I want to ask a few questions to get at the root source of your functional hope.

Here’s what I really believe about you and me and most every other person who wants to “weigh in” on this subject: you don’t really care. Bottom line. Be honest – six months from now you won’t be waiving the picket signs of anti-same-sex this or that. You won’t be readily thinking about Kim Davis and her decisions. Why? Because you really don’t care.

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The Three P’s of Fatherhood: Patience, Persistence and Parenting

September 8, 2015 by Caleb Foster

If you’re like me you discover boundaries by stumbling across them. If this were the method for locating trip wires and land mines in the military you can rest assured there’d be casualties.

I entered parenthood with images of my cape flapping in the winds of success. Has it happened? Actually yes! I’ve accomplished all the things I set out to do. Oh and by the way – pigs fly!

Not a chance in… HELP! I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

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Empowering your Creative Child

August 28, 2015 by Caleb Foster

You know that feeling when you think you’re completely alone and then it hits you…that eerie gut-knowledge that someone saw it. Oh yeah – that feeling where your stomach instantly knots up and adrenaline and shame shoots through your entire body.

Nothing is worse. The first time it happened was shortly after Roxanne and I were married; I’d say within a couple weeks. She was in the living room – I was in our bedroom closet supposedly hanging up clothes. I was certain she’d never find out.

And then, right as I reached for the hanger bar to hang up a shirt, she was right behind. She’d witnessed it all. There was no hiding it any longer. She walked in and I was caught in the act.

I was a closet… Elmo voice-over pretender! Dun, dun, dun!!!

“What the heck are you doing?” “Uh, nothing – hanging up my clothes. Aren’t you supposed to be making dinner?!” “Well I was until I heard you talking back here. Who are you talking to?” “Umm.. uh, no one. I was – you know – talking like Elmo while I hung my clothes. Don’t judge me!”

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The Perfect Parent

August 19, 2015 by Caleb Foster

Perfectionism: a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands perfection and rejects anything less.

I am a perfectionist. This means I settle for nothing less than perfection in every aspect of my life; well most of them. This trickles over into my parenting in good and bad ways. The results of being a perfectionist are annoying at best and life-sucking at worst.

Perfectionism poses an assault against human relationships in so many ways. You may be thinking you do not struggle with this, but so did I. Being the perfect parent isn’t possible, we all recognize it. Here are the 2 main indications that you struggle with perfectionism in parenting and the consequences that flow from them.

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Where Is Your Faith?

August 12, 2015 by Caleb Foster

Serenity is not the absence of chaos – it’s the abundance of Christ in the midst of chaos.

Personal peace is a highly desired commodity these days. As a matter of fact we try to control and fabricate our own sense of peace when we feel we experience a personal power loss.

Take thunderstorms for example. Their power is captivating, beautiful and sometimes intimidating. The thunder, the rain, the wind and lightning are reminders that a power greater than us is in control. In Oklahoma we often see thunderstorms lead to tornadoes and flash floods. Because of this many of us have storm shelters. The shelters don’t stop the storm, they provide serenity in the midst of it. This is one of the ways we fabricate control, in some sense, during a storm (and a good way I might add).

But then there are simply things about a storm we cannot control. Call me archaic, but I love when a storm kills power to the house. There’s something connecting about candles, story-telling and simple conversation with loved ones when we lose power in a storm – I love it.

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You Can’t UnLive Your Life

August 9, 2015 by Caleb Foster

“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.” Prov. 6:10-11

Let me be forward from the start. This post is for me. Everything you’re about to read is in some way pertinent to my life, even as the words come out of my fingertips. The tendency when reading or hearing things like this is to assume the author/content originator is somehow above it. Like a law enforcement officer who thinks he can speed for no good reason because no one will write him a ticket. I am not above what I write.

This is an honest glimpse into where I am in my walk as a man, husband and father. These are my tendencies and struggles as well as some of the battles I face. This is me.

(photo credits to the amazingly talented Laura Vanderzee)

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The Breastfeeding Dadvocate

August 6, 2015 by Caleb Foster

In case you didn’t know, it’s World Breastfeeding Week. It’s probably a rarity for a husband to share his opinion of breastfeeding on social media but here goes. I 100% support and encourage breastfeeding. I also 100% support a family choosing what is best for them. That’s that.

Honestly, before The Lady Foster and I started a family I had no thoughts or stances on cord blood, cesareans, water-births, doulas, placenta encapsulation, natural vs. epidural – let alone breastfeeding. When we were pregnant with our first (and by we I mean my wife) I was the epitome of the uneducated man. “As long as mom and baby are healthy I don’t care if we use a catcher’s mitt to catch the baby when she comes out… a little game of baseball perhaps!”

Roxanne on the other hand was prepared for EVERYTHING. If our daughter had been born in a thunderstorm producing whale-sized hail – a whale storm – she’d have been ready. She was adamant about breastfeeding our children and as soon as Scarlette was born the process began. It was right then and there that I became a breastfeeding dadvocate.

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No More Daddy Daughter Dates

August 4, 2015 by Caleb Foster

Daddy Daughter Dates. We understand the implication: time well spent between a father and his daughter. I love these moments with my little girl. She and I regularly have “dates”. However, it may not always be a fine dining dinner setting (though occasionally it is). It is more often an early morning run to the grocery store in pajamas where she helps me carry the hand basket from aisle to aisle. Sometimes we go to the park together or to the library for movies and books.

My case is not that dads have dates with their daughters since that seems fairly obvious – dads should absolutely date their daughters. I hope to show you that simple, everyday exchanges between dads and daughters may actually serve her better rather than an outing to a restaurant or a fancy place in the city. Simply put, daddies should not just date their daughters, they should involve them in the circumstances of the day as long she can handle it.

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Real Men Engage Pt. 3

July 30, 2015 by Caleb Foster

So where were we? Last week we looked at two stories of two men who exemplified victory and defeat (David and Saul). We decided it would be fitting to look at the ultimate battle – the greatest battle ever fought in the history of the world. I’ll say that from the outset, it looked like it ended in defeat.

Before jumping too far ahead let me say a word about defeat from last week’s “hero” David. Even though David won the battle against Goliath he lost many others. He lost battles to lust, pride, power, murder and horrific family dynamics. I am in no way insinuating that we should look to David as the ultimate model for our lives. I think David is a great example for our lives but he is merely a caricature; a smaller picture of a greater manhood exemplified in a greater “David.”

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Raising Children in a High Tech World…You Can’t Google Wisdom

July 28, 2015 by Caleb Foster

The other day I had a thought about my wife. It was not nice – the thought was: “It’s dumb that you don’t know that”. She was referring to the fact that she didn’t know squash molded. I basically thought she was dumb for not knowing that any vegetable would become moldy if left alone long enough. “How could she not know something so basic?”

And then it hit me. I often think this way when people do not know something that I know – or at least about something I think they should know. Have you ever experienced this in yourself? Why is that? What’s wrong with me? Why am I so quick to label someone as unintelligent or plain “dumb” if there is something they don’t know? More than this, it has become increasingly more apparent that this is a staple posture in our culture, especially among younger generations.

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