Your Influence as a Dad Doesn’t Expire w/ Mark Groves
Mark Groves is 46, and he still comes back to a conversation that happened in a car, with his father, when he was in his twenties.
The Separate Entity
Groves had gone to his dad complaining about his girlfriend and said something he’s not proud of: if it’s so bad, why are you even with me. His dad stopped him right there.
“A relationship is a separate entity. There is you, and there is her, and you need to care for that separate entity.”
Why Influence Doesn’t Expire
Groves ties the story back to something he hears constantly from men who find Front Row Dads once their kids are already grown: that they missed their window. Jon pushes back on that idea directly, and Groves says it’s the whole reason the story matters.
“Why do you think that your influence as a man is somehow now non-existent with your children?”
Nothing Will Ever Divide This Family
During COVID, when Groves’ own family was split over politics, his father drew a line.
“Nothing will ever divide this family.”
Groves still gets emotional telling it. It was, he says, the thing he was most afraid of hearing wasn’t true.
What Actually Sticks
Not every lesson is a big one. Groves’ dad had standing lines for teaching his kids to drive (he’d put an egg under their foot on the gas pedal to force a lighter touch), and a standing rule that swearing was allowed on the construction site, just not in the house. Small, repeatable, the kind of thing a kid still quotes thirty years later.
The Grace on the Drive Home
Groves also got caught shoplifting as a kid. His dad picked him up, asked him why he did it and why he hadn’t just come to him instead, then gave him chores to earn the money back rather than punishing him further.
“That level of grace being offered to me was like everything. It was really life-changing for me.”
If you want the whole conversation, click here.
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