When my kids were little, I used to make “Daddy Movies.”
It started as a way to stay connected when I was traveling for work. I’d sit down with a cheap webcam and record myself singing songs, reading stories, or just telling them where I was. I got pretty creative with MapQuest and PowerPoint to describe how far away I was. Sometimes I’d read to my wife too, like we were sitting on our bed together instead of two time zones apart. I’d burn the video to a DVD-R, label it with Sharpie, and leave it for my kids to find in the morning after I was gone.
This was before FaceTime was a thing — before video calls were easy.
I called it providing.
In those early years, when the kids were young and still eager to play around in the family room at the end of the day, I felt real purpose in those videos. I was out working, but I was still trying to show up in some way. To be present, even when I wasn’t.
Over time, the Daddy Movies stopped. The kids got older, and bedtime stories and silly songs faded out. I told myself they didn’t need them anymore. But I think the truth is, I got busier. More efficient. More productive. A better provider — at least by the world’s definition.
I wasn’t making storytime videos or time for stories anymore. I was making spreadsheets. Optimizing processes. Jumping from call to call — fire to fire. I was always reachable. Always reliable. Always on.
And slowly, without thinking about it most of the time, I started showing up more for work than I did for my family.
It wasn’t intentional. I just started to confuse providing with producing.
I used to think being a good provider meant never letting up. Ironically, the constant pressure and relentless pace didn’t keep me ahead — it just left more things unfinished. In chasing more, I delivered less. My professional life became a rope of a thousand strands, each one fraying under the strain.
I told myself that the extra hours and constant hustle were for my family, even when my family barely saw me.
There was a stretch of years when I was the guy who disappeared for days at a time — traveling, doing field work, leading, building. And when I came home, I was still checked out, still tired, still thinking about what was waiting for me on Monday morning. Everything outside of work felt like an interruption.
I had provided the newest tech, a few vacations, and braces on my time. But I missed story time. I missed more basketball games and choir concerts than I wanted to. I missed quiet moments when one of our kids was sad or scared and just wanted me to be home.
For years, I used to invent bedtime stories about two made-up tribes called the Googermongers and Mungabungas. My kids would grab a pillow and blanket and lay on the floor around our fireplace while I improvised — often until one or more of them fell asleep right there. No script. No plan. Just presence.
And that was being a provider too.
So was the time I cleaned up the hallway after a kid got sick in the middle of the night. Or when I sat with my son late into the night because he was too afraid to go to sleep alone. Or when we hiked the wrong trail down Kings Peak and thought we were going to die — seriously — but we made it home safe and together.
Those are the things that matter way more than another entry in the business ledger.
Being a provider isn’t just about money. It’s not just about sacrificing time away, either. It’s about showing up over and over again — in the mess, in the mundanity, in the tired, invisible, forgettable moments that shape a kid’s view of what love looks like.
I’ve always known that. I just forgot.
I’ve missed it a lot too.
I’m not the guru on the mountaintop. I definitely don’t have it all figured out. I still overwork. A lot. Still tell myself that just one more hour at the desk will somehow make everything better. Still let client expectations or money fears run the show more than they should. But I’m trying to come back to this: that being a provider isn’t about being the hero.
It’s about being here.
It’s frozen custard after a broken iPod screen. It’s helping someone — even when they’re fourteen — find their shoes. It’s driving across town because of forgotten cleats. It’s boring sometimes. And inconvenient.
But it’s also sacred.
My kids are older now. One’s getting married in just over three weeks. One is away at college — but close enough to come home when she wants. They’re becoming more independent, and figuring out what they want out of life. The oldest four don’t ask for story time anymore.
But they still ask for me.
And I want to be someone who answers.
The canyon I’m climbing out of isn’t just burnout or overwork. It’s the distorted belief that my worth was tied to how much I could produce. That providing, in some weird way, meant disappearing. That success meant distance.
I was — I am — wrong about that.
These days, I’m doing a little less disappearing. I’m saying yes more to things that don’t make any business sense. To being okay when my two oldest boys want to come into my room and talk to us while they wrestle with each other at 11:00 p.m. To showing up and staying put.
I still work too hard. But I’m working harder now to remember what I’m working for — and to be okay when the business work doesn’t get done in favor of something of far greater worth.
Because being a provider means more than bringing something home.
It means bringing more of myself into it.
It’s easy to fill a house with things.
Harder — and more important — to fill it with yourself.
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