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“A balm for the soul”
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GOOD PEOPLE Book
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father

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

I have plenty of space.


It's hard to truly describe the amazing bond between dads and their daughters.

Being a dad is an amazing job no matter the gender of the tiny humans we're raising. But there's something unique about the bond between fathers and daughters.

Most dads know what it's like to struggle with braiding hair, but we also know that bonding time provides immense value to our daughters. In fact, studies have shown that women with actively involved fathers are more confident and more successful in school and business.


You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? I'll just let these images sum up the daddy-daughter bond.

A 37-year-old Ukrainian artist affectionately known as Soosh, recently created some ridiculously heartwarming illustrations of the bond between a dad and his daughter, and put them on her Instagram feed. Sadly, her father wasn't involved in her life when she was a kid. But she wants to be sure her 9-year-old son doesn't follow in those footsteps.

"Part of the education for my kiddo who I want to grow up to be a good man is to understand what it's like to be one," Soosh told Upworthy.

There are so many different ways that fathers demonstrate their love for their little girls, and Soosh pretty much nails all of them.

Get ready to run the full gamut of the feels.

1. Dads can do it all. Including hair.

relationships, fathers, dads

I’ve got this.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

2. They also make pretty great game opponents.

daughters, daughter, father

Sharing life strategy.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

3. And the Hula-Hoop skills? Legendary.

bonding, dad, child

Tight fitting hula-hoop.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

4. Dads know there's always time for a tea party regardless of the mountain of work in front of them.

family bond, parent, child-bond

Dad makes time.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

5. And their puppeteer skills totally belong on Broadway.

love, guidance, play

Let’s play.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

6. Dads help us see the world from different views.

sociology, psychology,  world views

Good shoulders.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

7. So much so that we never want them to leave.

travel, inspiration, guidance

More dad time please.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

8. They can make us feel protected, valued, and loved.

protectors, responsibilities, home

Always the protector.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

9. Especially when there are monsters hiding in places they shouldn't.

superhero, monsters, sleeping

Dad is superman.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

daddy-daughter bond, leadership, kids

Never a big enough bed.

All illustrations are provided by Soosh and used with permission.

Seeing the daddy-daughter bond as art perfectly shows how beautiful fatherhood can be.


This article originally appeared on 04.09.16

Facebook / Maverick Austin

Your first period is always a weird one. You know it's going to happen eventually, but you're not always expecting it. One day, everything is normal, then BAM. Puberty hits you in a way you can't ignore.

One dad is getting attention for the incredibly supportive way he handled his daughter's first period. "So today I got 'The Call,'" Maverick Austin started out a Facebook post that has now gone viral.

The only thing is, Austin didn't know he got "the call." His 13-year-old thought she pooped her pants. At that age, your body makes no sense whatsoever. It's a miracle every time you even think you know what's going on.


Austin went over to the school to help her out. "So I rush to school take her a change of undies, put the old ones in a bag and rush back to my conference call and threw the bag in the kitchen trash," he said.

RELATED: Mansplainer doesn't understand tampons or periods and is getting dragged to hell for it

"A few hours later, she calls and I had to put a very important work meeting I'm hosting on hold which I never do. She says, 'Dad it happened again.' I'm confused and very annoyed because I'm super busy. I yell 'just wipe your butt better then stuff toilet paper in the back of your pants and I'll have to call you back in an hour!'"

Austin eventually figured out what was up, then put everything on hold so he could support his daughter during this milestone. "I interrupt my project meeting and explain to my banking colleagues that I'm VERY sorry but I have to go! I'm racing to the school while calling them telling the nurse to go find my child! [I'm] speeding and having a panic attack because my child called me for help and I just left her to die on the battlefield!" he wrote.

"I run into the office and she's standing there very calmly looking at me and says, 'Dad, I officially started my first . . .' and I stopped her and said, 'I already know Avi . . . it hit me a few minutes after I hung up on you.' The stress of raising a daughter!"

RELATED: These awesome teens take tampons to school to help their friends in case of an 'emergency'

Austin's stellar parenting skills don't end there. "Later on she asked, 'Don't I get something like when a tooth falls out?' So I snuck off to the store and when she got out of the shower I told her the period fairy brought her something."

Can we please start the Period Fairy as a thing, now? It would really take the edge off of realizing you're now doomed to periods once a month every month - and all that goes with it - until what feels like the end of time.

It's commendable that this dad was there for his daughter when she needed him. Entering womanhood can be wonky, but it's easier when you have supportive parents to lean on. We might have a nominee for the Dad of the Year Award.

Richard Pringle, a dad from England, thought he'd have more time with his son, Hughie.

Hughie had a serious brain condition his doctors considered manageable. He was supposed to be fine.

Tragically, the odds struck for the worst and Hughie, 3 years old at the time, suffered a brain hemorrhage last year that he did not survive.


It's a heartbreaking story, but Hughie's memory lives on. Pringle says he's "realised more than ever how precious life is."

He wanted to help other parents appreciate the fleeting and fragile nature of life. So Pringle came up with 10 things he's learned since his son passed.

"I was actually putting my little girl to bed one night and lying with her. It was then I wrote it," he says. "All things I've been thinking about and it just flowed."

The list reads as fond memories of a short life lived to the fullest. Yet it also serves as a powerful wake up call for any of us who might be missing out on the little moments that matter most.

"You can never ever kiss and love too much," Pringle writes. "You always have time. Stop what you're doing and play, even if it's just for a minute. Nothing's that important that it can't wait."

"Make boring things fun," he adds. "Be silly, tell jokes, laugh, smile, and enjoy yourselves. They're only chores if you treat them like that. Life is too short not to have fun."

You can read the full list in his original post:

❤️❤️The 10 Most Important Things I've Learnt Since Losing My Son 🙏1. You can never ever kiss and love too much. 2....

Posted by Richard Pringle on Wednesday, August 23, 2017

The post went viral and struck a nerve with parents everywhere who saw themselves in Pringle's words.

We're all tired from work, stressed from thinking about bills, and constantly scanning the house for what needs to be cleaned or fixed up. It becomes so easy to miss what's right in front of us — moments with our kids that can never be recreated. All the other stuff? It can wait.

It's not just for parents. Everyone could stand to stop and smell the roses, so to speak, a little more often.

"There's beauty in the simple things," Pringle says. "Things that often within our busy destructed lives go unnoticed. There's real beauty in simplicity and I feel we all need to realize this."

Heckling can be a dangerous sport. Especially when you try it with comedian Steve Hofstetter.

A sexist heckler recently learned this the hard way in front of his own daughters.

It started when Steve told a joke about why heckling is a bad choice.


"If you get upset with me and want to confront me after the show, don't do that," he warned.

Steve's set involved riffing about sexist dudes who yell about women covering sports events.

Steve took a moment to make the bold statement that women are people who, you know, are totally qualified to do jobs and stuff.

He shared a story about how a broadcaster named Jessica Mendozabecame the first woman analyst in history to cover a post-season Major League Baseball game, making the astute and frustrating point that it took until 2015 to make that happen.

Mendoza sharing her expert commentary that dudebros just can't handle. Photo by Maxx Wolfson/Getty Images.

Steve followed this with his best imitation of all the dudes who were freaking out online because a woman dared to exist and have talent and be hired to do her job.

"There were so many men on Twitter just being like, 'She doesn't know what she's talking about, she's never played professional baseball.'"

"I'm like, yoooou've never played professional baseball. You're in your mother's basement,'" Steve says.

He then pointed out Mendoza's qualifications. Things like winning an Olympic gold medal and a World Championship, graduating from Stanford, and leading her team with a .495 average on the tour leading up to the 2008 Olympics. Not to mention spending three years working her way up to being a full time analyst for ESPN Sunday Night Baseball.

And that's when the heckler made a poor choice: He heckled.

The heckler yelled, "NEXT!"

Apparently he was bored by jokes that also happened to praise women with skills and talents for being good at their jobs.

Steve then lit into him and discovered an ironic thing: The heckler had brought his daughters.

And they were horribly embarrassed.

And then this happened.


Then he said, "That's f*!ked up, dude."

After that, it just got better.

Steve, being the consummate professional flipped it around and brought back the jokes:

We're all carriers. There could even be a woman in your family.

After the set was over, the heckler's family and Steve bonded over their shared disappointment.

Steve left this update in his YouTube channel comments.

That seems like a home run for sanity to me.

Watch Steve's anti-heckling, feminism 101 class here:

As Steve says, in his own words, before the video of the interaction (which you can watch below): "What follows is probably the angriest I've ever been on stage."