I suggested Josh Benson and I meet at Uncle Julio’s to talk about the group he started last month that ‘s already a success, Howard County Dads (HCD). Uncle Julio’s is a large restaurant in downtown Columbia, but that place is undergoing so much change that, despite the restaurant’s size, it can be challenging to find. That’s especially true when the two people trying to find it are brand new (me, Colleen) and relatively new (Benson) to the area. With a couple phone calls and pinned locations sent to each other Benson and I managed to do it, however. I was glad, though, to have gotten there before Benson so that I could eat a lot of nacho chips with Uncle Julio’s mouth-watering salsa…for free!
As Benson arrived, he apologized for his slight tardiness, and I reluctantly accepted his apology. I didn’t want him to think I was in any way annoyed or angry that I had to wait a mere ten minutes for him. I was having one of those moments of happy serenity looking wistfully off into the distance thinking of Robert and Moses taking a cat nap–even though neither of them is a feline!–back in our RV, still parked in Maple Lawn since last week’s festival there.
And as I said–I got to gorge myself on chips and salsa, and that’s never a reason to complain, for me. Benson had already left work early to meet me, so I felt indebted to him. But he’s so genuine, his body so language unassuming and innocent, that I quickly felt like I was talking to an old, if much younger, friend. Despite my concern that the high ceilings and loud music at Uncle Julio’s would make it impossible for me to hear Benson, he and I began talking all about HCD.
Necessity Is the Dad of Invention
“The main goals are to share advice and find other dads,” Benson told me of the inspiration behind HCD. He said that he felt like he was accumulating a lot of advice he wanted to share in the course of the parental tag-teaming he and his wife do as they raise their two young sons, with him working during the day and her during the night. But he knew, he said, by the same token, there was advice out there he was missing out on. This same can-do attitude that, I assume, led to his impressive career in Web Development, also led to beginning HCD. When he found that moms’ groups tended to want to protect their moms-only status, jokes about starting a similar group in which dads support each other became serious stuff. He began HCD as a Facebook group and an Instagram account. Now it has its own website, too.
HCD found its genesis in Benson’s wanting something–a place for dads to commiserate, to be greater than the sum of their parts–but not seeing it offered anywhere. “And so you just did it?” I wondered. But didn’t ask this, for fear that I’d reveal myself to be the overly cautious type that I am.
“There’s been a big response,” Benson said of HCD’s short life and we both nodded, our heads in sync, knowing that meant that Benson had tapped into a need lots of Howard County dads had. In just its first month of existence, HCD has 141 members and 123 likes on Facebook. Its website already has the polish and impressive user interface that normally comes with healthy coffers of cash, owing to Benson’s IT background, certainly, but also from the flair he has for solving problems with style.
Figuring Out Father Figures
Before Benson and I met in person, he asked me to tell him about myself on Facebook, “Howard County Dads-style,” meaning to get to who I am by talking about my father. His interest in me was pleasantly disarming. And now it was my turn to ask him about his childhood.
“You asked me to tell you about my ‘father figure,'” I said, my head cocked to the side. “Was that because you wanted to use language inclusive of the varieties families in contemporary life, or because of some personal experience of yours?”
Benson told me his parents divorced when he was young, and growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, he didn’t always “see eye-to-eye” with his stepfather. That, along with the vast differences in how parents raised children then (the 1980s) and now, meant Benson didn’t always have a reliable place to go for the kind of all-in-fathering advice he wanted.
There’s more to the generational difference that left Benson feeling like he was navigating new waters without a compass.
“My wife and I are very, very mindful that we have to split the parenting,” he said, noting that her career is just as important and deserves as much spousal sacrifice as his, as modern co-parents do. I couldn’t help but make a sappy, “aww” face then. I’m a grandma, what’re you gonna do! He looked down bashfully at the table and laughed an silvery laugh.
Relax About Taxes
I ate another chip, this one dripping with salsa and guacamole, and after chewing it for what seemed like a mid-conversation eternity, I asked Benson what he thought was special about being a dad in Howard County.
“We joke a lot about how the taxes are so high here, but you can see them going to work. Every weekend there’s so much to do, so much that you cannot do it all. And that’s amazing if you’re a kid growing up in this environment,” Benson said. He compared fishing in Howard County to fishing outside Philadelphia: whereas here the lakes are stocked with trout and bass, growing up near Philadelphia Benson and his friends didn’t even touch–let alone eat–any fish they might have caught in the Delaware River.
One of the first HCD activities came out of what Benson called a “proud dad moment” of his. He had started doing themed weekends as, in addition to evening shifts, his wife works weekends at Howard Community College. One weekend, Benson decided to do a Firefighter Weekend. His boys dressed up as firefighters and the three of them took donuts to the hungry and grateful firefighters at four fire stations around the county. The firefighters, in return, gave them tours of the fire station, allowed them to sit in the trucks, run about the stations as kids are wont to do. This thrilled the kids, Benson said, as I grandma-ed out again, overcome with the cuteness of it all. That weekend planted the seed of HCD in his mind, as Benson thought how much fun it would have been to do with other dads. He also thought that other dads must have similar ideas and experiences to share to offer fellow fathers in the area.
I laughed knowingly when Benson noted, “Moms aren’t doing that…feeding them donuts. I got in trouble just for keeping them out for five hours!”
Fast forward a year, Benson told me, and HoCo Dads started in January 2018. For the group’s first official event he stuck with the success he had with the donut delivery, this time branching out into police stations (and one firehouse again). It was Benson and two other dads, with five kids at their heels. It was a big success, Benson said.
The More Things Change
Yes, the more they stay the same. Or, perhaps a more accurate way to look at something striking that Benson said is that some things change more slowly than others. When I asked him what the best advice he could give Howard County dads was he said that when he and many of the dads in his group are alone with their kids (i.e., without mom or a spouse that stays home more), the kids just want to do things the way that at-home-more spouse does them. So, get out of the house, Benson advised dads. That way, given that you’re on new terrain that the kids don’t associate with either of you, they’ll stay closer to you and value you’re input on what to do more. He said, and I had to, again, nod along in agreement, because I found my mouth crunching loudly and awkwardly on chips again, even as I’d promised myself I was done. He said Howard County is an excellent place to do this, shaking his head from side to side almost in disbelief at how excellent.
This time my mouth was free to say, “I know!” We both marveled at the plethora of fun, educational, healthy activities that are available for kids, really, any day of the week. And now, I noted, dads (and moms, Benson pointed out) have a place to go to look both for such activities and people to do them with: the Howard County Dads website and Facebook group.
“If you’re not being proactive and intentional about what you’re doing with your kids–if you’re just doing what mommy does but with daddy–then you’re a babysitter, and I don’t want that. And I know a lot of other dads don’t either,” Benson said looking serious but still relaxed, open.
Benson noted that he happened to be in a position in which, because his wife works when he’s home, he found himself alone with his kids needing to be a single parent for a few hours each day. But for dads whose spouses work the same hours as them, Benson recommended “getting intentional,” a phrase I’m now in love with, about time with the kids. Send your spouse off to do something s/he loves, Benson recommended. You might feel anxious at first, Benson noted, but then…I filled it in for him.
“Then you’d figure it out and be calm but confident like you are,” I said with a wonder in my voice even I could hear. He laughed an earnest, endearing laugh, with a flash of beautifully white teeth to boot. He’s unusually adept at walking an interlocutor to a conclusion, and doing so with such seeming ease that it leaves you unsure if you both figured it out together or he knew it all along, or he patiently escorted you to it.
“Come to one of our meet-ups,” Benson continued when I solicited advice for HoCo dads who wanted to join HCD. “We won’t judge, and if you need help, we’ll help.” I looked away, then, for a moment, and even when I could tell Benson was wondering where I’d gone for a moment, it took me a few more to reenter our conversation.
I thought to myself: “How different–better–would my father’s life, and even my life and my siblings’ lives, have been had we all had a group like this. What of the lives of my own children and my dear Robert?” The waiter came over just in time to interrupt my introspection-without-an-answer to ask what we wanted to eat. Benson declined anything but a glass of water, and I told him it was no wonder he had what appeared to be zero body fat to speak of! I was, for a change, full. I told the waiter I’d get the Veggie Quesadillas to go, anyway. I’m never one to turn down a request to serve me food, even if I’m paying for it. Quickly and genially, he said he’d be back soon with them.
My Experience, Your Experience, Our Experience
Benson is much younger than me, of course, but we both noted how when we were growing up, parents were far less engaged in raising their kids. Benson said that he too finds what I notice, that the vast majority of parents of younger children, at least in Howard County, are “all-in,” to use a phrase I’m probably misemploying.
“I spent the first six months [of the existence of HCD] building a foundation, and now I’m bringing people in to fill in the community,” Benson said of his evolving role in the group, which I thought was a lovely metaphor for the inherently, perpetually evolving role of the father in the lives of contemporary children, and of every parent in his/her children’s lives as they grow. Benson then recounted a story with his usual, unassuming, low-key aplomb.
He recently got an email that, though he didn’t frame it this way, seemed to chastise him and HCD for promising one thing and delivering another. The writer then went on to say what Benson and HCD should be doing. Rather than react defensively or angrily, Benson asked the email’s writer to remain in the group and make it all those things he thought it would, should, and most importantly, could be. Much more generous than I would have been!
“I’m starting to bring on board other contributors to the blog–so if you want to help there, you can help there,” Benson said when I asked him to tell me the best way for a new member to get involved. Benson said that also in keeping in line with the almost egalitarian, communal nature of the group (My words, as I’m a child–well, young adult–of the sixties, gimme a break!) it’ll be moving away from events arranged solely by Benson to members sharing on a communal calendar what they’re doing with their kids so other dad-kid units can join them. So, an even more basic way to start out getting involved with HCD is to sign up for the group’s newsletter on its website.
Benson doesn’t want the group to be “josh.com,” he said, and we laughed.
“As soon as it’s about one dad or one family, we’re done,” Benson noted quickly getting more serious. As I looked back on the notes from our conversation, I saw Benson’s tendency to elevate others here, too. Despite having a great deal to offer and more than one advanced skill set, he’s not interested in self-promotion or self-aggrandizing posturing, particularly when neither of those behaviors would advance the cause of what he’s doing, such as HCD. Still, I felt silly about how much I directed the conversation and talked about myself in our 60 minutes together. But his social aptitude is such that while we were actually interacting none of this occurred to me. I suppose this goes without saying to some extent, as someone with a low social intelligence quotient would likely not start a group for helping himself and other dads be better at parenting.
So far, Benson noted happily, he’s not had to enforce any of the rules about communication or general behavior in the group. Being the superstitious woman I am, I knocked on the wooden high-top table we were seated at, knowing how online communities run the risk of devolving into arenas for snarky missives and angry innuendo.
Jose de la Mar, who recently went back to work after being a stay-at-home dad (SAHD, an acronym de la Mar introduced me to) for some time, was eager to get involved with HCD. He’s taken on just the kind of active role in the member-centric leadership Benson had hoped for. He authored a blog post and eagerly offers input and guidance to other SAHDs.
“The best part thing about the group for me has been getting to share our experiences with other SAHDs,” de la Mar told me. He said he too had tried to join mom’s groups but quickly found out they were protective of their moms-only status.
Another HCD member, Brenton MacAloney II, had lavish praise for Benson, the kind that would probably make a humble fellow like him uncomfortable, yet I share it with you still. He said Benson’s doing a great service to the dads of Howard County.
“I’m always out doing stuff with my two daughters and I always felt like I was the only dad out there,” MacAloney said in a Facebook chat with me. Flipping the script of the cliquish mom’s group, MacAloney said he’d attended a couple mom’s group events but wished for some dad-to-dad camaraderie. Along came HCD!
Don’t Miss: Robert’s took a trip to the Maple Lawn Festival and reported back.
Children and Chips
Back at Uncle Julio’s, I found myself once again with a mouthful of chips, despite having insisted only ten minutes prior that I was full. I have a terrible habit of talking with my mouth full, one that even my prim 1940s mother couldn’t disabuse me of. But there’s something about Benson’s easygoing self-assurance, his combination of ability and humility, that makes you want to open up. So I stopped myself from talking about me, me, me again, and redirected us back to HCD before both of us were due to leave.
Before we parted ways, I had to ask Benson where he found the time to do all this what with his work and husband duties.
“I don’t…I don’t,” Benson said. After we had a good laugh about that, because who has time for anything in overscheduled, overcommitted Howard County life, one that offers so much that’s impossible to say no to. Again, he came back to the phrase “getting intentional” about every hour in the day.
Benson said he purposefully did “a lot of the heavy lifting” in the first six months of HCD’s existence, so the framework’s now there for dad’s who want to, say write a blog post. He put a “toolkit” together of the five steps involved in doing that.
It’s All Small Stuff
Benson, being the evolved soul that he is, had some sage advice for Howard County dads. He said that sometimes the affluence and privilege of this area can lead to an overemphasis on external markers of achievement and competition based on it.
He advised, simply: don’t sweat it. Instead, do the things you want to do, that matter to you.
Every Experience Counts
As I gathered the belongings that had spread across our table like suburban sprawl, I asked Benson what was something every Howard County dad should know. He said that several times a month, he feels like he’s “reinventing the wheel.” And if other dads felt the same, he added, they should join HCD and share that. There’ll be other dads who’ve been there.
“You’re not alone in some of the biggest or smallest challenges of parenting,” he said of HoCo dads.
HCD like Howard County is so much about–here’s my new favorite word, thanks to Benson–intentional community. Yes, I thought–yes!
It hit me then that my veggie quesadillas hadn’t come. I was fine with it the food-that-never-was, a feeling I never thought I’d have or articulate. I was full to the point of discomfort of chips and salsa! The feeling of chip-bloat did remind me to ask Benson what his favorite ice cream is. It’s Founder’s Favorite at Coldstone Creamery.
As goofy as it sounds, I couldn’t help thinking, after Josh bid me a warm, polite farewell and I lost sight of him as he disappeared into the glaring sunlight outside: You, Josh, would be a Founder’s Favorite. James Rouse founded this intentional community, and you are intentional about your whole life. Perhaps an intentional community becomes truly what it promises to be when every member does so.
–Colleen Morgenthau
Also: See what to magic awaits you on the Howard County Fairgrounds.
Thanks for reading! Check back with us each here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses) get to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. We want to take you along with us, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.