“Can I do this? What’s the responsibility? Is it going to change my life?”
Those were questions that Donnie DeSanti, our Lead Dad of the Week from Hoboken, N.J., asked himself before his first son was born. But they are as universal as any set of questions a working dad might ponder.
Bringing that honesty to parenthood and marriage has been crucial for Donnie, founder of Project Healthy Dad, which helps busy fathers get in better shape. He’s been married for a decade and has sons age 8 and 5.
While his own father was a great model – what he calls “a straight edge Italian dad, always there, supporting us, always at our games, but we never went much deeper” – he wanted to go deeper as a dad. “I wanted to be open with my kids and have those deeper discussions,” he said. “I wanted to figure out those hard things in life. I always wanted to be there with my kids.”
He’s made health a central part of his life and works to inspire other dads to join him. (His father died before his first son was born.) “We focus on three pillars,” he said. “Nutrition and food habits, exercise and movement and stress and mindset.”
His wife Katie DeSanti works more traditional hours, so Donnie said it made sense for him to step into the Lead Dad role. It was an inauspicious start.
“My wife was off maternity leave, and it was my first real day home with my son,” he remembered. “He was crying. There was just no flow to the day.”
It was a lesson he now shares with other dads in his Slim Down Challenge. “You’ve got to be able to control what you can control,” he said. “Some days you’ve got it. Some times you’re off balance. The big thing is just being present, staying in the now and just focus on right now.”
It’s good advice for any parent. Welcome, Donnie, to The Company of Dads.
