“We live in a world where men still have to shut up and bear it,” said Adam Guli, a long-time expat in China now living in Fort Collins, Co. “It’s slowly coming around that we’re able to start talking about it more. As therapeutic as it is to be at a bar bitching with your buddies, it’s not solving the problem.”
Adam, a married father of a six-year-old girl who is our Lead Dad of the Week, consults with companies looking to bring their businesses to the United States. He’s an optimist on how fatherhood is changing in America.
“This is a golden time for dads,” he said. “If you’re an active father or if you’re present, all you get is pure love from these people. You get back as much as you put into it.”
One of the bits of advice he shares is for fathers to acknowledge and embrace that their life should change, that they are not the unmarried version of themselves who just now have a spouse and a child.
“When I got married, I was 38, and I had complete control over my life,” he said. “There was so much uncertainty going into being a dad. I was building a brand-new business, hiring people, opening up a couple of markets. And I had this child. One of the things I tried to do was be centered and be there as much as I could.”
It was different from his own childhood. His parents moved him and his brother to 40 acres in the Colorado mountains. They lived in a tee-pee for six months. He didn’t have indoor plumbing until he was seven; electricity came when he was 14. “I didn’t know what The Simpsons was,” he said.
Adam and his wife are raising their daughter between the U.S. and China, traveling there each year and encouraging her parents to spend summers with them. It’s giving their daughter a broader view of the world than they had.
But Adam is clear. What matters is a single core principle. “Leading with empathy is always the best approach. You’re not coming in triggered. It’s not about you anymore. It’s about the children.”
Welcome, Adam, to The Company of Dads.
