Four years ago, Brenae Brown came to Dad 2.0 and talked about vulnerability and shame. (For those that weren't there, or haven't encountered Brenae Brown, I encourage you to watch this video. I'll wait.
This isn't exactly everything she said, but she said substantially the same thing.
At the time, Dad 2.0 was very focused on brand relationships, and lots of the workshops were about working with brands. Not a bad thing, and I appreciated that and the knowledge that I garnished.
But this year, there's a whole different level.
Yesterday and today, there have been a number of speakers that spoke about depression and hard times in one form or another.
- Mike Cruse @papapreaches talked about how he felt broken, and his depression and how his drugs weren't walking and how it affected his family,
- Tony Buchsbaum @tbuchsbaum spoke about realizing he was gay and how that journey to find himself affected his family.
- Doyin Richards @daddydoinwork spoke about his depression and about how people put him in a weird box of being a black dad.
- Matt Parker @theexodusroad spoke about his work defeating child slavery in Thailand and Southeast Asia
- Glen/Beleaf @beleafme talked about his suicide and hard life, including his mom telling him she should have aborted him.
- Buzz Bishop @DadCAMP talked about a friend of his whose baby was born needing a blood transfusion and nearly died.
- Tobin Walsh @thegoodbaddad talked about how he feels he's failing to raise his adopted son as a good black man
And there were other phenomenal speakers as well. But after all this talk of depression and hard times, I made kind of a joke that apparently I needed to be more depressed to be a better dad blogger.
But as I thought more about it, I remembered that incredibly moving talk that Brenae Brown gave and realized that the seeds of vulnerability that Brenae Brown planted are blooming.
And it's a pretty amazing garden.
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