Dear Dad: Scott Houghton
The seventh instalment of Dear Dad with the Screen-Free Dad
Welcome to Dear Dad
"Dear Dad is a space where fathers reflect on their journey, sharing the wisdom they wish they had had before becoming a dad. Each week, a different dad opens up about his experiences, lessons, and insights. This week's letter is from Scott Houghton, who reflects on letting go of control and growth in fatherhood. If you could go back and give yourself advice before fatherhood, what would you say? Share your thoughts in the comments."
Introduction by Gareth Wall
Scott’s letter really got me. Especially this line:
“Rocking them to sleep isn’t a chore. It’s a privilege.”
That idea of everyday magic hit home this week.
My daughter went to her first-ever gig—Alessi Rose. I quite like her. If you’re into Taylor Swift, she’s worth a listen on Spotify. My wife took her, which I know was a brilliant experience for them both. I’ll be honest—I was a bit jealous. It’s one of those memories you hope to be part of. But also, maybe being surrounded by hundreds of screaming teenagers wasn't quite for me either.
Still, it gave me an unexpected gift: time with my son.
We’ve been watching the new Planet of the Apes films together. Just the two of us. We ate food, chilled out, and watched War of the Planet of the Apes. Not exactly a gig. Nothing grand. But it mattered. He cwtched into me (if you're not familiar with the Welsh word—it means cuddled up), and for a moment, it felt like time slowed down. He's eleven now. Big school in September. I can feel those changes coming, creeping in around the edges. Friends are becoming more important. Independence growing. And I’m already missing moments we haven’t even had the chance to lose yet.
But that evening, he still leaned on me. Still stretched himself out along the sofa, barely fitting, but still choosing closeness. I watched the film, sure—but I was savouring the weight of his head on my shoulder more. That quiet, unspoken bond. The kind that doesn’t need a big moment to feel massive.
And today, he’s asked me to play Super Mario Odyssey with him. I can’t wait. It’ll be another one of those small, sacred snapshots. I’ve realised that being present in these seemingly ordinary moments is how we fill the bank for harder days ahead. Like soaking in them long enough for the feeling to stick. Letting osmosis do its thing, right into our bones.
So, thanks, Scott, for the reminder. Our kids aren’t just a responsibility—they’re a privilege.
Not just in the milestone moments but in the quiet ones too. The sofa snuggles. The shared games. The giggles over nothing. The stillness.
Here's to noticing the magic while it's happening, not just once it’s gone. What about you?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Dear Dad,
You’re probably reading this at 3 a.m. because the baby is due any day now and you know you can still squeeze in some more last-minute research.
Don’t worry, no judgment here. Remember, I’m you. Just from the future.
But just so you know, you can’t research your way out of this one.
You’re going to be a dad. And it's nothing like you think it’s going to be.
Don’t worry, you’re going to love it. But it’s not going to be what you expect.
You’re expecting to be prepared. You’re not.
You’re expecting to be patient. You’ll get there.
You’re expecting to be calm. You won’t use any of the mediation apps you downloaded.
You think you’ll be able to juggle it all. Finish your degree. Support your wife. Stay on top of work. Keep the house running. Get at least four hours of sleep. And still show up as the world’s most emotionally attuned father.
And honestly? You will do all of that.
Just not in the way you think.
You’ll survive on lukewarm Red Bull and Doritos Locos Tacos. You’ll write papers in the middle of the night with a baby asleep on your lap and a laptop balancing like a Jenga piece across her tiny body. You’ll measure sleep in 45-minute chunks and start celebrating small victories like getting out of the rocking chair without your aging ankles cracking and waking the baby.
It’s going to feel messy. Like you’re behind. Like you're not doing enough. Like everyone else has some secret manual you never got.
But what you won’t realize right away is this:
You’re not failing.
You’re becoming.
And the sooner you stop trying to get everything right and start letting yourself live inside it, the more you’ll start to see what this whole thing is really about.
You’re about to learn something the hard way.
A lot of things actually.
But one of the first is this: trying to control how everything unfolds is going to wear you out faster than the baby does. And she is going to be very, very good at wearing you out.
You’ve spent your whole life believing that if you plan enough, if you prepare hard enough, you can get through anything. And for the most part, that’s worked.
But this is different.
This isn’t a test or school project you can study for, finish, and then forget about. This is the long haul.
The slow unraveling of everything you thought made you strong, and the slow rebuilding of something even better.
There’s going to be a moment that won’t seem like a big one at the time, when you’re holding your daughter in the middle of the night, eyes burning, body aching, mind crammed with half-formed arguments from unfinished research papers. You’ll be frustrated. Tired. Half convinced you’re doing everything wrong.
But you’ll also feel something else. The tiniest flicker of peace. The kind that doesn’t come from knowing what you’re doing, but from realizing you don’t have to. Not all at once.
That moment is the beginning of you becoming a dad.
Not the title. Not the birth certificate. Not the perfectly packed hospital bag or the long list of things you think you need to master.
It’s that slow shift from trying to hold it all together to letting yourself just be in it.
That’s where it starts.
Once that shift begins, everything else starts to change too. Especially the way you see yourself.
You’ve always taken pride in working hard. You’ve been chasing a career that feels meaningful, trying to build something that provides for your family and gives you a sense of purpose. You want to be the dad who’s there for every bedtime, every milestone, every moment that matters.
But here’s the part no one tells you. Providing and being present are both full-time jobs. And they often compete with each other.
You’re going to wrestle with that more than you expect. You’ll sit at your desk wondering if your kids will even remember the work you're doing. Then later, you’ll sit with your kids and worry about whether you’re doing enough to keep everything afloat.
And through all of that, you’ll carry this quiet guilt. Guilt that you’re not making more money. Guilt that you’re not always fully present. Guilt that you should be further along by now. Guilt that you wanted something else.
But let me tell you something important. You are doing enough, even when it doesn’t feel like it or when it feels like you’re just barely holding things together.
The truth is, your timeline is going to look different than what you expected. You’re not going to follow the same path as your friends or your old coworkers or that one guy on LinkedIn who seems to have it all figured out.
And that’s okay.
Because while they’re climbing ladders, you’re building a life. A messy, beautiful, Red-Bull-fueled life that doesn’t look perfect on paper but feels honest in your bones.
That’s what your kids will remember. Not your job title. Not your income bracket. They’ll remember how you showed up. How you loved them when you were tired. How you tried.
They’ll remember you.
And then something wild will happen.
In the middle of all that doubt and pressure, your daughter is going to start teaching you how to live.
Not with words. She won’t even be able to say much yet. But just by being fully, unapologetically herself.
She will try everything. She’ll jump into things that feel too big for her. She’ll climb before she has balance. She’ll run before she has rhythm. She’ll color outside the lines and paint brilliant abstracts that will soon cover the walls of your basement. And when she falls or fails or gets it wrong, she won’t care. She’ll just try again.
You, on the other hand, will stand there thinking through five different ways it could go wrong.
You’ll try to protect her. You’ll try to prepare her. You’ll try to teach her the “right way” to do it.
But what she’ll show you again and again is that trying is enough. Not knowing how and doing it anyway is enough. Feeling things deeply and living life fully is not something to tone down. It’s something to learn from.
Remember, she’s not too much. She’s the exact right amount of brave, bold, and loud.
And little by little, she’ll give you permission to be that way too.
Soon you’ll stop waiting until you’re ready. You’ll stop thinking everything has to be perfect before it’s real. You’ll stop pretending you have to be calm and collected in order to be capable.
Because she will show you what it looks like to move through the world with your whole heart.
And you’ll realize that’s exactly the kind of person you want to be.
Because just when you think you’re starting to figure it out, life will stretch your heart even further. One day, you won’t just be a dad. You’ll be a dad of two.
Two wild, hilarious, stubborn, beautiful little girls who will turn your whole world inside out and make it better than you ever imagined.
You’ll be even more tired. Even more stretched. You’ll question yourself all over again. But you’ll also laugh harder. Love deeper. And learn things you didn’t even know you needed to learn.
You’ll learn that your job isn’t to shape them into who you think they should be. It’s to create space for them to become who they already are.
You’ll learn that rocking them to sleep isn’t a chore. It’s a privilege. One that ends quietly and without warning. One that you’ll ache for when it’s gone.
You’ll learn that being a dad isn’t about how much you get done or how perfectly you balance it all. It’s about presence. About patience. About choosing to show up again and again, even when you feel like you have nothing left to give.
And you’ll learn, slowly, over time, that you are not failing.
You are becoming.
You’re becoming the kind of dad who knows how to hold space for big feelings, even when they’re inconvenient. The kind of dad who puts his phone down and jumps into a pillow fort. The kind of dad who still dreams big but doesn’t let those dreams keep him from the magic that’s already here.
So keep going.
Keep showing up. Keep learning. Keep becoming.
Because this is the job you were made for.
And it turns out, you’re really good at it.
Love,
The guy who thought he needed a plan, and ended up with a purpose.
Meet Scott Houghton
🧑 Who they are: Scott writes the Screen Free Dad here on Substack. He's a Dad of two and he's building a community of father's who want to be more present , engaged and intentional with their kids.
🌍 Where to find them:
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