[title subtitle=”WORDS Dwain Hebda
IMAGE HarperCollins Publishers”][/title]
Last June, romper.com listed the favorite TV dads of every state in the country. The results ran the gamut from the predictable (Jack Pearson of This is Us; Danny Tanner of Full House) to the classic (Ben Cartwright of Bonanza; Mike Brady of The Brady Bunch) to the puzzling (Homer Simpson of The Simpsons and Walter White of Breaking Bad).
For the record, Arkansas marched to its own beat, the only state to name Jed “JD” Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies fame as their preferred patriarch.
“America’s Favorite Dad” has been a title debated and handed down for as long and there has been television, as well as bestowed to admired papas in other fields. Drew Brees held his toddler son in one hand and accepted the Super Bowl XLIV trophy in the other in 2010; Dave Groehl of Foo Fighters is a dad to three and credits his own late father as a singular light in his life. Every modern president has been a family man though only one, George Washington, holds the mantle Father of Our Country.
To that distinguished list add Rob Kenney who, thanks to a simple idea and social media, has become the dad some never had. Or, more precisely, the dad he never had.
“I was born in New Orleans, then we moved up to Seattle where my dad worked for Boeing on the 747 program,” says Rob from his home in the Pacific Northwest. “I came from a fractured home, unfortunately. When we moved up to Seattle, it took a toll on my mom. She saw us being raised in the Kansas sun where she was from, with all the cousins and her siblings. She was one of twelve; they were big wheat farmers in Wilmington, Kansas.”
“Anyway, we came up here and it took a toll on her mentally. And then, things started to fall apart between my mom and my dad. My dad got custody of us, but it didn’t seem like he really wanted us. When I was thirteen, he came home and said, ‘I’m done raising kids. The older kids are going to have to take in the younger kids.’ So, I ended up living with my brother, who was nine years older than me, when I was fourteen. I moved in with him and his wife.”
Despite being given every excuse to live life as a train wreck, Rob somehow didn’t let the abandonment serve as his rudder. Instead, he became the husband and father he always wished his dad had been, a stable life partner to his wife Annelli and the rock in the lives of his two grown children, Kristine, and Kyle.
And last year, as much as a covid-19 project as anything, he unwittingly became a positive influence to untold millions more through Dad, How Do I? his YouTube channel.
“My wife and I raised our kids and they’re out of the house, but we still talk. We talk about adulting and they’re always asking me questions about different things,” he says. “Annelli and I started wondering, what do people do who don’t have this dad influence, as obviously, I didn’t have.”
Rob started brainstorming the many things kids learn from their dads. Then he made some notes, hit the video record button, and started talking as if he were explaining the task to his own children. Dad, How Do I? was born.
“I first thought of it two or three years ago and my daughter kept prodding me. ‘Dad, you need to do it,’” he says. “So, last year was the perfect storm of covid and everyone being cooped up indoors and I finally did it. We thought we were going to help thirty or forty people. We didn’t know this was going to be what it is.”
The first video was how to tie a tie and the catalog has expanded exponentially from there to subjects as varied as yard work, handyman and automotive tips and simple cooking and baking techniques. Other videos talk about ethical and character topics such as integrity and accountability in life.
Each video, opened with Rob’s signature, “Hey, kids…” is plainspoken, punctuated with dad humor and carries a warmth that has proven irresistible to people all over the world.
“I wasn’t looking to change careers,” the thirty-year office supply salesman said. “I wasn’t looking to be famous. I was just trying to help some people and to put it all in one place, where you could learn how to tie a tie, get some basic car maintenance tips or learn how to mow your grass.”
“I thought if I could put it all in one place, then that would be kind of a nice legacy to leave for somebody. I figured it would help a few people.”
That “few” currently includes more than three million subscribers to his YouTube Channel, but there’s no way of calculating the actual reach of his heart-warming videos. Rob gets messages all the time from people worldwide telling him the positive impact of his video chats.
“I had people sobbing just watching me tie a tie. It was because of missing out on a dad,” he says. “Maybe they never had a dad, maybe their dad had passed. I’ve had subscribers in their eighties tell me they like to watch me since it reminds them of the time with their own dad that they no longer have.”
Dad How Do I? was taken up by social media mavens, people with handles like SelenaSpookyBoo who pushed the channel to her many TikTok fans and similarly placed by influencers on Reddit and Facebook. Traditional media was also quick to catch on and Rob has been featured on CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and The Today Show, among many others. And it’s all happened with lightning speed.
“I started my channel April 1, April Fools’ Day, of all days. My first upload was April 2, and I was in some local media by late April. Then it really went bananas by the end of May,” he says. “It was terrifying. I didn’t do this to be famous. It was scary to see my face everywhere. It was bonkers.”
Despite the explosive growth in popularity, Rob hasn’t quit his day job and admits the demands of producing fresh content and fielding new interview requests gets overwhelming at times. He’s also just finished a book telling his story and imparting the wisdom life has given him. He not only wants his advice heard by those who never had a dad, but also those searching how to become good dads themselves.
“A big thing that I’m hoping to do is, yeah, encourage some dads to hang in there,” he says. “A big talking point that I’ve tried to share is ‘Think long term.’ With men, we’re visually stimulated, so we tend to run after things, ‘shiny objects’ is how I put it. We need to think long-term; if you make the decision to walk out on your family, somebody is left behind you, usually a single mom working her tail off to try to clean up the mess you left behind.”
“Fatherlessness terrifies me in our society, especially with the dangers of the internet, the garbage that’s out there. When I was younger, you had to seek out some of the stuff you shouldn’t be looking at. Now, you can fill your head with a bunch of garbage with just a click. Who’s protecting the kids? That terrifies me.”
Rob also hopes to lead others to the kind of inner peace he’s achieved over many years of dealing with his painful past. For this he credits his own family and his faith, as well as a lot of personal work and reflection on letting go.
“I share that in my book, that it took a long time for me to forgive my dad,” he says. “There’s a profound statement about forgiveness I’ve shared this over and over again in interviews. It goes, ‘Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping it somehow hurts the other person.’ My dad was skipping along through his life and I was the one drinking the poison for a long time.”
“It’s brutal to just continue to chew on the past when you can’t do anything about it. I share that in my book, too. I call it coughing up a hairball; you’ve got to cough it up and get it out so that you can get on with your life. I coughed up many hairballs, sobbing and going through all kinds of emotions to finally get it up and out. But I’m thankful that I finally did.”
Find Dad, How Do I? on YouTube.
Rob’s book, Dad, How Do I?, is available from Harper Collins and Amazon.
