Hey guys. Back on the grind. Hope you had a great weekend.

Quick heads-up: we made a few updates to our website, so if you’re a regular, things might look a little wonky. A quick cache clear should fix it.

Big week for us. We’re launching another short film, and the Austin Experience is dropping too.

Save the dates: October 15–17.

Here’s what’s on deck today:

Let’s get into it.

And if you’re new here, welcome aboard. Glad you found us.

I ran into a fellow dad in the neighborhood the other day. We caught up for a minute, and I asked him what was shaking.

“Just trying to make more money.”

Feel familiar? I’ve had versions of that same conversation with a lot of dads lately. Even when we’re not saying it out loud, it’s usually somewhere in the background.

Make more. Provide more. Give the family more. A better house. Better schools. Better vacations. A little more breathing room.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting any of that. Working hard for your family is part of the job.

But there’s a strange tension in it too. At what point does trying to give your family more start taking more of you away from them?

More hours. More stress. More time thinking about the next thing instead of the thing right in front of you.

I don’t have a perfect answer. I wrestle with it too. Maybe the work is simply remembering what all the work is for.

Because the world will always find a new version of “more” to put in front of us. Our families might just need more of us.

This week, we’re dropping our next Go West film.

For anyone new here, Go West is our in-house film series about dads taking risks, going against the grain, and building a life that looks a little different than the default setting. Catch up on the series here.

This one is on Tony Knapton, a Sheboygan, Wisconsin dad of three and the guy behind Radry Golf.

Like a lot of dads building something of their own, Tony admits balance is a bit of a myth. At any given time, work, life, or parenting is probably taking a back seat. The win is having enough flexibility to keep showing up where it matters.

For Tony, that means school drop-offs, quick dinners between activities, nightly calendar syncs with his wife, and protecting the small stuff that will probably end up being the big stuff.

Friday pizza and movie night is ironclad.

He thinks often about what empty nesters say they miss: fingerprints on windows, toys everywhere, late-night bottles, the chaos you swear is too much while you’re in it.

So yeah, the days are full. Time is flying. Nobody has it fully figured out. But that’s kind of the whole point.

Full Go West film on Tony drops this week.

Follow him at @tony__knapton.

This is one of those boring adult decisions, but we recently upgraded our pans to Made In’s Stainless Set and haven’t looked back.

They’re made in Italy and used in a bunch of professional kitchens. They heat evenly, clean up well, and feel like the last pans we’ll need to buy. Right now, the set is 22% off.

[ Get Yours Here ]

Most snacking isn’t hunger. It’s proximity, boredom, or the fact that the bag is already open.

Try making one rule: if you want a snack, put it on a plate and sit down to eat it. That tiny bit of friction kills a lot of mindless handfuls, and if you’re still hungry, go with something built around protein or fiber.

Turns out the best way to stop grazing is to make snacking feel like an actual decision.

Back-to-school season is coming. And for a lot of dads, that means one question is about to get louder: "Can I get a phone?"

The Bark Phone is built for exactly that moment. With the Starter Package, your kid gets a phone that actually grows with them. It starts with just calls and texts to the people you approve. As they get older, you adjust the settings. The phone evolves with them, on your timeline.

No handing over the whole internet on day one. No losing sleep over what they're stumbling into.

And the Bark Watch is worth a look if they're not quite ready for a phone at all. Location tracking, calls to approved contacts, that's it.

Right now, Dad Day readers get $30 off a Bark Phone or Bark Watch with code DADDAY30. Not a bad back-to-school answer.

→ Check them out at bark.us

Sponsored by Bark. We only work with brands we'd actually recommend to a buddy.