So when I heard Relay Go was way to keep tabs on kids that isn’t a smartphone -but acts like one- I was curious…and skeptical. I decided to invoke the right of all dads, and check out the new gadget for myself.

What Is It?

The Relay device is a smartphone without a screen. It’s like a multi-channel walkie talkie that connects to an app on your phone. So with the push of the single button, your kid can send you a message, and you can talk directly to them from your normal phone. They can also connect to other Relay devices to talk with their friends down the street or across the country…and I do mean actually talk, not bury their face in a texting wall. The longer it takes my kid to learn what emojis are, the better.

Will My Kid Break It?

One thing that surprised me was how durable this thing is. I opened it it up, handed it to my daughter, and told her to be careful with it before she immediately dropped it. (That part was not a surprise). But, the thing didn’t get busted or even scuffed, and the speaker didn’t start popping like my regular phone when she dropped that. And my tablet. And my bluetooth stereo.

Will My Kid Lose it?

Like all parents, I expect my daughter to be the plucky leader of a group of kid detectives on the hunt for a  lost treasure, only to run afoul of some two-bit crime family whom she would ultimately outsmart after learning valuable lessons about friendship and what it means to call someplace home.

But sometimes I just have to pick her up from the bus stop. In both cases, the GPS tracking is clutch. Also handy? When she drops it in the park, or leaves it at a friend’s house, or forgets it at school but doesn’t remember where…we can still find it. I almost want to get one for all her jackets to keep track of them, too.

Is It Worth It?

Getting your kid a phone is a big step. One that can come up before either of you is ready. Relay Go kicks that ball down the field a little, without limiting their access to the broader world. In fact, it encourages active participation, as opposed to seclusion. It’s not just “for emergencies only,” but a cool way to introduce your kid to the ever-connected digital world. The Dad Approves.

Sure, you could use the weather as an excuse to be lazy inside.

Snow day, from the Latin meaning, to drink all the booze and eat all the foods.

— Simon Holland (@simoncholland) January 22, 2016

But that will quickly try your patience.

Hour 2 of this snow day and I’m prepared to go full-on Iditarod to get my kids to school tomorrow if necessary.

— SpacedMom (@copymama) January 4, 2018

So take the young’ns outside and make the most of it!

20 minutes getting them ready.
5 minutes outside.
20 minutes getting them back inside.
15 minutes hot chocolate.

1 hour down, 8 to go.

— Lady E (@cakevans) February 14, 2016

First, you gonna wanna bundle them up.

Make your child angry today by trying to protect them from hypothermia.

— Kim Bongiorno (@LetMeStart) April 2, 2018

Be sure to invest in a nice coat they’ll hate.

It’s so cold, my kids are willingly wearing their coats outside.

— Abe Yospe (@Cheeseboy22) January 4, 2018

Like, HATE hate.

Remind your kids to take a coat to school so the inside of their backpacks can be toasty warm all day while they freeze to death at recess.

— Domestic Goddess (@DomesticGoddss) November 7, 2017

Don’t forget the mittens. They will.

Winter budget when you have young kids:

$100 – snowsuit
$65 – boots
$40 – hats & scarves
$25 – thermal leggings
$1,579,325,753 – mittens

— Carbosly (@Carbosly) January 15, 2017

Ready to head out?

My 1 year old is insisting to put on her own snow-pants so we should be ready to go outside in about July.

— Brian Hope (@Brianhopecomedy) January 26, 2013

Perfect! Time to build a snowman. Round up an old scarf, a carrot, and okay they’re already bored.

[building a snowman with my kids]
Me: Ok, who wants to put the arms in?
Kids: *went inside 2 hours ago to play video games*

— Kalvin (@KalvinMacleod) February 2, 2015

Cool. Great.

“Look, a giant snowball!” is kid code for “We got bored halfway through our snowman.”

— Myrrh (@ixix82) December 14, 2017

Plenty to do inside.

Me: [pulls photo from wallet]

Stranger: Adorable. Are these your kids making snow angels?

Me: No. They’re playing in flour they spilled.

— The ParentNormal (@ParentNormal) April 22, 2016

On their walk to work/school, the boy spots a violin player in the center of town and is instantly captivated by the performance. Surrounded by grey buildings, grey cars, and grey pedestrians, the boy, father, and violinist appear to be the only things in color.

Despite his son’s obvious enchantment with the musician, the father reminds his son of their responsibilities, slips the backpack full of books back on his son, and leads him back into the drab, colorless environment of the city. Clearly, this severe lack of color isn’t a simple design choice.

After a quick embrace, the father departs from his son’s school and heads to a dead end, soul-crushing job. Surrounded by menial tasks, the color literally drains out of him. Watching the clock with dull grey eyes, he counts the minutes until he’s free to leave, his color only returning when he’s with his jubilant son once again.

The son, however, retains his color initially—daydreaming about the violinist and the way the music made him feel, but he’s told day after day that his passions are not appropriate. As time wears on, his color also begins to dwindle and he’s forced to leave his interests behind to conform to the other students.

In a behind the scenes video, the film’s co-director Daniel Martinez Lara explains how fatherhood means constantly asking ourselves what the best things are for our children at any given moment. We try our best and don’t always get it right. This film doesn’t answer that question per se but acts as a reflection of that process.

This is the reason the father and son characters are playfully known to the film crew as “Copi” and “Paste.” We often consider our children to be miniature extensions of ourselves rather than unique individuals with dreams, desires, and personalities. Alike begins with Copi dragging Paste through the motions of what he believes life should be. It isn’t until he listens and acknowledges his son’s passions as legitimate that a genuine connection is established once again.

Parenting can often be viewed as a long list of “shoulds” and “musts,” but it’s also an opportunity to see your children for what they are: amazing people. So, while we have a responsibility to teach and guide our kids, so they don’t become garbage human beings when they grow up, it can also be important to stop and just let them listen to the music every once in a while. You never know what you might learn as a result.

Wow. Okay. Where to begin. Chokes his son, for starters.

We know this is the same unrealistic cartoon violence they themselves satirize by way of Itchy & Scratchy, but we’d be remiss to omit that piece of information from this very serious analysis. Yikes.

Look at this.

That’s a mace.

Don’t worry. All uphill from here. Drinks excessively, can’t forget that one. Again, fully aware cartoons operate within their own system of both physics and ethics, so we’re good on smug comments condemning the actions of Wile E. Coyote or whatever. You knew this damn well this Dad Grade had to happen at some point.

Kept Bart out of school for some time to start a business that amounted to stealing and reselling grease. Multiple crimes in that sentence.

Oh yeah, DANGEROUSLY stupid. Jumped over Springfield Gorge on a skateboard Did we include that as a strength? Yeah, that was a dumb thing for him to do. I mean, a DRAWBRIDGE closed on his head one time.

Just an unprecedented level of ineptitude, really. A horrible example to set for your kids. We here at The Dad do not take such reckless abandon lightly.

You know what? Let’s just stop with drawbridge on head. Doing a deep-dive on the paternal competency of Homer Simpson is like watching footage of hot dogs being made. Trust us, best to just throw some relish on that bad boy and enjoy it for what it is.

VERDICT

Over the past year, we at Dad Grades have offered analyses on countless TV and movie dads, all the while priding ourselves on doing so with both accountability and fairness. We aim for complete objectivity throughout every one of these super serious evaluations that should be taken seriously. We do not like what we’re about to do any more than you do. It is with a heavy heart that we give our very first…

FINAL DAD GRADE: F

Check out our previous edition when we graded Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor!

If I had nine kids, I wouldn’t have the energy to get out of bed, let alone build an igloo, let alone add a ramp to the igloo! Gregg Eichhorn is a superhero, and so is his wife Katie.

“We adopt all medical and special needs kids because seems like those are the kids where they have the hardest time finding homes for them,” Eichhorn told CBS.

His oldest, 19-year-old Zahara, was adopted from Uganda. She is non-verbal and uses a wheelchair, but she had no problem rolling into the enormous snow fort her dad built with his sister. She couldn’t wait to get in there.

“Her face lit up – she gets super excited,” Eichhorn said of Zahara’s reaction when she saw the igloo. “I think she felt like a movie star.”

He wasn’t the only one! Elijah, Zahara’s brother, also uses a wheelchair, was excited about the igloo. All nine of the Eichhorn kids were.

“They’re all loving it. They think it’s really neat,” Superdad said.

Obviously. Who wouldn’t want a badass igloo like that in their yard!

Reddit agrees. One of Gregg’s friends posted about the igloo on Reddit and it immediately took off, garnering over 70,000 upvotes and nearly 1000 comments as people shared their admiration for the dad, and for his handiwork.

Card

Card

Eichhorn is happy for the extra attention his viral post is bringing to special needs children who need homes.

“I think it’s really important that all kids with medical and special needs that are orphans have people to step up and provide them with homes.”

“Hello Parents. We are from the States (Oregon), visiting your beautiful country. My wife and I have three wonderful, successful, handsome, alas unmarried, sons between the ages of 28-32,” the ad in the NZ Herald read.

“We are not expecting, just hoping, to introduce our sons to nice NZ daughters. At the very least we’ll embarrass our sons and the truth is, we do find some enjoyment in that.”

Neil, the proactive father, said the ad immediately received over 200 replies and he was doing his best to sort through them all since his sons still had no idea any of it was happening.

“I’m somewhat surprised that I have got quite a lot of responses,” he said.

“It is hard to tell how many are genuine. A few are maybe just scammers but for the most part, people are really amazingly nice in your country.”

Neil’s sons—Matthew, Jeremy, and Benjamin—range from ages 26 to 31 and all have steady jobs in the Pacific Northwest region. According to their dad, though, their dating lives haven’t really been a serious focus for any of them.

“I know one of my sons uses these dating sites and is always going on introductory dates and meeting somebody, but he hasn’t had a serious relationship in quite a while,” Neil told the newspaper.

“I decided to help. I have no idea what will happen, but at least we will be able to meet some people.”

Neil says he’s still deciding when and how to tell his sons about the ad, probably waiting until they are actually on the flight to New Zealand or casually slipping it in while they disembark.

“I might say, ‘Oh, by the way, I did place a little ad for you guys’,” he chuckled.

“I am sure they will be surprised and annoyed, but I am sure they will laugh. We have a good relationship and are always joking with each other. They know I am a little unusual in that regard.”

As it turns out the brothers were all good sports about it. In total the ad sparked more than 600 responses and even resulted in a few dates.

“Between my brothers and I, we went on a few one-on-one dates,” Benjamin told the Daily Mail.

“[New Zealand women] are very intelligent, kind, friendly people. We love their accents. They were a lot of fun, everyone we met seemed nice.

“I think we will continue to stay in touch with the people we met. We really want to come back – it was a beautiful country.”

He replied, “What? Is that allowed? Of course! We have to do the right thing,” and watching him meet her a week later was the most special experience. It was an unconventional and unexpected way to enter into parenting, but he is absolutely crushing the dad game and it’s as if the dad jokes started immediately.

It’s like something releases in the brain once you’re wildly in love with your kids. He’s holding off on the white leather New Balances for now, but causes our daughter, Stella Grace, to light up with his imaginative play and jumping on the trampoline.

He even said it’d be okay to have a few more kids, and he just bought me a minivan, so I assume that means he wants to max it out! I’m thankful for the father he is!”

– Monique Coleman

Want to share a story about fatherhood? Email fatherfigures@thedad.com

When Lutz cam home later that day, he noticed tire tracks leading up to the snowman from the road. Clearly, some motorist out there had vehicular snowmanslaughter on the mind but underestimated all the junk in Frosty’s trunk.

The snowman looks a little worse for wear with the tree stump in its base now exposed, but the snowy imprint of the bumper definitely adds some flair.

“You reap what you sow,” Lutz said. “Still standing and still smiling, Frosty certainly had the last laugh!”