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Moms-to-be have always had plenty of guidebooks to help them know “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.”
For a long time, fathers did not have similar volumes of advice to guide them through the maze of parenthood.
Enter Armin Brott.
A Marine veteran, Brott certainly didn’t know what to expect when his first daughter (of three) was on the way.
He began to write essays about his thoughts and feelings of pending fatherhood. As a talented writer, some of his musings ended up in The New York Times.
As he became more active in his daughter’s life (and the lives of her two siblings who followed), Brott said he came to understand, “Guys want to be more involved with their kids.”
Yet, as he learned in an incident at his neighborhood playground, society holds certain misconceptions and prejudices about men and children. That day, when Brott caught a child as she fell backward off the steps of the slide, a woman in the park made a big deal out of it.
“There was suspicion because I was with a child,” he said. “It was a hurtful kind of thing.”
At that moment, a professional father was born.
“It was really kind of an accidental thing,” said Brott. “It became one of those things that, if you channel anger properly, then it can really turn into something.”
Flash forward, and Brott is now an author of seven books about fatherhood. He also pens a syndicated column on the subject and has a long-running radio program near his home in Oakland, Calif.
As a recognized fatherhood expert, Brott has been receiving e-mail inquiries for years. When the War on Terrorism started heating up, he began to receive imploring messages from deployed fathers.
He said the topics ranged from: “My teenager was just busted for smoking dope , and I’m over here in Iraq,” to “I’ve been deployed a year, and I’ve killed people. What am I supposed to do when my family asks what I did?”
Brott began to realize he had to write a book to help military fathers with issues surrounding parenthood and deployment.
His seventh book in The New Father’s Series: “The Military Father: A Hands-on Guide for Deployed Dads,” does just that.
Published in 2009, the hefty volume takes military fathers step-by-step, from the first moment they learn they are deploying, through post-deployment life.
It also provides helpful advice for civilian contractors who work in theater and dads whose wives deploy.
Though Brott was not yet a parent when he was in the Marine Corps, he was able to draw on his knowledge of the military in writing the book. He also sought research and “field tested” tips from a variety of outlets, ranging from Military One Source to actual dads who have been through the deployment process.
An Army officer at West Point also provided actual military research about the subject. Much of that research was not yet known to the public.
“A lot of it hadn’t made it out of military journals,” he said.
The book that emerged from all that research includes cartoons and some humor, all written in “digestible chunks,” said Brott.
Despite the light moments in the book, Brott does address serious issues as well. In the final chapter, he included material about coping with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, brain injury, physical injuries and death.
“I’m trying to get this information out there because it’s just a tremendously important thing,” he said.
Brott wrote the book to help military fathers with the entire life cycle of the deployment process and to realize they can continue to parent while they are away at war.
The most important thing military dads need to know is things will go better when they plan as much as possible in advance and understand what is going on with their wives and children as they navigate their own process through deployment, he said.
“Your family needs you. You need them. And there are some things you can do to keep in touch,” said Brott.
Editor’s note: Brott may be found on the Web at mrdad.com. “The Military Father: A Hands-on Guide for Deployed Dads” was published by Abbeville Press.
