292 – Allan Shedlin of Chevy Chase, MD, Father, Grandfather, Dadvocate & Curator of the Daddying Film Festival & Forum

Transcript:

Tom Couch: [00:00:00] Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast, working tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics mission at HorizonTherapeutics.com.

Allan Shedlin: How was it possible that you and I weren’t aware of each other and our work? Because as you pointed out, the overlap is uncanny.

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, Allen Shedlin, who has a lot in common with our host, David Hirsch. Both have dedicated their lives to advocating on behalf of fathers. Allen Shedlin is an educator and founder of the upcoming Daddying Film Festival. David Hirsch formed the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative and founded 21st Century Dads and the Special Fathers Network. Allen Shedlin and David Hirsch, two kindred spirits who haven’t met until now.

This is the Special [00:01:00] Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast, where this week these two fatherhood ambassadors meet for the first time and speak about their mutual devotion to dads. We’ll also hear about Allen’s upcoming project, the Daddying Film Festival. So say hello now to the aforementioned founder of the Special Fathers Network, and host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast presented by the Special Fathers Network, a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs.

The Special Fathers Network MasterMind group experience is the most comprehensive program the 21st Century Dads Foundation offers. Dads raising children with special needs meet virtually on a weekly basis and form meaningful relationships while sharing weekly wins, discussing books, and sharing heartfelt challenges. One of the highlights of the year is attending an in-person weekend retreat. We’re launching 10 new MasterMind groups in 2024 with 10 dads per group. That means we’re only looking [00:02:00] for 10 like-minded dads in each community. If you’re a dad raising a child with special needs, we hope you’ll join a local MasterMind group and make the investment to become the best version of yourself. For more information, please see the show notes or simply go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: And now let’s hear this conversation on fatherhood between Allen Shedlin and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with Allen Shedlin of Chevy Chase, Maryland, who is the father of three adult daughters, grandfather of five, and one of the most enthusiastic and outspoken fatherhood advocates I’ve ever met. Allen coined the term “Daddying.” He leads the Dadvocacy Consulting Group, and he leads the Daddying Film Festival and Forum, now in its third year. Allen, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Allan Shedlin: I’m thrilled to be talking with you, David.

David Hirsch: You and your ex-wife, Michelle, were married for 32 years and are the proud parents of three adult daughters: Raya, Samantha, and Christina, as well as five grandchildren. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me [00:03:00] something about your family.

Allan Shedlin: Okay. I should begin by telling you I’ve not grown up. And I have no intention of ever growing up. It’s highly overrated. But I lived as a child first in Manhattan, and then at age nine, my family moved to the Bronx. And that’s where I got older until I went off to college.

David Hirsch: And when you were growing up, did you have siblings?

Allan Shedlin: I did. I had two brothers, I’m the middle, and I have a sister, who’s the youngest.

David Hirsch: And I’m curious to know, what did your dad do for a living?

Allan Shedlin: I don’t know. My dad – and it used to be not a negative word, but it seems to be a negative word now – was the first independent manufacturer of plastic in the United States. And he ran a business which made plastics, which was not a negative term then, sure is today. The only other thing to add to that is there’s a line from the movie The Graduate, which most people will remember, [00:04:00] when Dustin Hoffman was told by an older gentleman, thinking about what he was to do when he finished was, “Plastics, my dear boy. Plastics.” [David chuckling] So that was a term that I heard in utero.

[Audio excerpt from ‘The Graduate’]

I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Yes, sir.

Are you listening?

Yes sir, I am.

Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

Yes, I will.

I’ve said, that’s a deal.

[End of audio excerpt]

David Hirsch: When you were growing up I’m curious to know how you’d characterize your relationship with your dad.

Allan Shedlin: I always knew my father would be there in a pinch. But I needed more than a pinch. He, in order to be a successful businessman, was a brilliant salesperson. And the way he made his sales, one of the very few, very specific things he taught me was eyeball visits are always the best. So he said I can send prospective customers samples, but if I bring them and eyeball to eyeball, I’m more likely to make the sale.

So my father was absent to our [00:05:00] household for approximately 250 days a year for 25 years. And when he wasn’t, he wasn’t really present anyway, because he was thinking about his next trip and running what became a pretty substantial business with his partner. So I would say that he wasn’t around very much.

David Hirsch: So if I can paraphrase what you’ve said, he was probably a good provider, right? He was a successful business person, but he wasn’t present physically, emotionally, spiritually, in the lives of you and your siblings.

Allan Shedlin: That’s my perspective. I spoke with my older brother about this, did a formal daddying interview with my older brother. He’s only two and a half years older than I am. And when he got all finished with the formal interview, which I conducted as a researcher as opposed to a brother. And when the interview was over, I said, the interview is over, Victor. And [00:06:00] now I have a question for you that isn’t part of the interview, which is, who exactly was your father? So he had a very different perspective than I did. I think part of it is because he ended up going into the family business. And I think he was thinking much more about how present he was with my father once he entered the business. And they saw each other much more frequently than I ever did. So I think that is an important point because I think as siblings, we often have a very different view of our parents.

David Hirsch: That’s a really good point. And was there a point in time that you would have considered following in your dad, following in your brother’s footsteps, and being part of the business?

Allan Shedlin: There was no point at any time except until I went off to college when I was unaware I actually had a choice. It sounds ridiculous at this point to me that, until you’re 18 years old, you don’t know [00:07:00] you have a choice of what you want to do with your life. So I was never told that I had an option. Never occurred to me I did until I literally physically got away from my household and realized this is not something that interested me at all.

David Hirsch: Very interesting. So when you think about your relationship with your dad what are the most important takeaways, positive or negative, that you can reflect on?

Allan Shedlin: I think he taught me, not deliberately, the importance of dads being present, because I craved that, I wished that. And every once in a while, that little boy, age three years old forward, can think of moments where I craved so badly my father, that I did stuff to make sure that when he was there we were together. So I think one of the things I learned, which was not a deliberate lesson, but one I took from it, was that [00:08:00] I recognized the importance of dads being present in all different ways.

My dad also had a very good heart. Although he was a tough guy, I knew him well enough to know that there was a tenderness on the inside that in the 1940s and 50s was not something, as a man, you willingly showed to people. And so when you referred, David, to his being a good provider, that was part of the definition of what being a good dad was. And since he didn’t have that in his own father, that was a lesson that he learned. Again, not on purpose and not deliberately.

David Hirsch: Yeah thanks for sharing. Let’s segue and talk about your grandfathers, first on your mom’s side and then on your dad’s side. What role, if any, did they play?

Allan Shedlin: So my grandfather on my mother’s side played an important role. He was able to show a side of him that was tender, even if he didn’t intend to [00:09:00] show it. If something touched him, he would fight back tears, but you could tell from his face that he was fighting back tears. He was the only family member who seemed to take any interest at all in any of the schoolwork that I was doing as a kid. So he did play not an actively important role, but a passively important role in my life.

My paternal grandfather passed away when I was about 18, and I had seen him only three times in my life because he and his son, my father, were estranged from each other. So he didn’t play much of a role in my life at all.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing, and if I remember the story correctly, your father had a different last name than his dad. What’s the backstory on that?

Allan Shedlin: So the backstory is that his mother and father were divorced when he was seven and his mother got remarried. I never considered him my grandfather [00:10:00] even though he was my grandmother’s husband when I was born. But we always referred to him as ‘uncle’ and not ‘grandfather.’ And he was a very passive guy who had really no influence whatsoever.

So the single most important male role model for me was my fifth grade teacher, Joe Papaleo. Joe Papaleo, who we affectionately call Pappy, was when you’re a kid, when you’re in fifth grade or younger, all adults seem old to you. He was old. I’ve very recently realized that he was 24 years old when he was my fifth grade teacher. And I was fortunate enough to also have Joe as a teacher again, when I was a junior in high school. And then when I left high school, he became the head of the Creative Writing Department at Sarah Lawrence College, and Joe and I stayed close to each [00:11:00] other until he passed away in 2004. So the last time I saw him was in 2002 when he was doing a book signing. So he was the single most important male role model for me in my life.

David Hirsch: Why was he such an important role model?

Allan Shedlin: He presented an alternative way for a man to be in the world. He was always present in every way possible. What was interesting to me as I’ve thought about it recently when I was asked to write a testimonial about him, is that he was not a strict teacher but nobody misbehaved in his class. And that’s an accomplishment if you’re a fifth grade teacher. But I’m thinking about why did nobody misbehave in his class? Because it would have taken away from the good time that we would have been able to have with him. He was artistic. He was gentle. And he was present and he had a good sense of [00:12:00] humor.

David Hirsch: Was there somebody else?

Allan Shedlin: When I was 17 and I began for the first time working with kids… Of course, now it sounds funny to say that since it’s 17, I guess you’re a kid. But I was a counselor to camp for seriously emotionally disturbed and autistic children. A sleep away camp. And the director of the camp who was a professor of psychology – coincidentally, by the way, also at Sarah Lawrence College – was the director of that camp. And he was definitely a role model and more a mentor for me, since that was the summer that I decided for sure that’s what I wanted to do for my life’s work was work with kids in one way or another. And so he became very important to me. And I too stayed in touch with him until he passed away.

David Hirsch: And what was his name?

Allan Shedlin: His name was Meyer Rabban.

David Hirsch: I think of people like [00:13:00] Meyer and Pappy as sort of the angels in our lives. Maybe you didn’t know it at the time, but you can look back and realize how influential they were.

Allan Shedlin: Yes. And what I think is really important picking up on that is as one gets older and realizes that, is to find those people and tell them. It’s really important and very few of us do that.

David Hirsch: Absolutely. And you don’t want to wait too long because they’re usually not just a little bit older but in some cases much older.

Allan Shedlin: That’s exactly right.

David Hirsch: So my recollection was you got your bachelor’s degree and then you went on to get a master’s from Columbia in education and special ed. And I’m wondering, where did you think your career was going to take you?

Allan Shedlin: So I got my bachelor’s degree at Colgate University and I intended to major in psychology, having been positively influenced by that summer working with seriously disturbed children. And Colgate, back in the 12th century, was an all male [00:14:00] school. [David chuckles] It was very small. There were only 1, 300 students in the whole school. The faculty, in turn, was small. It had only two people in the psychology department, and when I took the first two psychology courses, I realized that there was no way I wanted to take another course with either one of these gentlemen.

And so I decided not to major in psychology and instead majored in what might have been one of the very last things that I thought I might major in, which was English. And the professor I had at the time who did encourage me to major in English was another very important male role model for me in my life. His name is Jonathan Kessler. When I submitted my first paper to him as a freshman, I got the first D grade that I had ever received. I wasn’t even sure what the hell it meant. And the comment was, and I of course remember it in giant red letters, [00:15:00] along with the D, “Frankly, Shedlin, this paper gives me a headache. It’s like wading through a marsh without boots. See me.” Hardly an auspicious invitation to major in the topic. But when I met with Dr. Kessler, with Jonathan Kessler, I realized how brilliant he was and he was absolutely right. Paper gave me a headache too. But I hadn’t been taught to write very well when I was in high school. So he helped me out and that’s where I ended up majoring.

And then I went on to a teacher’s college at Columbia majoring in special education. And it had a major amount of requirements. You had very little choice of what you were to study your freshman year. I resented it at the time. It’s a blessing ever since because I wouldn’t have taken many of the courses I had to take, one of which was philosophy and religion.

And it was in that philosophy course [00:16:00] that I realized that I had no desire to be in the plastic business. And when I got home Thanksgiving vacation and told my dad, the response from him lasted for 20 years. Trying everything to make me rethink going into the family business. 20 years worth of different ways of trying to persuade me.

David Hirsch: So if I can read between the lines, he was not supportive of the career path that you had chosen.

Allan Shedlin: That would be an understatement. For the first dozen years of my career, he wouldn’t tell people what I did for a living. One of the discussions we had when he told me that my brothers are going to be rich and I’m not. And I told him that I was going to be wealthier than they were. And he was sure I was completely insane until we had a discussion about other ways of measuring wealth other than financially. I don’t think he ever really understood that. I think he felt it, but I don’t think he really ever got that because [00:17:00] that’s not part of his history.

David Hirsch: Yeah it saddens me to have you recall that situation or your dad’s perspective on your career and not just for a year or a couple of years, but for perhaps two decades. That sounds like it’d be a pretty challenging situation to get the respect from your dad for pursuing what career you wanted to pursue.

Allan Shedlin: Yeah. So that is another passive lesson one learns from one’s father is not to do the same thing with your own children and not to determine for them what you think they need to do. And what made the corner be turned by my dad on what I was doing for a living was when I became the principal of one of the top schools in New York City. And then it was something to brag about.

David Hirsch: Yeah, a lot of lessons packed in there. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for your transparency. Let’s switch gears and talk about special needs, first talking about things on a personal level and then perhaps beyond. I’m curious to know, [00:18:00] prior to Raya’s birth, did you have any personal connections to the world of disability and special needs? I know you did professionally, but I’m wondering if there’s any personal connections, family connections, to the world of disability.

Allan Shedlin: Yeah, there definitely is. So her name is pronounced Raya. And Raya is now 57 years old. When Raya was born during a 27-hour delivery, she was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. And every time there was a contraction, the cord tightened around her neck and oxygen didn’t flow freely to her brain. And so at five-hours old, she had to be transported from the hospital, the birth hospital, all of which were in New York City, to a larger hospital that had more sophisticated machinery.

Part of the significance of this, David, and it was really, as I think about it, it’s a hell of a jumpstart on being a dad. I guess I had just turned [00:19:00] 25, and we were transporting her in an ambulance to the hospital. We, meaning in those days, 57 years ago, women after birth were kept in the hospital for a few days. And if it was a difficult delivery, maybe more than a few days. So I was all alone. And again, 27-hour delivery, so I was more than a little sleep deprived. When I said “we” in the ambulance, happily the nurse from the hospital she was born in joined me in the back of the ambulance with her, with a portable incubator on my lap.

And she stopped breathing for the fifth time. I had not witnessed the first four, but it was beyond disturbing to see your newborn baby, barely five pounds, turn blue. What a blessing that the nurse was with us, because what she did is startle her by doing this on the sole of her foot. And it startled her, and she caught her breath, [00:20:00] and she started to breathe again.

But in that what seem like an endless ambulance ride, which is probably seven to ten minutes, I learned for the first time in my life that my head could not overrule my heart. My head told me, as recently having earned my special ed degree, and I knew all of the potential horrors that could visit upon a kid whose brain was deprived of a proper amount of oxygen. And I thought to myself – I thought I was being completely rational – if this is what her future holds, let her die before you fall in love with her and before she has a lifetime of handicaps. And there was no friggin’ way that I would have let her die. None. And so in my head, I thought that was the right thought. My heart totally overruled it. And whatever I needed to do to keep her alive, I would do.

There was a brief period where I had my Job-like reaction. Hey, [00:21:00] why me? I’ve already decided to dedicate my life to children like this. Not fair. I got over that pretty quickly. The wonderful 30 year advance to the story is that even though we were told she would be so severely damaged she would be uneducable, after 10 days, she was released from the NICU and that’s what we were told by the neurologist. 30 years later, she earned her master’s degree in bilingual education and has just retired after 25 years as a successful bilingual teacher in the Albuquerque public school. Yes, I have my own personal experience being a special dad.

David Hirsch: Yeah. That does sound like a precarious start to the world for Raya and a rather challenging start to becoming a dad yourself. I’m trying to place myself in the back of that ambulance with this portable incubator on your lap and your newborn daughter just clinging on to life. And like you’d said, thank God that the nurse was there [00:22:00] from the hospital, who had the experience and the know-how to handle those situations, this interim situation before she actually got to the bigger hospital where the doctors could take over. And being in the NICU for even a relatively short period of time is looking at your child as a science fair project, right? With all the wires and connections that they have to all the monitors. Was it a straight line? Like she just got back on the normal track right from the get go? Or were there some challenges along the way earlier in her life?

Allan Shedlin: Yeah, there were many challenges along the way. It wasn’t a straight line at all. First, when I left her in the hands of the specialists at NICU, we were told, we don’t think she’s going to make it. We’ll do whatever, we’ll do our best. And then to see your five pound, tiny little thing, being strapped down in an incubator, arms pinned down, legs pinned down, and IVs inserted into your [00:23:00] skull, where the veins are the most prominent, was horrifying.

Leaving the hospital then, because I wasn’t allowed to stay, which is probably a good thing, but after two days we think there’s a chance she’ll make it. And then after another two days, we think she’ll make it. And after another two days, she will make it. And after another two days, which adds up to the ten days, she’ll make it, but she’ll be so severely damaged, she’ll be uneducable. There clearly have been residual issues as a result of that. For instance, she favors her left hand; she would be righty. We said that was part of what happened with the brain.

Then a really important piece of this is that every time she had a major milestone accomplishment, what I would do is I would go back into the Department of Pediatric Neurology and I would meet with the neurologist, pediatric neurologist who made the prognosis that she would be so [00:24:00] severely damaged she’d be uneducable. So when she graduated from nursery school and then from kindergarten and so forth, I would go in and I would meet with him and I would say to him, his name happened also to be Allen, and I would say to him, “Allen, what did we learn?” It’s not to cast any negative things about him. He was a brand new pediatric neurologist at that point. So we didn’t, you know, he wasn’t a veteran. But we didn’t know as much about the plasticity of the brain and its ability to rewire itself. So that he can’t be faulted for.

What I think was important for him to learn, if I may be so obnoxious as to think I would teach him something, he didn’t factor in the parents and what they were willing and able to do. And he didn’t factor in the child’s temperament. And Raya’s nickname, from when she was able to start crawling, that I gave her was the Tank. Because if she saw something across the room, she [00:25:00] totally ignored what might be in the way between where she was on the floor and where she needed to get to. And she would just crawl over everything. So she was extraordinarily determined and perseverant. And those things were really helpful to her ability to get to where she got to.

David Hirsch: Yeah. You raised some really good points, which is when you get this challenging diagnosis, if I can call it such that she would be uneducable, the prospects were pretty dim. And you don’t know at the time, right? You can only look back and connect the dots and realize that she had this determination, this will to live, that is second to none from what you just described. And then, you’re not bragging, you’re referring again with the benefit of hindsight to the level of commitment that you had as a parent. And you wouldn’t know that you have it when you’re a new dad or a new parent, but you can look back and say, no, it’s something that just erupted or it was alive. And it [00:26:00] wasn’t because of the great role models that you had experienced in your own family. But maybe the pendulum had swung super far to one side, and then it’s swinging super far to the other direction now.

That was your experience as a father, right? You knew your vision was for being present, being committed to your children, not just your oldest born, but your three daughters. And you were going to rewrite the playbook. You were going to break the cycle of father absence, if I can call it that, that you had experienced or witnessed. And that’s really one of the powerful takeaways from my understanding of your story.

Allan Shedlin: Yeah, I think that’s a good summary.

David Hirsch: So I’d like to talk about this body of work that you’ve done. And I don’t know if I’m going to get it in correct chronological order. Early on, you had created something called Dads Unlimited. And what was that, or what is that?

Allan Shedlin: I guess it’s important to connect how I got from working with elementary [00:27:00] kids, first in special education, and then gifted kids are also called special education. I’m of the mindset that all education needs to be special because all children are special. And I know that sounds trite, but I believe it. I believe every kid should have an IEP. And I believe we should focus on what assets kids have and build on those no matter whether they are deemed uneducable or gifted.

So I ended my in-school career as principal of a school for gifted kids. And during that time, I think it was the only rule I had with my faculty. I had 70 faculty members. We had a weekly faculty meeting and my rule was you couldn’t complain at a faculty meeting unless you were willing to make a suggestion on how to correct what you were about to complain about. Made for very quick faculty meetings, by the way, at least in the first year or two.

[00:28:00] But after eight years in that job, there were three things that I needed to complain about. And I had to say to myself, you’re not allowed unless you work on how you’re going to handle those. So the first was the lack of recognition of the importance of the earliest school years. So I’d also been an adjunct faculty member at the graduate school level for two summers. And one of the summers there was a party for faculty and not everybody knew who the faculty was and who wasn’t. And somebody came up to me and said, “What do you do?” And I said, “I’m an elementary school principal.” And I got the eye roll. “Oh, I’m so impressed. You must be so patient. Have a good evening.” [David laughs] A little bit later on, somebody came up to me at the same gathering and said, “What do you do?” And I said, “I’m a college professor.” And you can imagine, I got a very different response. And it was at that moment, I realized, no folks, you got it backwards. It’s at the beginning that’s [00:29:00] most important where the foundations are laid, where the habits are established. And so that was one thing I felt needed to be addressed.

Second thing was that if you begin as a special educator, you are used to, even as a teacher, talking with neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, etc. So you get different perspectives. “Regular” education, you don’t have those associations unless there’s a problem. So I felt that was the second thing needed to be addressed, was cross fertilization.

And the third was, having begun in the public school system and ended in the independent school world, I was aware that when you’re in one camp or the other, you view the other camp as the enemy camp. And I thought, how dumb is that?

And so when I left the principal’s job after eight years, I created the National Elementary School Center to address those three issues and did that for 10 years [00:30:00] until I realized that 85 percent of my time was begging for enough money to keep the place open and 15 percent of my time doing what I was wanting to do. And so we closed the National Elementary School Center.

I wasn’t sure what to do next. And somebody said, my daughters were in their early twenties at this point. Allen, the way your daughters speak about you, you need to write a book about fathering. Because I’m a smart ass, my response was, “Fathering isn’t a book. It’s a one-time biological act requiring a shot of DNA. That’s it. And I can write about that in a paragraph.” So I coined the term “daddying” at that point. “Daddying” is what happens when fatherhood and nurturing intersect, and it’s a lifelong process. It’s not a one-time biological act, and it requires lifelong commitment.

So I didn’t know what I was going to do with that sort of lightbulb moment. I had already written a lot in education, but I had written [00:31:00] nothing about being a dad. I thought, how do I write about being a dad? Maybe I think of myself first as a dad. And then I think of myself as a son, and then as a grandson. And then a four year old told me, in pre-kindergarten when I was a principal, and he came and asked me, what does a principal do? I said what do you think I do? And he said, you’re like the daddy of the school. Best definition of my job ever.

If you want to improve a product, best way to do it is to interview the consumers of the product. And so the consumers of daddying are kids. And so I set out and did 28 focus groups in three different countries with children. One of the questions that I asked in the focus group was this: If you could create the perfect dad, what would he look like? And a 14 year old kid in one of the focus groups looked at me in a 14 year old kind of way, rolled his eyes and said, “Mister, there is no such a thing as a [00:32:00] perfect dad. And if there was, he’d be really boring.” So I looked at him and I said, “I completely agree with you. So let me phrase it differently. So if you could create the most excellent dad you could think of, what would he be like?” And so that was tolerable to the 14 year old boy. And we went from there.

And, after 28 focus groups and 162 kids, there were a lot of common things that come out of that. And the one quality that came up first in every group was being there. Really being there. And yes, ‘really’ was the word they emphasized. So as I said at the very beginning of this conversation, the times that my father was there, he wasn’t really there. So that’s what they meant when they said really being there.

And so I thought, how am I going to do this? I started parenting, coaching and doing some groups for dads. And that’s what Dads Unlimited was about. It was really [00:33:00] not sustainable as a financial business model. So that didn’t last very long, but it was my first sort of attempt to do some formal work.

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents Survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey will receive a Great Dad Coin. Thank you. Now, back to the conversation.

David Hirsch: What I love about what you were saying is that you went to the youth to be informed about this. And what resonates most with me is the learning experience that I had, right? Because the work that we’ve been doing, even though we did not know of each other’s existence going back to [00:34:00] the 1990s is in parallel. At the Illinois Fatherhood Initiative – and some of our listeners know this – we took an idea that the National Center for Fathering was using in Kansas City and Minneapolis in conjunction with the two baseball teams there. They were doing this Father of the Year essay contest. We thought, oh, we’ve got two baseball teams in Chicago. Somebody’s always going to be home on Father’s Day. We can do one of these essay contests. So circa 1997, we did our first essay contest and they would get hundreds of essays every year. And we reached out to the superintendents at the state level, at the archdiocese of Chicago and at Chicago public schools. And we had 30,000 essays our very first year. So we were very well informed. The 400 of us volunteers were very well informed of what the children of Illinois had to say about their dads, their stepdads, their granddads, and father figures. And that was the foundation that we built our work on.

And then that would become [00:35:00] 425,000 essays over a longer period of time. And when you’ve got that much data, that many inputs, you can really understand, more accurately understand, where the children’s perspectives are. The essays are, in most cases, these very authentic, handwritten communications. There isn’t any mincing words. And I would love to take a deeper dive into the work that you’ve done, but thank you for mentioning where you’re ” daddying” started in the name of Dads Unlimited. And from there, I believe the work was done in the name of REEL FATHERS. Where’d the name come from and what type of work were you doing?

Allan Shedlin: So the name REEL FATHERS began with having started on writing this book and having it rejected through an agent from eight publishers. And this is 20 years ago. All eight publishers, according to the agents, said exactly the same thing. Best work proposal we’ve ever seen. Perfect guy to write the [00:36:00] book. But no book on fatherhood has ever sold well. Men don’t read, men don’t buy books, and no one ever heard of the guy. So It was rejected. I felt personally rejected.

But felt after, at that point I had done about 60 interviews, because after I did the focus group with kids, I started doing individual daddying interviews with fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers. I had done about 60 by then. Now I’ve done 205 from 20 different countries. The age range is 16 to 104. So at that point it was about 60. And there was a soulful sadness that came out of a lot of the interviews. So I was determined to help dads in one way or another, and if it wasn’t going to be a book, I wasn’t sure what it was going to be.

And I saw a movie called My Architect: A Son’s Journey done by Nathaniel Kahn about his father, Louis Kahn, who may be the most famous architect I had never [00:37:00] heard of. And it was one of three Academy Award nominees as best documentary in 2003. So yes, 20 years ago. And I was alone when I saw that movie. And I cried through at least half of it and understood pretty quickly why it nailed me as it did. Then wished, as I was sitting there in that dark theater, that my father was sitting next to me and watching the movie with me, because it would have enabled us to talk about issues we had that would have been hard to spontaneously have jumped into.

And so that was the idea for using film as a way of enabling fathers, father figures, grandfathers, and their kids to talk to each other. And I was doing a lot of fatherhood groups at that point, or daddying groups as I called it, and one of the groups was in Española, New Mexico, sponsored by the Los Alamos National [00:38:00] Laboratory Foundation, called Firstborn. And they visited homes of firstborn families. And when I asked them how many fathers were present during those interviews, the answer was none. My reaction was, you gotta get the dads involved. And so the request to me was, could I meet with them and tell them how to do that, to get the dads involved? And because I’m mean, my answer was “No. I won’t tell you how to do it. But I will meet with you, and we’ll figure it out together, because I don’t really know your culture very well.”

And so we did that, and I did an exercise that they deemed the craziest thing they had ever seen anybody do with a group of people. There were about 20 people and their staff. And the woman who invited me said, “That was crazy. Do you have any other nutty ideas?” I said, “Yeah, I’d love to do a film festival. And we could call it The REEL, as in a movie, REEL FATHERS Film Festival.” She said, “Great, you got to do it in Santa Fe.” And I said, “Why is that?” “Because ‘The City Different’ [00:39:00] is our name, and we are an art colony, and we take chances, and you got to do it here.”

And that’s where REEL FATHERS still is 13 years later. And that program was initially to create a film festival, a REEL FATHERS Film Festival. But we got sidetracked because we started asking different organizations in New Mexico, would you support this film festival? And the response from Head Start Center, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Penitentiary, Veterans Groups, etc. was, “Yeah, we’ll support a festival, but we’re having trouble attracting dads to our programs, so would you create something just for us?” And again, because I’m mean, the answer was, “No, we’ll create something with you, but not for you.” And then for the next 10 years, that’s what we did. We did programs for all these different groups. And I forgot about the [00:40:00] idea of the film festival until three years ago.

David Hirsch: Got it. So I know that there’s some work that you did in between, and I just want to drill down on this so we don’t lose that before we talk about the Daddy’s Film Festival. DADDY Wishes Fund. What is that?

Allan Shedlin: So the DADDY Wishes Fund, so this kind of interesting to me and feels fitting is as we go back to the origin of all of this, as you asked about it at the very beginning with my dad. So as a successful businessman, he made a lot of money. And he started a foundation. And when he passed away, his wife – not my mother, his wife – ran the foundation and she passed away a few years ago. And the family had to decide what happens to the foundation. And the foundation was part of my father’s personality, had his name, that was the name of the foundation. So we could either keep the foundation going or close it. And if you close it, as you know, you don’t pocket the money. [00:41:00] The money has to go to another nonprofit. So I made the suggestion to my two stepsisters and my one brother who was actively involved in this, that we close the foundation and that we each get to decide where a quarter of the assets go, and that we could each decide that without checking with the others. It was totally up to us. And so suddenly, for the first time in my life, I felt oh my God, I’m on the other side. I’m going to get to decide where money goes.

So I created two donor advised funds, and one of them is the DADDY Wishes Fund. And what the DADDY Wishes Fund is, is that fathers can apply for grants up to $250 for something that they would like to do with their child that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. All they needed to do was submit through a non profit organization. They had to submit, what is it that I would like the [00:42:00] $250 for? And the only other requirement was, they had to document in some way what they did. It could be a tape recording, it could be a video recording, it could be something in writing. And it wasn’t because we didn’t trust them. It was because we wanted to provide interesting examples of things you can do with your kid. So that’s what the DADDY Wishes Fund is. There’s not a lot of money in it.

And the second entity was the Daddy Appleseed Fund. Somebody said to me at one point a number of years ago, “Allen, you’re like Daddy Appleseed.” So that’s the name of the other fund. And that’s where some of the finances have come from to launch the Daddy Film Festival and Forum.

David Hirsch: So if I can paraphrase what you’ve said: Your dad had a foundation. When he passed, you and your siblings decided to close it. And you took the quarter that would be yours, but you would be not entitled to personally, if you each had [00:43:00] one quarter, and you created these two donor advised funds – the DADDY Wishes Fund and the Daddy Appleseed Fund. And the DADDY Wishes Fund, from what I remember you saying, rather small dollar amounts, $250 per grant, is a little bit like a Make-A-Wish, but on a small scale…

Allan Shedlin: Correct.

David Hirsch: …where you’re providing somebody with an opportunity to do something that they might not otherwise be able to afford to do.

Allan Shedlin: Yeah.

David Hirsch: The only criteria, if I can call it such, is that they need to document what it is that they did. Not so much for accountability purposes, but to hopefully inspire other dads to be thinking along those lines.

Allan Shedlin: Correct. So it might be something as simple as buying a sleeping bag because I want to do a camping trip, or going to a baseball game, or buying a bow and arrow because I want to do archery with my kids. So those are some of the things it’s been used for.

David Hirsch: I love it. Let’s talk about the Daddying Film Festival and [00:44:00] Forum. Now in its third year, what were the first couple years like and what are your expectations for 2024 here?

Allan Shedlin: As I mentioned, the idea for REEL FATHERS initially, 20 years ago, was to do this film festival, which I got distracted, which I’m easily distractible. And about three years ago, when I was shaving before I had my beard, I saw this old guy looking back at me in the mirror. And I said, what the hell happened to that film festival? And buddy, you ain’t getting any younger. So I had the idea that it was now or never to do it. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I guess ignorance is bliss.

So I approached somebody who knew something about film festivals, an entity called Kids First!, also known as the Coalition for Quality Children’s Media. And it’s located, coincidentally, in Santa Fe. And I knew the woman and know the woman who started it and still runs it. Ranny Levy is her name. [00:45:00] And I approached her and said, “Ranny, I don’t have a clue about film festivals. You do. Would you work with me on this?” And she said yes. So in 2022, we did the first Kids First! Daddying Film Festival, which was all virtual.

And much to my surprise, we received films. And we accepted only films done by kids – elementary school, middle school, high school, and undergraduate college. And we trained kids to judge the films that came in. And much to my shock and delight, we received films from 17 countries, which totally blew me away. Complete surprise.

When the films come in, we assign them to kids, the films done by adults. I didn’t say the adult films, because that means something else to a lot of people. [both laughing] The films done by adults are judged by adults. [00:46:00] And after the kids narrow it down to 10 semifinalists in each of those four grade categories – elementary, middle, high school, and undergraduate college – they get sent to people in the entertainment industry and/or the education field, and they narrow it down to five finalists.

Each finalist earns $250. Then for a week, those five finalists in each of those age grade categories are online for the public to vote. And the public votes on a winner, the best of the five in each of those groups. And that winner earns another $250. And not a Oscar, not a Golden Globe, not an Emmy. They earn an Atticus award named after Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. And the award is physically a mockingbird mounted on a pedestal.

And so at the forum, what we do is we show the winning films, and then we have a [00:47:00] discussion group between fathers and their kids, going way back to the initial idea for the using film, and they discuss the issues that came up in the films.

Last year, we did the live version in New Mexico. Mainly the idea is to shine a spotlight on the importance of father involvement and the consequences, positive and negative, of the lack thereof. We were invited to bring it to Pennsylvania for 2024. So we’re well into planning this. We have our venue. We have a whole bunch of wonderfully supportive friends, who we call our circle of friends, which includes 21st Century Dads, which we’re thankful for. And all we ask of our friends is to get the word out because what makes us successful is films submitted by kids. And then on the 11th of May, we will announce the winners. [00:48:00] The 17th of May, we will have our forum in Philadelphia. That day, we will convert Philadelphia from ‘the land of brotherly love’ to ‘the land of fatherly love.’

David Hirsch: I love it. We’ll be sure to include information in the show notes. It’ll make it as easy as possible for people to learn a little bit more, and if they’re motivated to participate. Thank you for sharing. Very exciting.

Allan Shedlin: Yeah.

David Hirsch: I’m thinking about advice now and I’m wondering beyond perhaps the scope of our conversation or maybe you want to reemphasize something, most of our listeners are families raising children with special needs. A lot of dads, stepdads, granddads, and father figures. I’m wondering what advice you might have for a father who has a child, or maybe in some cases multiple children, with special needs.

Allan Shedlin: The advice really comes from what I learned from the kids and what I learned from my own experience. So I mentioned that the first thing that came up when I did the focus groups with kids was be there. So one of the things I like to say is being [00:49:00] a dad is not only who you are, it’s what you do. So the first bit of advice would come from the kids. And what I know from my education, my formal education, is what the kids want is also what they need. So being there was number one.

Number two, take your child as seriously as they take themselves. So when somebody challenges me on that and say, how do you take a one year old seriously? I give them the example of a divorced mother and father who were coming to visit their grandchild separately. And the mother said, it’s really interesting how differently the child responds to grandpa than it does to grandma. And I said, tell me what happens when they both come individually. They don’t come together. This is an apartment in New York City, and the one year old granddaughter is sitting on the floor, playing with pots and pans and stuff. And grandma comes in and rings the bell and daughter answers the door and gets handed the [00:50:00] mom’s coat, please hang it up for me. Sees the granddaughter on the floor, way down along the hallway, holds out her arms and says, “Grandma’s here.” And what happens when grandpa comes? Grandpa rings the bell and I opened the door and he hangs up his own coat and he sees the kid on the floor. And he quietly walks over to the kid and sits down next to her and starts playing with the pots and pans. That’s how you take a one year old seriously. Yes, obviously at different ages, it’s a different thing.

Third quality that kids say they want is to be a passionate advocate for us. Hence my organization, the Dadvocacy Consulting Group.

Fourth is show us you love us and be affectionate. For some dads, that’s not easy. If one can get over some of those hurdles, it’s awesome.

And then the fifth most commonly cited thing from the kids is provide us with security and [00:51:00] protection. So I guess those are the five things. I think clearly the advocacy or the Dadvocacy part of this, especially important if you have a child with special needs. You’re called to do that maybe a little bit more intently, intensely and a little more often.

David Hirsch: Yeah, well-spoken and grounded in these decades and decades of research and your own personal experience. So thank you for sharing. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Allan Shedlin: Yeah. Don’t keep the dad you want to be waiting, is one thing. But then I’d like to give a quote from The Little Prince. And The Little Prince says, “Here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

David Hirsch: I love that. Could you repeat it?

Allan Shedlin: Yes. “Here is my secret. A very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible [00:52:00] to the eye.”

David Hirsch: I love it. I’m gonna have to incorporate that into my own repertoire.

Allan Shedlin: Yeah.

David Hirsch: It reminds me of the eulogy that I gave my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, when he passed away 23 years ago. I think it was by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I’m going to paraphrase it because it’s not like something I’ve committed to memory. But, “Your actions speak so loud, I can’t hear what you’re saying.” And it’s just one of those things that really resonates.

Allan Shedlin: Yeah. I realized as I share that quote is what I said at the very beginning about realizing that my head was not able to overrule when it came to the survival of my firstborn child.

David Hirsch: Very powerful. Let’s give a special shout out to Maurice Moore for helping connect us.

Allan Shedlin: Yes, exactly. And as we both said, when we met each other a month or two ago was how the hell was it possible that you and I weren’t aware of each other and our work? Because as you pointed out, the overlap is uncanny.

David Hirsch: [00:53:00] Yeah it’s good news and bad news. It’s refreshing and it’s uplifting to get acquainted and appreciate the work that we’ve each been doing. But it’s disappointing on the other hand because I’m thinking, gosh, if we had met five or 10 or 20 years ago, what we might’ve been able to accomplish up and above what we are already doing. So anyway we’ll just say thank God for the introduction. Thank you, Maurice. And I’m hoping that we’ll be able to accomplish a lot as the months and the years go by.

Allan Shedlin: Yep. We will. So the final quote is from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, where he says, “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

David Hirsch: I love it. If somebody wants to learn more about your work or to contact you, what’s the best way to do that?

Allan Shedlin: So thank you for asking that. So I think the best way is to go to the website, just because my current, complete focus and passion is this film festival because of the potential it has to be helpful. [00:54:00] And that is to go to the website, www. daddyingfilmfest.com. And on that website, there’ll be ways to be being in touch, and to learn more about the festival. And I encourage as many films to come in as possible. What we’ve already received, even though it’s just a small handful in the first eight days, is pretty remarkable.

David Hirsch: We’ll be sure to include that information in the show notes. Allen, thank you for your time and many insights. As a reminder, Allen is just one of the dads who’s part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As you probably know, the 21st Century Dads Foundation is a 501c3 not for profit organization, which means [00:55:00] we need your help to keep our content free to all concerned. Would you please consider making a tax-deductible contribution? I would really appreciate your support. Thanks again.

Allan Shedlin: And thank you so much, David, for what you do and for listening and asking good questions.

David Hirsch: Yeah, we’re members of the Mutual Admiration Society, Allen.

Allan Shedlin: Yeah. Good. Alright, I think you greeted me the last time we spoke as a brother from a different mother, so I like that a lot.

David Hirsch: We’ll leave it at that. Thanks again.

Allan Shedlin: Okay, take good care.

Tom Couch: And thank you for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children match up with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for dads to support other dads. To find out more, go to 21stCenturyDads.org.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help [00:56:00] or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to Facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.” Lastly, we’re always looking to share interesting stories. If you’d like to share your story or know of a compelling story, please send an email to David@ 21stCenturyDads.org.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics, who believe that science and compassion must work together to transform lives. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at HorizonTherapeutics.com.