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Many of us are lucky to have a dad to ask simple questions from how to tie a tie to how to change a flat tyre.
Unfortunately, there are some of us who are unlucky to have a grown up with a dad and it’s sometimes hard to find someone to ask these questions to. A lot of times, we search Google videos to find out how-to do things.
But this one dad who grew up without a dad, decided to combine the two to create a YouTube channel with fatherly tutorials to answer all our questions.
Rob Kenney was just 14-years-old when his father left his family. This sad incident spurred him to move in with his older brother, and while Rob was grateful for his brother’s support, it wasn’t exactly easy to raise a moody adolescent, after his dad departed.
Now a dad himself with two successful adult kids and a wife of 29 years, Rob is paying it forward with helpful videos for people without their parents and he teaches them the sort of tasks one would usually learn from their dad.
So far, there are only a handful of videos of Ron’s “Dad, how do I?” page but already he has over 1.4 million subscribers who are eagerly learning from the dad.
Rob covers many practical bases such as shaving, unclogging a sink, changing a tyre, hanging up a shelf, tying a tie and more.
“My goal in life was to raise good adults,” Rob told Shattered. “I never wanted to be wealthy. I never wanted to be necessarily successful. My goal in life was to raise good adults – not good children but good adults – because I had a fractured childhood.”
Rob noted that his parents’ already fractured relationship was made worse when his Kansas mother was forced to move for his dad’s work.
“By the time I got to be 10, 11, 12, you could definitely tell there was some dysfunction going on,” he said. “We used to even have boxes in our downstairs because my mum never really unpacked. I think my mum… wanted to get back to Kansas. I think that really took a toll on her.”
When Rob’s parents got divorced, his dad ended getting custody of all eight children. However, his father was not keen on dealing with children at that time in his life so he left it up to the older siblings to decide the younger ones’ fates.
“He got custody of us, but he didn’t really want us,” Rob said. “I think he was kind of done by that time… He said: ‘You know, I’m done having kids… you’re going to have to figure out where these kids are going because otherwise, I’m putting them in foster homes.’”
That was when Rob’s 23-year-old, newlywed brother took him into his “8-by-35-foot mobile home.”
Years later, as adults, Rob and his brother organised a fishing trip with their dad who was in his 80s. His father apologised for the way he treated them and said that he was making “a point of trying to talk to each one of us individually.” Not long after, Rob’s father passed away but they had managed to reconcile before that.
With lots of spare time in quarantine, Rob – who had been considering starting up the dad-YouTube channel for a while; finally took the plunge.
“I want it to be about everyday tasks, but I also would like to pass along some of the wisdom I’ve learned along the way to encourage people,” he said. “I thought I was just going to be showing people how to do stuff, but it’s kind of resonating on a whole different level.”
Rob’s videos not only show you how to do different tasks, but they’re also full of good fatherly advice that one might hope to get from their own fathers, love and encouragement.
This dad has been crowned “everyone’s dad” over the internet, and we can’t help but to agree with them.
This is definitely the wholesome content we need!
Have you seen Rob’s videos? Were they helpful? What are your thoughts on his fatherly tutorials? Let us know and share this with someone who needs it!
Info via Unilad