This is Charles and Laura Ingalls. (well not actually but you get the point...)

If you really knew Charles’s story, you’d see the truth that every Hallmark card and evangelical church refuses to admit:

Most “heroes” are just men who didn’t get up and walk out when every bone in their body told them to.

Charles failed at farming. Starved his family nearly to death. Dragged them from house to house, always “one day from making it.”

And yet, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote him into American legend.

That’s the joke, isn’t it?
Your daughters love you not because you built the life you wanted for them. They love you because you stayed in the ring, throwing wild punches even after the world called the fight.

I’m in a hotel on the edge of Missouri, driving toward my grandson, whose whole life is already a struggle most grown men couldn’t stomach for a week.

My daughters text me.

“I’m proud of you, Dad.”
“Be safe.”
“I love you.”

You ever stare at your phone and feel like you robbed a bank and got away with it?

Because you remember every failure:
The pawnshops. The poverty. The nights you wanted to leave.
The times you looked like Charles, with nothing left but your word and the promise you’d show up again tomorrow.

But your daughters?
They keep calling you “hero.”

That word will break you if you’re honest.

Because they’re not praising the scars you hid.
They’re just grateful you stayed.

If you want a TikTok dad, go read another newsletter.
If you want the fantasy, go watch a Hallmark movie.

If you want the gritty, failing, no-plan-B, show-up-every-day version of fatherhood—the Charles Ingalls version—start here.

I put every scar and every fight into this:
Your Body Wasn't Designed For Your Hand

And if you want to back me while my family is still fighting yet another battle—Blake’s—go here:
Support Blake's Fight

You won’t get called a hero until you’re crawling toward the finish line.
But when you hear it, you’ll know you didn’t earn it.
You just didn’t leave.

—Adam

P.S. If you’re a son, thank your dad for showing up. If you’re a dad, stay until your daughters can call you hero, and know you didn’t fake it.

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He had everything. Still felt like a fraud.

Your Bible plan will die by February

Check The Locks Twice

Day 1: The Quarry

Stop waiting. Start building.

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