Rob Kenny didn’t start out wanting to be a super star on YouTube, but that’s what happened when he published his Dad, How Do I videos. He tapped into a niche that the world didn’t know it was hungry for and we absolutely love watching him use his gifts and desires to pass along dad wisdom to the world. Julie asks Rob about the deep need the world has for this dad content and what he has seen as his brand has exploded.
Listen to “The Dad The World Needed with Rob Kenney of “Dad, How Do I”” on Spreaker.
Interview Links:
- Follow Rob on YouTube at Dad, How do I? or on Facebook and Instagram
- Pick up a copy of Rob’s new book Practical “Dadvice” for Everyday Tasks and Successful Living
Transcript:
Julie Lyles Carr: I’m Julie Lyles Carr. You’re listening to the allmomdoes podcast, part of the Christian parenting podcast network. Today on the allmomdoes podcast, I’m Julie Lyles Carr. Rob Kenny is with me. He is somebody who’s going to help us make sure that we are getting our kids equipped. And if we miss some steps, he has some ideas for how we can resource them and to help them know how to do some basic things in life that they need.
Rob, thanks so much for being with me. I really appreciate it.
Rob Kenney: Yes, of course. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me on Julie. I appreciate it.
Julie Lyles Carr: Now you are something that, you know, I gotta be honest, Rob, for a guy in our ages and stages. I wouldn’t often think that part of your CV would include that you are a YouTube star, but you are your YouTube star.
Rob Kenney: Yeah. That happened kind of by accident. Actually. You know, when I started my channel, I just thought I was going to help 30 or 40 people and wanted to kind of pass along some knowledge, some things that I’d learned over the years. The hard way and just wanted to kind of put it in one spot. So it might be useful to a small group of people.
And then yeah, it went, yeah. Crazy last May.
Julie Lyles Carr: These are my favorite stories, you know, and I, I do a lot of work in the marketing arena and in the strategy arena. And your story is one of those, again, that I always have to stop and say to somebody, but listen, we can do all the things and we can do all the things, right.
But there is such a thing as a divine serendipity, where somebody just tries to put some good out in the world and. Just gets a God wink like you did. So congratulations on the way that you’ve been able to speak into people’s lives, but let’s, let’s back up a little bit. Tell my listeners who you are, where you live and kind of some of your experiences up to this point.
Rob Kenney: Yeah. So one real quick thing. It’s definitely a God thing. When this thing happened, I was in a fetal position and crawled up in my bed, crying, going, God, stop. I don’t know what just happened, you know, and it was scary cause uh, you know, my channel, all of a sudden seeing my face everywhere was. That’s scary.
I’m an introvert. The channel started in April of last year because of COVID we were quarantined. I didn’t have any more excuses. I thought of the idea of like several years ago. Cause I talked to my adult kids all the time about adulting, you know, trying to prepare your kids for adulting. You do the best you can.
You know, I tried to include them in all kinds of things, building a fence and you know, we’ve got pictures of them helping me with all that. But, you know, there’s just somethings, you don’t know that you don’t know until you get out in life and you go, ah, how do I do that? You know? And so, you know, you do the best you can, I think, to try to train them because my wife and I both wanted them to be functioning adults.
That people like to be around. Right. They didn’t want them to be the one that went over to somebody’s house and just sat on the couch and they were waited on, I wanted them to get there and help around, you know, get you to heart. You know, we want to be invited back.
Julie Lyles Carr: There is that goal, you know?
Rob Kenney: So I talked to my adult kids all the time about adulting and my daughter leads a youth group at her church and she talks to different people of all walks of life.
And she was wondering, you know, what do people do that don’t have this resource that she has, where she can call me anytime. And we talk and, and, you know, I thought back to my childhood and you know, my dad left when I was 14. I went to live with my brother who was nine years older than me. And yeah, you know, I’m ancient.
So I, I, that when YouTube wasn’t around, when I was, you know, we’re, I’ll be 57 this year and, you know, YouTube wasn’t around, but I thought what a great way that I could at least maybe share some of the knowledge that I had to learn the hard way, you know, how to shave and how to tie a tie and how to change your tire and you know, anything and everything around the house.
To the extent of my knowledge, I’ll run out of material at some point, but how to fish, you know, a lot of little things that maybe you didn’t get a chance to learn. And I wanted to do it in a calm way, inviting anybody and everybody to come in and, you know, try to empower people. So it. When it first kind of was out there, people were saying, that’s nice.
He’s helping young men. Well, it’s not just young men. Everybody . I had, I’ve had an 80 year old woman reach out to me and say, thanks, dad. That’s what I want. I want anybody, you know, I want it to be a safe, Place where anybody can come in and learn how to do things. So, you know,
Julie Lyles Carr: It really is interesting where we do have these gaps, the name of the YouTube channel and the, and the primary message of it is dad.
How do I, and it is interesting. You and I were talking about, you know, there is a whole body of research and of course not just young people, because we see that, for example, in the in the circumstance of the 80 year old woman who reached out to you, there were people who simply by cultural norms at the times, you know, guys weren’t taught to do this and females weren’t taught to do that.
So we’ve got a generation who have some gaps in their skill sets because of that kind of conditioning. But then we’ve also found something really interesting. And this has to do with a lot of young people reaching adulthood today, and parents who helicoptered parents who really tried to do everything for their kids.
They had a very concierge experience in childhood. And to the point that we are finding major universities who are offering classes, some of them making it an absolute essential in life skills, things from how to do laundry, to how to write a check or take care of bills, things that parents in being so well-intentioned in trying to give their children these beautiful Disney fied childhoods, perhaps because of the way they ran their households in terms of maybe they were able to outsource having certain things done.
But a lot of times for a lot of us, when you’re young adults, There’s not going to be a cleaning service that can come in. You can’t hire an accountant. These are things that you have to know how to do. We’re finding that there are major schools who are realizing this gap in some of our young people’s experiences saying, Oh, we’ve got to go back and have classes.
And so I feel like this is one of those places where you’re offering that kind of experience. Now you talk about. Having been one of seven kids and having had a dad who left when you were still in your early teen years, that’s part of what generated this heartbeat for you is wanting to really make sure that people had access to this information.
What are some gaps that you felt like you had when you entered adulthood that you wanted to address first?
Rob Kenney: You know, I started with just a few simple things like how to shave. Cause I just kind of had to figure that out on my own. I asked around, you know, um, I got pretty good at about just asking people.
Cause I don’t know, you know, or how to tie a tie. I learned that from my roommate and paying attention to the, knot I say that in my video. Cause it’s true. You got to kind of pay attention as you’re going along cause you’re building it. So just little hints like that, that I’ve learned to maybe save somebody.
Some trouble. One thing that’s interesting too is, cause I told my daughter when I first started it there’s so much more to being a dad or a mom than just running around, fixing things. It’s kind of a skill that I kind of had to develop, but I also wanted to be able to share my heart a little bit. I did one on attitude.
We’re in charge of our attitude. Cause I would like to pour some of that stuff into the next generation so that they stop and think about this for a little bit so that you understand the ramifications of your decisions, you know, and then I’ve done, I’ve done a dad chat on integrity, too. Just talking about what that looks like.
We’re all fallen human beings. So we do the best we can, but if I can help you. Get back on track if you’ve gotten off track or I’ve talked about forgiveness too. That was a big thing for me in my book, Forgiving My Dad was, it was good for me. It was hard though. I, and I can’t speak for anybody in this.
Don’t don’t get me wrong. Cause I, you know, I know that people been through so many different levels of things that they need to be able to forgive or forgive themselves for. So I can only speak from my own experience. It was hard for me. And I shared that in my book and I just got done recording the audio version of it.
And when I was reading it I had to say, stop. I need to cry for a little bit, because I was like, this is me, this is my life story. This is hard still, you know, this is 42 years ago that this happened. It’s still kinda, you know, chokes me up because that’s some pretty tough scars that I had to deal with, but it’s in my own best interest to forgive.
Again, I can only speak for myself, but for me it was freeing to forgive. I, you know, as soon as I made that decision to forgive is like, okay, I’m no longer going to hold that against you and the Lord has forgiven me much. Who am I to hold that against somebody? A big thing that I say about that is it’s that saying about you drinking poison
and hoping it somehow hurts that other person it’s destroying me. You know, I’m hurting myself. I need to come to grips with this and think about this correctly.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. You know, you have a unique perspective because demographically you’re able to see which of your YouTube videos are the ones that are resonating the most quickly or gaining those eyes the most quickly. What are the top two or three things that you’re finding that people are coming to you for right now?
And does it surprise you or do you feel like, yeah, that makes sense.
Rob Kenney: Well, a couple of videos that I talked about. Um, I’m proud of you saying I’m proud of you, a legitimate dad saying I’m proud of you, you know, um, resonated really well. And I get comments all the time. You know, I’ve never heard that from my parents and never heard them like, ah, that’s just so sad, you know, but there was one early on where somebody said, I’m just watching you
tie a tie and I’m crying. I’m just sobbing watching you tie a tie. It’s just because it’s that dad connection that maybe they never had, or maybe their dad left or their dad passed on. And so that, you know, I guess it’s all of that. I had no idea. I’m thought I’m just tying the tie, got a lot of, you know, women watching me do that or shave.
I had one gal say, I just love the dad time that I’m getting just watching you shave. She said, I missed that from when my dad you know, my dad has passed, so I ha I’ll put your YouTube video on and just watch that.
Julie Lyles Carr: And yeah, that, that makes me think, Rob, that we sometimes discount the little daily moments with our kids and the importance of that I can get really focused on throwing the huge Christmas or planning the trip that supposed to be the thing that is embedded in somebody’s memory.
But it’s interesting when you said that about shaving, I thought, Oh, Yeah. You know, I recall times of just kind of chattering at my dad while he was preparing for the day. And those, those are at least as strong a memories, if not, maybe more so than some of the things that maybe my parents put more effort into to make a whole production.
So those places where we just interact with our kids in our day to day, have a lot more power than we can think. Do. Do you seem to find that with what you’re finding on, on this living demographic you’re developing, watching the YouTube channel?
Rob Kenney: Absolutely. One thing that we always tried to do with our kids was create certain things.
Like I, I recently showed how to cook biscuits, American biscuits, and apparently in the UK, these are called cookies. And so I’ve got people telling me those are cookies, those aren’t biscuits. And I’m like, wow,
Julie Lyles Carr: It’s part of the American revolution. Yeah.
Rob Kenney: That’s what I’ve always called the biscuit. So like once a month, I’d say dad’s making biscuits it’s biscuit day, you know, and we’d kind of play it up and make it into this big deal
when really it’s a simple pleasure that doesn’t cost a whole lot. And we just kind of created those memories through that. You know, we always went and got the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. Yeah, we went to a farm and cut it down and pulled at home and that was just kind of a memory. And then I think another thing too is, you know, sitting around the table and eating dinner is so important and turning your phone off and being present being there because it’s easy.
I think we’re all distracted. It, you know, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m one, check my phone, but. If you can just set aside a half hour, even just set aside, maybe then it grows into an hour or whatever, where you’re just enjoying each other and getting to be heard. I’m actually one of eight kids. I’m number seven.
Julie Lyles Carr: Oh, you’re number seven. Okay. Well we have eight kids, so yeah,
Rob Kenney: My wife actually is one of eight to
Julie Lyles Carr: Look at that, what are the odds? Okay.
Rob Kenney: Now, one thing that I struggled with, cause our, you know, the dysfunctionality of our family was since I was number seven, we would eat dinner together. But I always felt like I didn’t have a voice.
It just kind of happened because my older siblings were older and what could he possibly bring to the table? I mean, so I struggled with that for the longest time. And you know, you still have birth order type of stuff where when we get back together, I still kind of feel like I’m little Robbie forgot to fall in line here.
So I’ve made it a point with our kids. I want to hear what you have to say. Right. You know, let’s hear what you have to say and try to make sure that everybody kind of had their voice and you got to check in with them and it’s just a great time to make sure you get carved out out, otherwise, man, they’re five, then they’re 10 and they’re 15, then they’re 20, right?
Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah. Then they’re out.
Yeah.
Rob Kenney: It happens so quick.
Julie Lyles Carr: Yeah. And you know, I do think it’s a great reminder. For me, for other parents that sometimes that quietest kid or that kid who may get kind of dampened in their volume because of their birth order, where they fall in line, maybe the kid who, you know, it’s easy to forget because they don’t make a lot of noise about it.
They don’t demand the attention and yet they still need it with my youngest, my number eight, he’s such an easygoing personality and he very much acquiesces even at the dinner table. So one of the things we’ve been doing is he and I are trolling all of the local burger places and we’re going to take a vote on what we think the best burger is.
And again, Rob, I mean, it’s, it’s not something that is really complicated. It’s not really expensive, but it gives he and I, a little bit of a mission and something that’s unique that I haven’t done with the other kids. And just like you were saying, this is not some like grand thing that I came up with all on my own.
It was me all of a sudden realizing. Wow. Have I heard that kid give me like three complete sentences in the last couple of weeks, you know, because he has siblings who have really big personalities and are doing comedy sketches every night and we’re just kind of watching that and forgetting that there’s this other little guy over here he’s not so little anymore, but there’s this other person over here that we need to be intentional about in terms of paying attention.
You know, Rob you’ve tapped into something that I think is really fascinating. My husband wandered into a corner of social media and had a response he did not expect. He got on Tik TOK to just begun, to try to understand what that whole world was like and posted something about what he wished that his twenty-four year old self had known.
And it was just a very simple sixty second we turned around twice and he’s had like close to 200,000 views of this thing and all kinds of, people commenting and asking him questions and on and on and it kind of sent me down a little bit of a rabbit hole, just noticing guys who are not in any way, trying to take over social media or trying to do things that are really slick or who are just saying, here’s who I am as a man at this age, with this experience.
And here’s some things that I want you to know, and I wish I had known. The resonance, Rob, is just astounding to me and, and it makes me ponder and, and for you as well with this unexpected wave that you’ve had coming your way, obviously it speaks to a deep need that is there. How can we make sure that we’re keeping it
valid, you know, I mean, I like the transparency and the honesty of it right now. And then I could see that it could get really easy to make things kind of slick and all that. And it’s, it’s not wrong to seize an opportunity, but how do we make sure we stay in an authentic voice when we stumble upon an audience, whether it’s by social media or another means, and people are telling us, wow, I really resonate with what you’re saying, making sure that we’re staying true to that first moment that really introduced us
to this particular group of people.
Rob Kenney: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a, that’s a tough question that I’ve been trying to navigate because I’m still working full time because we’re close to retirement and I don’t want to pull up short, but at the same time, if this could be something that we could make a living at, but to your point, I don’t want to be a walking billboard.
I don’t want, you know, I get people reaching out to me all the time, wanting to sponsor my videos and it’s like, yeah, I just don’t know how that, what I do with that, how that fits. I, you know, I want to remain authentic. My videos, if you’ve watched them are pretty straight forward. I don’t have a lot of bells and whistles.
It’s, um, I’m shooting them on my phone and I’m editing them with an app on my phone and then uploading them. So there’s not a whole lot of production value. I don’t want to get away from that. I’d like to keep it wholesome where it’s just, Hey, I’m just trying to share some information with you. And early on, I would talk to the camera
like I was talking to my own kids. And I’m trying to keep that going. Where is this really something I would pass along to my own kids if it is. And that’s what I want. This is the kind of advice like I did, how to check your oil instead of how to change your oil, because my area, I can get an oil change for $30.
And by the time you buy all those and return the oil too, I get it recycled. It’s not really worth my time. And so I kind of shared that in the video. And then also banging your knuckles and trying to get that oil filter off. I, you know, I’ve done it all. I’ve struggled with all that. And so it’s like, I’ll just let somebody else do this now.
But I got pushed back because people were like, Oh, well we really want to know how to change my oil , so I ended up doing a video on how to change your oil too, but still said, I probably wouldn’t recommend it at least in my area because you can, you can get it done for 30 bucks.
Julie Lyles Carr: But I love that too, because that is a father’s voice, right?
I mean, well here. Yeah, here’s the skillset, but here’s also the higher reasoning behind is it worth your time? What is the real cost involved? There are lots of things I think in any, anything from just simple tasks and chores that need to be done all the way up to having a different mindset and attitude and on and on that when we’re able to marry it to look
yeah, you can do it this way, but experience teaches that may be, this is more efficient, or this is a better use of your time. Sometimes we need that guidance too, not just the how to, but actually discerning some of the best paths to take. And it’s that discernment piece that. In addition to simply having a skill set, which maybe some of us missed, maybe forgot to give our kids.
Maybe didn’t get in some places that discernment piece is the piece to me that often really becomes more of that parental voice that some of us wish that we had. And I know, particularly as we get older, it sure feels like it’d be nice to be able to take something to somebody and say, what should I do here?
Which way should I do? And rather than just, how do I do it, which is also great, but a big part of how do I is should I, so I think that it’s great that you’re actually bringing that into the fold as well. You know, Rob, what I love in your messaging and having found yourself to be an accidental YouTuber,
what I do love in this is something that I’ve heard a pastor say before, which is see a need, meet a need, see a need, meet a need. A lot of times I’ll have people say to me, I want to understand my calling or my purpose. And, and I love all the esoteric ness of that and as somebody who’s a creator, I am certainly always looking for, Oh, you know, is this a thing that’s just filling me with passion to go chase this or create that, or develop this or whatever.
But man at its essence, I think a lot of times what God really wants from us is for us to just see a need and meet it. I feel like that’s really what you did is that feel, does that kind of have a core to you of that’s what’s going on?
Rob Kenney: Yeah, I would say so. And I have to just share with you because of my bad background of my dad leaving, uh, you know, I determined at a young age that that was a priority for me.
I wanted to make sure that we created memories. I was there for my kids. It was a big deal for my wife and I as well. You know, obviously we’re on the same page working through this and yeah figuring it out. And we did it. We raised good adults. That was the goal not to raise good kids. I say that all the time we raised good adults and they’re there
now, my son’s in Virginia, very successful. My daughter has her own business. She’s here in the area. So now what? We went to Rome in 2019 and you go there and this place was amazing. It was the center of the world really, I mean, they were the ultimate power. And now all that’s left is ruins, you know, it’s that went to the Coliseum and then you see the forum and it’s all just crumbling, you know?
Um, and so. Kind of really stuck out in my head is what now, Lord, what would you have me to do now? I still got some life to live. My kids are grown and we’re heading into retirement. Then what? Do I just kinda go off and, you know, travel a little bit. And then I die? So I think that’s part of it is like, ah, this is an idea that could kind of leave a legacy.
Didn’t know it would be, you know, again on this such a grand scale, but I thought, you know, if I can help one or two people then that’s powerful, right? I mean, it’s that story about the starfish thrown back into the ocean? Well, that one cares that I threw it back and I share that too about dad’s hanging in there and think long-term, that was one of the things I talked about with integrity.
Men tend to run after shiny objects is how I put it, because then you can fill in the blank of what that might mean, but hang in there because there’s a void. If you decide that, Hey, I’ve had it, I’m done what you leave a ripple effect when you make that decision so please think long and hard about that.
And you know, I, can’t not judging anybody just saying, please don’t take that lightly because there’s a lot of ramifications that come out of your decision to do what you’re going to do, what you’re going to run after that you think might please you or, or that sort of thing. And so it goes back to the starfish thing too.
If I can help one, one, dad, Right to the hanging there that is thinking about baling that’s worth it.
Julie Lyles Carr: Right. Right. You know, I think too, that we’re in an interesting season for families because we are trying to chase so many things and do so many things well, and it is interesting to me because as more and more women are working, working from home, entering the workforce, you know, we’ve been wrestling this for
you know, two, three, four decades now just how to try to balance all of that. It’s interesting because my grandmothers both worked and, and had their kids and it was all, you know, they juggled all of it and did all the things they’re entered in a season where we saw for a period of time, more women, be home and be home with their, with their children and a lot of care
and keeping went on to those moms as a lot of dads were the ones who were trying to provide financially. Then we reentered a new season where we do have mom and dad, a lot of times working a lot and trying to balance all of it. But what I’m seeing is over the last few years is this burgeoning sense
again, that dads have got to be engaged and it seems like we went through a period of time generationally where dads a little bit, got a hall pass because they were the primary income earner and now we tend to have a lot of moms who were saying that’s not acceptable anymore to excuse yourself from, from what’s going on here.
How do you think we’re going to be able to re-engage guys? I think there are guys who are very engaged. Like they, they really wanted to do things a little differently. They wanted to be extremely involved with their babies and their toddlers, and they learned alongside with their wives, how to be great parents.
But I do see kind of this retro attitudinal shift sometimes where it’s a little bit more, Hey, she’s the one who wanted babies. I got a career to chase. How do we begin to make some of those shifts for guys to help them understand that? Yeah, you can build the career thing and that’s great, but family life is also something that’s being built at the same time.
Rob Kenney: Yeah. Yeah, it’s tough. It’s, it’s a balance for sure. And I get it cause it’s like, well, I’m trying to provide, you know, I’m running after this and I got to do that and you definitely gotta really constantly be thinking about your priorities and I certainly wasn’t always perfect because I didn’t have a great example.
And so I was doing the best I could and, you know, asking for forgiveness of my kids was a pretty common thing, you know, just, Hey, I didn’t handle that. I snapped at you today and I shouldn’t have done that. And then when we would pray at night. That was always something we did too, is to pray at night. And then it allowed me the opportunity to confess to my father that, Hey, you know, uh, I’m sorry that I didn’t handle that
and my kids would be able to hear that, that I’m accountable to you for what I’m doing. I’m hoping. Yeah. Again, if I can just help one, you know, let’s make being a dad a cool thing that, Hey, this is pretty cool. It’s a cool opportunity that you get. Don’t let that pass. by. Make the effort to make that a priority because boy, it’s gone so quickly.
The window is like, Oh my goodness, what? Oh, you’re gone. But wait, I had all, these ideas that I had for us. Well, that’s why you gotta be intentional and you gotta stay on top of it and you’ve got to constantly be checking in with him as you know, with eight kids, each one’s at a different stage. You know, you can’t treat five-year-old like your 10 year old or what have you.
You’re having to constantly reevaluate and figure out, okay, now, where are you at now? Or giving them responsibility as they grow up? How we always did it. I try to keep things simple so that, you know, I don’t muddy the waters too much, but give them a responsibility and it then there’s consequences. If you don’t handle that responsibility.
Well, then I’ve got to kind of reign it back in and then we go along a little bit more and you know, here’s a little more responsibility and how you handle this will determine whether you get more responsibility. Right? And so there’s certain things that are a privilege. They’re not a right. That was always big in our house.
We would always say that, you know, this is a privilege. This isn’t a right. You don’t just by being a human, you just don’t automatically get a phone. You abused the phone. I take the phone back.
Julie Lyles Carr: I think those things, and to not be shy in that lane, you know, to know that it is important for kids to have those boundaries. And yes, we probably oversold on consequences and discipline too hard and some generations past and the if some of us experienced that we may oversell the other direction too far and try to make everything too much sparkles and sunshine.
And so to have that place where we are imbalanced, I think is such great wisdom. Well, Rob Kenney what a delight to talk to you. The book is Dad, How Do I? Thank you so much for your time today and all of the great things you’re doing just a simple step at a time and just seeing a need and meeting a need.
Really appreciate it.
Rob Kenney: Thank you so much, Julie. I really appreciate it.
Julie Lyles Carr: You’ll find more from this episode on the show notes, be sure and check them out at allmomdoes.com and wanted to ask you a big favor, be sure and go to wherever you are listening to this podcast and give us a five-star rating and review.
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