Spotlight on Dads is a weekly series from Discovering Dad that features involved fathers from around the world. The objective of the series is to inspire fathers to connect and learn from one another, while also deconstructing the stereotype of fathers as ’second’ parents.

This week’s spotlight shines on Chris Lopez of Fit and Busy Dad.  Chris is a father of four and fitness expert, and I’ve been excited to get to know him better over the past several months.  He is the author of the new Fitness for Dads series here on Discovering Dad, and I wanted to give readers a chance to get to know Chris a little better.

Tell a little about yourself. My name is Chris Lopez (a.k.a. The FitAndBusyDad). I’m happily married to Rozanne (yes, you spell that with a “Z”), my wife of 8 years. I’m dad to 4 beautiful daughters with very feminine names and boyish nicknames – Angelica “A.J.” (10), Josefina “Joey” (5), Francesca “Frankie” (3) and Mikaela “Mikey” (1). Nicknaming the first two was a fluke. Once a pattern was established, we said we might as well continue with the “boy” names!

I’m a FAMILY MAN before anything else, but I also run a fitness and personal training business “on the side” in Toronto, Canada.

What about your family background? I married my high school sweetheart two years after she and I had our first daughter. I was 23. She was 22. We were together for 5 years prior to that. Truthfully, things could have ended up disastrous. But, they didn’t and we’re both thankful for that. We’re thankful that, even from a young age, we were both “outside the box” and “big picture” thinkers.

Despite many objections, we both followed our passion when it came to choosing a career (for me it was the fitness industry, and my wife is a designer). That was a big deal to our families because we’re both 1st generation Canadians, so the pressure was on to finish school, succeed in a proven field (medicine, law, finance, etc) and find a job that was “secure” and made a lot of money.

Now, both being relatively successful, we try to teach our girls the importance of doing something you love and are passionate about. To set goals and aim high, but to never compromise your values and who you are as a person. I guess we figure that if it’s worked for us, it’ll probably work for them too.

What do you like most about being a dad? Nothing beats that feeling you get when you come home from work and there are 4 beautiful faces running/crawling to the door to say “Hi, Daddy!” I truly live for that moment.

A close second would be Saturday mornings after breakfast when we pack up the mini-van and head to the local farmer’s market to do our grocery shopping. Sometimes it’s the 6 of us, sometimes we let mommy sleep in, so it’s just the 4 young ladies and me. Either way, a day doesn’t go by when someone comes up to me/us and says, “Man, you have 4 girls! You must be the luckiest guy around.” It’s funny though because the women that approach us seem sincere when they say that, but the men are totally sarcastic. It’s always the same comment, just a difference in tone. (And I know exactly what the guys mean when they say I’m “lucky.” They’re really just saying, “Man, I’d hate to be in your shoes when those pretty girls of yours are all teenagers.”)

What do you find most challenging about being a dad? The most challenging thing about being a dad is finding enough one-on-one time with each one of my kids (and my wife, for that matter). In my experience, you have to make that time to reconnect with each one of your kids. That said, I try to schedule some time with each one of them for us to talk, or play or just be together. It’s pretty tough, so sometimes you just have to look for the opportunity in the most odd of situations.

For example, this past Saturday we went on a family nature walk at a local park. We found a nice open patch of grass so AJ suggested that we play catch. We took our baseball gloves out and started tossing the ball around. One missed “pop up” later and AJ is on the ground cupping her hand under her nose as the blood is gushing out. I BROKE HER NOSE.

Visibly shaken (and I’m talking about me not her), we rush off to the emergency room. Because it’s not a life or death situation, we’re there for 3 hours. So to pass the time (and by this time the bleeding has stopped), we play 10 rounds of “hang man” and talk about where we want to spend our next family vacation.

I, obviously, feel terrible about the whole thing, but I’m thankful to have been able to spend that precious time with my 10-year-old. It won’t be long until even being around her dad is the last thing she wants to do.

What’s your most memorable experience(s) so far as a dad? The story above about me breaking my daughter’s nose is right up there.

But the most memorable would have to be when my 4th daughter Mikey was born. Being the father of then only 3 girls, I was convinced the 4th was a boy. My wife and I had decided that this was our last one – boy or girl – so we wanted to make it a surprise.

Believe me, I did everything in my power to convince myself she was boy before she was born. I sorted through all our little girly clothes and packed them in a box taking out the lonely few pieces with a little masculinity in them – a pair of overalls and an old Chicago Bulls #23 “onesy” that I bought before AJ was born. I went shopping and bought her a pair of Baby Air Jordans, a blue UNC Tar Heels skullcap and a navy blue t-shirt that said “Who’s Your Daddy?” on the front.

So on July 30th, when she popped out, I was floored. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unhappy. I was just stunned that I was now “That Guy.” You know, the guy with 4 daughters. There aren’t many of us out there and as of this moment, I seem to be the only one I know.

But all things aside, it’s amazing and I wouldn’t change the way things are even for a second.

Did I mention that my wife and I are talking about a 5th?

In general, how do you think dads are perceived? Why? I think you’ll get 2 types of dads…Guys with kids, and “Dads.”

I’m a DAD before anything else.

We get a bad rap sometimes and are really still considered secondary caregivers. I think there are still a lot of “traditional” thinkers out there who think that dads should be leaving at 6am and not coming home until 7pm while they “bring home the bacon,” that we have no business child rearing or keeping house.

I’m lucky in that I’ve managed to structure my business around how I want my life to be. I still leave quite early in the morning because that is my most productive time, but I come home at 3pm every day in time to pick-up my kids, make dinner, give them a bath and read them a bedtime story.

I got a lot of flack for that from my clients who were more of the “guys with kids” types. I even had one client suggest that I hire a driver to pick my kids up from school so that I could work an extra 2-3 hours in the afternoon to be his trainer!!!

Overall though, I think times are changing. You’ll see a lot more of us at PTA meetings, cheering on the sidelines of our kids’ soccer games and just being more involved. It’s refreshing to see and somewhat comforting to know that there are others like me out there.

How has the experience as dad helped you discover something new about yourself? Being a dad has helped me discover that when you have more than one child, your heart doesn’t get divided in half to accommodate another, it actually grows. That was my biggest fear in having a second child – not knowing how it’s possible to love another one as much with as much intensity. Here I was a devoted dad with unconditional love for this little girl and I’m thinking to myself, how could this be any more perfect than it is?

Then Joey’s born and you love her unconditionally just as much as her sister, but different because she’s a totally different person. Your heart expands. Then it grows again with Frankie and it’s even bigger now with Mikey. It’s inexplicable, but it happens. It’s a life-changing discovery.

Who do you go to for advice about fatherhood? I’m pretty good, I think at least, at figuring things out on my own. But when I’m stuck, I’ll turn to my dad. It’s a little hard sometimes for him to relate because he’s a real man’s man. He was a blue-collar guy who fathered 2 boys so, when I ask him about some issues that I’m having with my daughters, he stumbles a bit. He doesn’t know it, but I’ll get a lot of advice just by listening to him tell stories about how my brother and I used to get into tons of trouble when we were young and how he handled each situation. I guess that’s an indirect form of advice.

Another great source for me is Cliff Huxtable. I grew up watching The Cosby Show as a kid and now find myself saying things that I know Cliff was saying to Theo or Vanessa back in the ‘80s. We were watching the first season on DVD a few weeks ago and Joey picked something out that Cliff said and then turned to me and said, “So that’s where you got it from!”

Do you hang out with many other dads? If not, why? If so, what do you do together? Not so much. Being 31 with a 10-year-old, for the most part of 10 years, I’ve always been the young dad. I guess it doesn’t help that I look young as well (I still get carded when I buy a bottle of wine and you have to be 19 here in Canada, not 21 like my American friends). So when I would go to her soccer games or the school barbecues, despite how much I would try to strike up conversation, I wouldn’t be paid much attention to. Maybe it was because I looked young; maybe because they didn’t think that I had much in common with them, I’m not sure.

It’s starting to change more now that those in my peer group are starting to have kids. In fact, I have a friend who I meet for coffee during the week in the afternoons who is in the same industry, runs a similar business and has a 1-year-old. We call it a “business” meeting, but truthfully we just end up talking about what our kids are doing or some other “dad” type things.

Still though, a good time for me is either being with my wife and kids, or going out for a couple of hours a week to play some pick-up basketball with my brother. We’ve got 4, so unfortunately there isn’t much time anymore for getting a drink with the boys or for poker night.

Tell a little about your website. I have a blog called The Fit And Busy Dad. It’s a blog dedicated to guys like me who are busy, pressed for time and can’t get to the gym. I tell stories about my on-going saga as father of 4 daughters in addition to offering workout, nutrition and health advice.

I’ve also written an e-Book to help dads lose weight with daily workouts that last no longer than 23-minutes. It’s basically what I do everyday to stay in shape. None of us have a lot of time and with the time that we do have, we want to spend it with our families. At the same time, however, it’s our responsibility to stay in shape and stay healthy so we need an efficient and effective solution. I think I’ve solved that issue with the book.

Anything else you’d like to share? Yes. I wrote about this on my blog and to my subscribers in my newsletter a few months ago, but I think it’s important enough to repeat.

I’ll warn you now, though. I may sound a little preachy.

I get asked a lot these days by friends, who are just starting they’re families, what it takes to be a good dad. So, here’s what I usually say…

I’ve been a parent now for 10 years, but by no means, do I consider myself an “expert” on the subject of parenting. I believe that parenting, like life, is an evolutionary process. Something that changes while you experience the world. What you do with one child, you may not do with the other and still try a different approach with the 3rd. Conversely, if you find something that works well, it’s up to you to recognize that and make sure you repeat it with each child, still remembering that each child is different and that the same approach will not always have the same effect.

Confused? I am.

BUT, there is ONE thing that I know for sure. And if you follow this advice as a parent, you are guaranteed RETURN ON YOUR INVESTMENT.

That ONE thing…

SPEND TIME WITH YOUR KIDS

That’s it. Plain and simple.

They don’t need to be programmed at a different activity 5 nights a week. They don’t need an X-Box. They don’t need to have the latest version of Barbie or American Girl or whatever it is kids are playing with these days. What they need, is time with YOU.

Spend less time working and spend more time playing with your kids. Show them that you’re around. Teach them how to cook. Have them pull weeds with you while you’re out in the garden. Kick the soccer ball around. Read the bedtime stories. Exercise with them. Be present to show them that you live a healthy life and they’ll do the same. Because you can tell them WHAT to do until you’re red in the face. But chances are, if you set the example, and they see it, they’ll follow what you do.

Come back and learn more about another involved Dad next Saturday. Make sure you don’t miss it – Subscribe to get free updates.

Spotlight on Dads is a weekly series published each Saturday on Discovering Dad. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section. Your feedback and recommendations will help to shape this series. Thanks!

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