Pop’s Culture

A few of us were sitting around talking, really talking, the kind of conversation that doesn’t happen unless everyone in the room decides to stop performing. We got into our dads. Mine, adopted and biological. What Pops Culture actually is, and how it came to be. And somewhere in there, we ended up in the Book of Job.

By the end of the night I understood something about myself I’d been circling for years without landing on it.

Pop is a play on father figure. That’s the whole name. Pops Culture exists to help build a culture where dads, all of us, whatever version of “dad” we grew up with, figure out how to show up for our kids and for ourselves. It’s about the shit dads do, and it’s about the mental health nobody taught us to take care of while we were busy trying to provide.

I grew up with a dad who was there. He worked his ass off and he showed up, every day, without fail. That’s not nothing. That’s actually rare, and I don’t take it for granted. But here’s the harsh truth I’ve had to sit with: a white father can’t fully prepare a Black son for the world he’s going to walk into. And on top of that, the world I’ve had to face isn’t the world any father of mine ever faced either. So even with him there, there were pieces I had to figure out on my own, or find somewhere else.

I found them everywhere. So many of my friends’ parents opened their doors to me, fed me, gave me a safe place to land, gave me guidance I didn’t even know I was hungry for. I had a village stitching together the parts of “dad” I needed. I didn’t know how much that mattered until much later.

Then at 20, I became a dad myself. And I want to tell you the truth about that, not the version that makes me look good.

By 25 I had three kids with three different women. My daughters got the short end of the stick: they never lived under my roof for longer than a weekend at a time. When things were at their worst, my middle daughter didn’t see me for years. My oldest and I lost the closeness we used to have. My son was there for all of it, every stretch, good and bad. My kids didn’t get the same version of me, and that’s on me to own, not explain away.

Later, when I was at my sickest, I used to ask myself which was worse for them, watching me lying there day after day, catching it in small glimpses, or not seeing it at all. I still don’t have a clean answer. What I do know is that I felt like I was failing as a dad, because a lot of the time, I was. Not always my fault. But always my responsibility. There’s a difference, and I’ve had to learn to hold both at once instead of hiding behind the first one.

Here’s what’s true, though: I never stopped trying. I was doing what I thought was right in the moment I was living it, and where I got it wrong, I own that fully. I tell my kids I’m sorry, and I mean it every time, not as a script.

So when the idea for Pops Culture came to me (and I do believe it came to me, as close to a vision as I’ve ever had), I fought it. Hard. Who was I to stand up as a mentor, a role model for what a father figure looks like, when I’d failed my own kids in ways I could list off the top of my head? It never sat right, being the face of something called Pops Culture when I knew exactly how far short I’d fallen with the three people who mattered most.

But last night, telling that story out loud to people who weren’t going to let me off easy or pile on either, something shifted. My failures aren’t a disqualifier. They’re the qualification. Job didn’t get to his purpose by avoiding the fire, he got there by going through it and refusing to curse the ground he stood on. Every figure worth learning from in scripture got wrecked before they got used. I don’t think I become the man capable of building this without every single one of my failures behind me. Call that justifying my mess if you want. I call it the only honest read of my own life.

I’m in a good place with all three of my kids now. Different places, all three of them, but all trending in the right direction. And Pops has made an impact in this community that I can feel, not just hope for. God willing, that keeps growing.

Here’s what I believe, plainly: we all have a purpose for being here. But you don’t get handed the blueprint. You get it by being willing to endure the hard parts and take responsibility for them, not run, not blame, not explain it away, but face it head-on, like a buffalo walking straight into the storm instead of running from it. When there’s nothing to hold onto and the path in front of you is blurry, you keep taking steps. Small ones if that’s all you’ve got. You trust that something bigger than you (God, the Universe, whatever name fits the shape of your faith) is walking you toward where you’re supposed to be, and your job is to pay attention to the signs instead of letting the noise of this world pull you off course.

So right now I’m sitting with last night, trying to figure out how to get more people into Pops Culture and honestly still figuring out exactly what Pops Culture is going to become. And I’m excited about not knowing. I trust God is in me, and I know I’ll keep making mistakes. But I will never stop trying to be stronger than I was yesterday. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

That’s what being a dad actually is. Not getting it right. Constantly improving. Not for our own sake. For the people we love.

trying.