【2003 Archives】

It sucks when dads003 Archivespraised as heroes for doing the stuff mums do every day.

So instead of saying "look at this incredible dad, actually lovinghis kids like some kind of saint," we'll simply suggest that the actions of Indiana man Keenan Watkins be the new norm.

When Watkin's 10-year-old daughter, Aayla, asked her dad to carry around her precious (and anatomically accurate, therefore fugly) '80s baby doll all day, he obliged. Only later realizing the gravity of what he'd promised. But it was too late to back out. He's a dad who keeps his promises, without compromise.

As he told the Facebook page Love What Matters, he drove around the inanimate newborn "Davey" in a proper baby seat, then strapped it into a shopping cart while at the store.

"Nothing to see here, just a 250 pound, six foot two, tattooed man wearing a shirt that says 'Punisher' who has what is clearly a doll strapped into his cart," as he put it. Luckily, the woman working at Goodwill who served him was chill about it, letting him try the little baby clothes on the doll (which incidentally, his wife picked up from a yard sale for $1).

And what do you know, the woman from Goodwill, Sadie Jessica Marie Collins, also hit up the story-sharing Facebook group, writing "I just think amazing parenting like this deserves recognition. This man sucked up all of his pride and went out of his way to clothing shop for a baby doll just to make his little girl happy and if that's not love I don't know what is."

Naturally, comments on Watkins' post were very supportive of the "Daddy poos," with one commenter writing, "Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a daddy poo!"

But the last word goes to Watkins himself, who seems hyper-aware of the tendency to over-inflate the good deeds of parentage that should be the norm, rather than the exception.

"I'm just a Daddy that wants his kids to truly understand that I love them," he said. "I want them to be happy, and would gladly take on a potentially embarrassing situation, in order to keep my promise to them. Father of the year? Hardly. Father? You bet."

Pretty cute.