Seasons of Fatherhood: Milestones, Emotions & Evolving Conversations

In this heartfelt solo episode of the Just My Baby Daddy Podcast, AJ Adams reflects on the emotional transitions that come with parenting. As his daughter graduates elementary school and his son turns 10, AJ shares the joy, pride, and challenges that come with watching his children grow.

He opens up about the lessons learned through fatherhood, the bittersweet moments of change, and how these milestones are reshaping his perspective as a parent. AJ also teases a new direction for the podcast—expanding the conversation to highlight diverse fatherhood experiences and deepen the dialogue around parenting dynamics.

🎧 Tune in for a real, raw, and relatable take on fatherhood.

#JustMyBabyDaddyPodcast #FatherhoodJourney #ParentingMilestones #BlackFatherhood #EvolvingParenthood #GirlDad #BoyDad #EmotionalDadMoments #ParentingWithPurpose #SeasonsofFatherhood

Transcript

AJ Adams (00:10)
Welcome back to another episode of Just My Baby Daddy podcast. It's your favorite baby daddy, AJ. And today we got a very, very, very, very special guest, myself. It's just me. I'm gonna do this alone. I'm doing a solo podcast, cause it's been a lot going on and I figured, you know, I catch everybody up on what's going on a little bit. So, um, recently, I don't know if you've been following the page, but there's been a graduation that occurred and it's been my daughter.

My daughter just graduated elementary school and it was, I can't say it was a very emotional event. I think it would have been if my youngest daughter wasn't there running around the entire time, like tearing up the place, became the star of the entire graduation. But outside of that, really, I'm still having adjusted on how to feel.

about my daughter moving on to this next transition. And the reason why I really don't know how to feel is because when I talked to her about it, she told me that she was nervous.

AJ Adams (01:09)
That's really strange and odd for me because my daughter's usually confident, jovial about everything, just happy, excited. And when she told me that I don't know, I don't know how I was going to be, it kind of pushed me, set me back a little bit because I was thinking the exact same thing. I don't think it's the...

best way, but it's true, right? It's not the best way to describe my daughter, but her mother describes the best when she's like, you know, she's like Dora from Finding Nemo. Like she's just all rainbows and sunshine all the time everywhere. And I know when she gets to middle school, it's gonna be a harsh reality that like, not everyone's going to like you. Not everyone's gonna be your friend. Not everyone's gonna want to hear about your day. Not everyone's gonna want you in their conversation.

Like these are the type of things that my daughter gets away with that she does that it's gonna have to come to an end real fast starting in middle school. And then, know, it's other part. It's like, you know, the puberty, the boys and like that, and you know, I know my son isn't even nowhere near the toughest, right? It ain't like when somebody is trying to talk to his sister.

he was gonna jump out there and do something about it. But him not even being in the same school, he definitely not gonna do nothing about it. So it's like, man, I remember the picture of me like looking at the little boys at the bus stop when I first had her at kindergarten. Like, you know, I I ain't gonna lie, I would kick one of these little damn kids. try to touch my baby, right? But you know, those times have changed. My daughter has grown up and it's...

is different and I remember some little boy looking at her, always trying to make sure she was getting on a bus, Claire, whatever, some little safety patrol and I was saying, don't want, don't involve yourself with a little snitch. You know I mean? Like, it's, my baby's on her way to middle school and it's that type of growth that I'm not sure that I'm ready for. And when she said she wasn't ready for it, to be honest, it kind of, it threw me for a loop to really let me know like,

Even if I'm not ready for it, I gotta get ready. I don't have a choice, right? It ain't like, I'm gonna be like, well, stay in elementary school a little bit longer. Like, no, can't do that. It's time for her to move on. She rolls up. This is a part of life. Shit, I gotta deal with. I gotta accept it.

But also during this time, outside of my daughter, my son had a birthday recently and he turned 10. And the significance of that is a lot, right? Because I always told my, well, I didn't always tell my kids, but I told my daughters when she turned nine years old that, know, next year is your last birthday party. Like I'm not doing this anymore.

Once you turn 10, you know, that's some of the significance, right? Like that's like a milestone. Well, you get one at 10, you get one at 13, you get one at 16, you get one at 18. And at 21, you probably don't really want to deal with me, but I'll be around if you want to do something then. I'm not just paying for you to go somewhere on your 21st birthday. I'm going be included some way somehow. If not, it ain't happening, right? But, so I told my son the same thing.

So now he knows that was his last. And I was all excited and happy. then like, you know, it's really not a break for me because I still got to do one in August and I got to do her. She's nowhere near 10, nowhere near 10. And by the time she turns 10, I might be soft and say, you know what, at 11, let's do it some more because who knows how long I'm going be here. Daddy's getting old and you know, all those kinds of thoughts start going through my head. I'll be 50, in my 50s. Damn it, I'm going be...

Jesus, gonna, saying it out loud really, really, really hits me hard. Like my daughter's gonna be in elementary school still and I'm be, had my 50th birthday. man. a, but it takes me back to like 10 years ago. I remember how excited I was that I was having a son, right? Having my daughter, I used to always say, I don't know if I ever said this.

on this podcast before, but I always knew that my first child will be a girl. I always knew, I used to joke about it, right? I'd say, yeah, yeah, I'm definitely gonna have a daughter. Just the way my life has been and the way my life has gone, a daughter's definitely gonna be the first for me. And I just pray she's nothing like me. I just don't want a daughter to come out like me. And...

You know, I have a daughter and she makes facial expressions like me. She ain't necessarily all like me, but I knew I was gonna have a daughter first. And I had no idea that three months after my daughter was born, I would find out that another baby was on the way. And that caused like nervousness for me, tears from the mom. Like it was, it was a...

an emotional time, right? And I remember when I first had my daughter, we went to have the whole little, whatever you call that thing, ultrasound. I wanted a boy, but I kind of knew I was gonna have a girl. And I remember being so upset when the lady, when she came out there and she was like, well, I hate to tell you this, but you're having a girl. And I was ready to smack that muffle, my little nurse, because I'm like, yo, just say I'm having a healthy child.

That's good. I'm having a daughter. I'm happy. But man, when we said, we went to the doctor and we had that ultrasound and that thing said, it's a boy. I swear the people in the hallway could hear me how I yelled. I wore my Kappa shirt when I was there. I was all excited. was like, you know, I'm doing the right things in life right now. I'm destined to have a son. And it happened. And it happened. it was, you know, he's been like, he's been...

He's been so different than me. And also I feel like so much better than me, right? Like I remember I, when I was young in elementary school, I got good grades. Once I got to middle school, I never seen any, I mean, I probably seen maybe 10 A's total from the time I reached eighth grade to the time I graduated high school. And I'm talking about every quarter. Like, I don't get nothing. But he has never seen a B.

since he's been in school. My son is, when he was playing sports, my son had skills that I did not have. He didn't have that leprosy I had. He didn't have the aggression I had. But like, just skill-wise, the boy has everything. He is an example of like pure joy as a kid, right? I look at him and I think about certain things like, man, you soft. He's a soft-ass little kid, but.

To be honest, he's just a little kid, right? He's the epitome of a happy child. And that's all I can wish for. That's all I can hope for. that's something that I wish, I don't want to say I wish that I had, because I was a happy child, but I also was like a mean fucking child. Like, you know, I was fighting and all this other type of stuff. Like I was a mean ass child. He's not like that. Like he's a sweet little boy. I mean, it's...

Sounds so weird for me to say that I have a sweet little boy as a son, but I got a sweet little boy as a son. Like he's respectful. He's, he's, he's everything. And, you know, I would definitely say that the time I've had with these children have, have really completely changed my life. I've been a completely different person dealing with these kids than I was prior to. know, hell, I've changed a lot more since little Ari's been around, you know, my

I feel like I'm getting back into my bully stage because she's bringing it back out of me because she's bullying everything around. know, it's just, it's just been an absolute blessing. Like looking back at it, this, I always wanted to be a father, but I never knew how fulfilling it would be, how, how much it will push me to strive to do so much more in my life. I know.

There are lot of times I sit back and be like, man, if I didn't have kids right now, if I did not have kids, my budget and everything would look completely different. But if I didn't have kids, might not have the drive. Actually, I know I wouldn't have the drive to feel like somebody's watching me or I need to do this. I need to be successful because I know I got a family relying on me. And they are the inspiration behind this. There's no podcast. I'm not a father.

I can be a baby daddy with any damn kids, but I'm not a father without these two. You know, they got me to be a father. I'm not a father without my third. it's, but you know, this is, this is where everything started. And so I just want to say they mean everything. And if you, if you listen to this podcast and you just wondering like the tough times you go through, cause I've been through it.

over these past 10 years, I'm talking about through, I'm going through it now. I might not show it. I might not talk about it. Maybe one day I open up a little bit more in the podcast about everything. I'm open, but I can't open about everything because I don't know exactly who's listening. And you know, I don't want no cease and desist letters coming around. You know what I mean? No time soon. But this is, these years with these children have been life-changing and it's...

When you got these hard times, when you think about, I don't know if it's worth it, I don't know how I make it. Just think about when they're babies. Think about the little times they smiled and you hugged them. Think about how they're growing up. I think about my son now and like how, man, I sit up there, I can play Madden with my son till two o'clock in the morning. Like, I used to do that with my friends. Now I can do it with my best friend who's my son. Like that is so amazing, so dope.

And like I said, there's no podcast about my children. Speaking of the podcast, it's going to be a little transition in the podcast, right? I started this podcast and I was hell bent on making sure it's a conversation with dads. And I've started to talk to more people and I started to decide I'm going open up to do more than just having a conversation with dads, to having the conversations.

about dads, you know? I wanna open this conversation up to different experiences that people have had with their fathers. You I have a lot of friends. I have a lot of people that, not even my friends, that come in and write me to talk to me about their experiences they've had with their dads. And they just wanna talk about that. Like, you know, I have people that have horrible relationships with their fathers, that have no kids at all. And they, I want them to actually come up here and talk about it.

their reason decided to have not to have kids, a lot of it stems from their relationship with their father. So it's a lot of different dynamics that come with this whole fatherhood thing. we always feel like we're doing the right thing, but how we parent, cool. I can talk to everybody, you parent one way, I parent another way. We had that conversation, but we really get into the conversation of how other people were parented as well.

I can hear about, we can always talk about how to parent our daughter as well. Maybe I get a woman over here to actually talk about, well, how her dad parented them and what was good and what was bad. Because we can say we want to what we think was good, what we think was bad, but let's talk to, let's open the door up to a little bit more people. So I'm gonna try that out. We're gonna see what's happening. When I first do, my first have a guest that's not a dad, trust me, it's gonna be something. It's definitely gonna be something.

So again, I just want to say for everybody that's been listening, just give them a little quick life update, little podcast update and telling you, I'm so glad my daughter was acting a fool at the graduation, because I ain't going to lie. I thought I was going to end up crying in there. But I couldn't cry when I have a baby just yelling, Dada and Aubrey the whole time. So she saved me. She saved me from making a fool of myself. So I'll see y'all next week.