THERE ARE DADS WAY WORSE THAN YOU

Review

SECTION ONE Every father has stood in the rubble of a bad parenting moment — the snapped reply, the missed school play, the phone scrolled through at dinner — and wondered whether he is simply inadequate. Glenn Boozan's *There Are Dads Way Worse Than You* answers that specific fear with zoology, history, and deadpan comedy. Drawing on examples from the animal kingdom and the wider human record, Boozan assembles a catalog of fathering behaviors so spectacularly bad that the reader's own shortcomings start to look, at minimum, survivable. The book is pitched at fathers who take their failures too seriously in the wrong direction — not those who need a push toward greater effort, but those whose self-reproach has curdled into paralysis. It is a quick read, designed to puncture shame rather than build skill, and it works best as a pressure-release valve: the man who has been too hard on himself opens the book and, at least for a moment, breathes. SECTION TWO - **Created**: The book rests on an unspoken but genuine anthropological claim — that ordinary paternal presence has real worth. By making extreme failure its reference point, it implicitly affirms that showing up, staying engaged, and caring about the outcome already reflects something of the image of the good father inscribed in human nature. This is not nothing; for men who have internalized a crushing standard of perfection, the affirmation that basic fidelity counts is a form of recognizing original dignity. - **Fallen**: The book addresses shame as the presenting wound. Shame, in Thomistic terms, is a passion that can either motivate conversion or collapse into despair; Boozan's humor targets the second outcome. The problem is that the book does not distinguish between shame that should be dissolved (scrupulous self-punishment over minor failures) and shame that should be redirected into genuine amendment. A man whose fathering is actually disordered may use the same laughs to avoid the harder confrontation. - **Redeemed**: The gesture toward healing is real but thin. The reader is invited to accept himself as imperfect and remain in relationship with his children — which is genuinely better than withdrawing in self-disgust. What the book cannot supply is the deeper reorientation: the movement from tolerating one's failures to actually wanting to love more completely. Grace, habit, and a community of accountability are outside its scope. - **Domestic prudence**: The book's implicit counsel is that good-enough fathering is worth sustaining. In the language of virtue, this maps onto the lowest threshold of domestic prudence — the wise management of family life begins with not abandoning the field. For a man on the edge of disengagement, that threshold matters. SECTION THREE The 'Father Forgets' meditation preserved by Carnegie[^1] shows what this book's humor deflects: the father who has been cross with his son all day, reviewing each small cruelty at the child's bedside, arrives at genuine contrition through memory and moral attention — not through the reassurance that sea horses are worse parents. Where Hayes[^2] argues that reorientation toward one's true direction happens in a single pivot of awareness, Boozan's book stalls at the moment before that pivot, offering relief from shame without the values-clarification that would give a father something to turn toward. Both are useful; neither alone is sufficient. ## References 1. Carnegie, Dale (curated reading). *How to Win Friends and Influence People*. 'Father Forgets' chapter. — 'I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school.' 2. Hayes, Steven (DMU video lecture). *ACT and RFT videos*. — 'if you meant to head this way and they hit something... what does it take for you to flip.'

✓ Strengths

• ✓The book's premise implicitly affirms the dignity of ordinary fatherhood: by cataloguing the far worse parenting behaviors found across the animal kingdom and human history, it reminds fathers that presence and basic attentiveness already constitute a meaningful moral achievement.
• ✓The humor-based approach to shame reduction addresses a real pastoral problem. Fathers disproportionately suffer in silence rather than seek support; a book that lowers the emotional stakes enough to open a man to self-reflection has genuine formative value.
• ✓By normalizing imperfection without excusing it, the book gestures toward the Redeemed state: the father who laughs at his own failures is more likely to remain in the game than one paralyzed by perfectionism.
• ✓The domestic setting keeps the focus on concrete household relationships, which connects naturally to the virtue of domestic prudence — wise stewardship of family life rather than abstract parenting theory.

⚠ Considerations

• ⚠⚠️ Content warning: based on the companion volume 'There Are Moms Way Worse Than You' (same series, Workman), this format relies heavily on crass humor, crude comparisons, and irreverent imagery that a Catholic parish library or counseling waiting room would likely find inappropriate. Readers sensitive to vulgar content should preview before recommending.
• ⚠The book's therapeutic mechanism is almost entirely negative comparison ('you are better than X'), which risks cementing a minimalist standard of fatherhood rather than drawing men toward the positive ideal of self-giving love.
• ⚠There is no account of interior formation: the book can relieve shame without addressing its roots in disordered self-regard or wounded attachment, leaving the deeper work undone.