When Ben Killoy finished a four-year stint in the U.S. Marines, he began his hardest gig yet: Figuring out where he belonged.
He enrolled in college, landed a job, started a family, bought a house. The American Dream, right?
“I remember feeling like, ‘There’s got to be more to this,’” Killoy said. “A lot of dads are taught they should make a living, but not necessarily excel at living.”
He worried that he couldn’t model purpose and meaning to his kids when he was having trouble finding it for himself. He worried that other dads, especially military dads, were experiencing the same struggles, likely in silence. He started talking to other dads at the playground, at birthday parties, wherever he could grab a few minutes. A lot of them could relate to what he was feeling.
“A lot of dads are taught they should make a living, but not necessarily excel at living.”
He started a blog and a podcast called Military Veteran Dad, with the mission of helping other veterans find connection with their families and build a legacy around love.
“Coming home is a ceremony in the military. It’s an event,” said Killoy. “But we come home physically, and we don’t come home emotionally.”
He and his podcast guests discuss moral injury, PTSD, sleep, marriage, forgiveness, Disney, finances—a full range of dad experiences. After a couple years of conversations, he started to wonder if non-military dads would benefit from a similar dialogue.
“The more I talked to other dads I realized so many dads suck at coming home,” he said. “We don’t celebrate coming home. It doesn’t have any intention around it.”
In 2021, he started a second podcast called, “The Business of Fatherhood” to help dads get excited and intentional about what happens in their non-work hours, the hours dominated by family responsibilities and checklists that don’t have promotions or bonuses attached. He records five days a week.
“The titles we wear as parents are way more important than any title we wear at work,” said Killoy, who has three children, ages 9, 7 and 5. “My mission has been to help dads understand that.”
That goes against so much of what the culture — and their workplaces — tell dads, Killoy said. He advocates for paid parental leave, arguing that time is one of the most precious and scarce commodities for dads.
“When a business can signal, ‘We recognize what you do here is important, but we realize what you do at home is 10 times more important,’ and their policies and beliefs and leadership structure support that? That’s at the heart of what we need.”
He hopes to see more employers enact family-friendly policies, as companies work to rebuild and reset from a pandemic. He hopes dads feel more empowered, after the last two years of trauma and uncertainty, to build work around their family, rather than family around their work.
Meanwhile, he’ll be talking — and listening — about all of it, creating a safe and sacred space for dads in search of one.