Ep 26: One Dad's Honest Take on Anger, Divorce, and Showing Up

What happens when a dad of three daughters confronts the anger he inherited? Tony sits down with his brother Evan Cooper, father to Rachel, Pia, and Evie, for one of the most personal conversations yet. Evan opens up about the girl-dad learning curve, the moment he realized he was passing his own childhood wounds to his kids, and the practice he calls equanimity. They get real about staying married versus co-parenting, and how cooking and entrepreneurship shaped his daughters.

Key takeaways:

• Why "three under two" reshaped everything about their parenting
• Recognizing and interrupting generational patterns of yelling
• Equanimity: staying composed instead of reacting to chaos
• The honest debate over staying together for the kids
• How cooking became a way to connect with his daughters
• Why watching your child in pain is a dad's hardest moment
• Emotional intelligence as the real preparation for fatherhood

If you enjoyed The Dad Manual, leave us a rating on your podcast app! If you loved it, share this episode with a Dad! Send your questions to [e-mail]. Connect with Tony Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thetonycooper/

00:00 If you can't hear the kids
00:34 Meet my brother Evan Cooper
02:00 Three daughters, three under two
04:30 Liquid gold and dividing the nights
06:30 Man-to-man and the power play
08:00 The girl-dad learning curve
11:00 Doing the research, missing the rest
14:00 Generational anger and yelling
17:30 Equanimity and staying composed
20:30 The moment it broke my heart
23:00 Staying married or co-parenting
28:00 What the girls actually took from it
31:30 Cooking as a way to connect
34:00 Entrepreneurship and a different work life
36:00 The hardest part: watching them hurt
38:00 Advice for a brand-new dad

Creators and Guests

Host

Tony Cooper

Tony Cooper is the founder of Playing the Game of Business, a business coach, father, and podcast host.

What is The Dad Manual?

The Dad Manual is a fatherhood podcast hosted by Tony Cooper, featuring honest conversations with dads about the real, unfiltered journey of parenthood. This parenting podcast for dads explores everything from the excitement of being a first time dad to navigating the teenage years. As one of the best podcasts for expecting dads and experienced fathers alike, we dive deep into what it actually means to be a modern dad—the struggles, the growth, the mistakes, and the moments that change you forever. Whether you're looking for a new dad podcast or seasoned parenting wisdom, this family podcast delivers the honest guidance you won't find in books.

Tony Cooper: Like, if you're sitting in a kitchen for more than 10 minutes and you haven't seen the children and you can't hear them, something's going on.
Evan Cooper: You know, she showed me the stick. I'm like, I don't believe that. They're not always correct. I guess I was definitely in denial. Being able to have positive mental health in a world of just insanity is very important.
Tony Cooper: Hi, I'm Tony Cooper. This is the Dad Manual podcast. And I'm here today with one of my favorite dads. You are Rachel and Pia and Evie's dad. Will you please introduce yourself?
Evan Cooper: Hi, my name is Evan Cooper, and I'm a great dad, and I have lots of wisdom to share.
Tony Cooper: Yeah. And you have the same last name as I do.
Evan Cooper: I do, yes.
Tony Cooper: Yes. I think that's because we're brothers. You're one of my older brothers.
Evan Cooper: Yes, I am. You're the baby brother in the family.
Tony Cooper: So I'm really excited for us to have this conversation because I think we've talked about a shit ton of stuff, and we've talked a lot about being a dad. But one of the things that I've really enjoyed about this podcast so far is I'm talking to people who maybe I've known for a very long time, and I'm learning so many new things about them, and not just about them, but about their fathering journey, and then I get to learn about different ways of being a dad. So tell me about your girls.
Evan Cooper: Rachel, as you said, Rachel Reese is 23 in August, and Pia and Evie are going to be 21 in June, in a couple of weeks. So, yeah, at one point, they were three under two. Rachel graduated from college last year, a year early, and she moved to LA so she could be near our brother Danny, and got a job. So she's awesome. She's in the world. She's doing her thing.
Tony Cooper: I mean, look, and I have such respect for Rachel because Rachel has had this dream of pursuing a career in music, following after our brother's footsteps. But she really came at it and attacked it and found an incredible program and wanted to be in music management and has found a job in a very difficult industry in any year. You must be so proud of her.
Evan Cooper: Yeah. I mean, and this is good advice for dads down the road. Certainly starting in ninth grade, and I wouldn't say Rachel is the best at this, but grades matter, experience, activities matter. Go get involved. Figure out what you want to do. And get involved. And then when she was in college, she had seven internships, intentionally went to school in Nashville so that she could be around jobs all the time. So that's, like, a big deal that she made it happen for herself. So Pia is going to be a senior in college.
Tony Cooper: I want to go back to when you said three under two. Rachel was born, and then, like, 18 months or less later, I can't remember, 20 months, something like that later, you had twins. So Pia and Evie were born. And I remember calling you or talking to you, and you're like, we're having twins. And I had just been through it with Olivia and Leo, born 18 months apart, and that was super, super overwhelming. And when you said, we're having twins, I think that what came out of my mouth was like, oh, that's the worst of all possible scenarios. Having twins is one thing, but having them as your second round, that just felt like that would have been a huge thing.
Evan Cooper: So, yeah, I mean, I would say essentially a blanket was thrown over us, and it was never taken off until a lot later. With Rachel, Meg breastfed her until she was, like, nine months old. And so the funny story about that is she would pump, and then we'd save the milk in the freezer so that we could go out, not give her formula. And that was a big deal for us. And I remember one time we came home and there were, like, six things of the milk just sitting on the counter. And we went to Meg's parents, like, what's going on? They're like, oh, we just couldn't figure out how to get it to work. And so all that was gone. It was just lost.
Tony Cooper: It was like, oh, my God. That was liquid gold.
Evan Cooper: Exactly. Liquid gold. Yeah. So with Pia and Evie, we never really tried to do much of that. It was just every night you got a kid.
Tony Cooper: You guys assigned kids every night.
Evan Cooper: Right. And Meg had the inside game because she knew which one was feeling worse, so she would pick first. And, quite frankly, she was at home with the kids. I was full time working lots and lots.
Tony Cooper: But when you get home, you're still a dad. I can hear your kid, you know? You remember, obviously, my friend Wayne from growing up, he was ahead of me, but he talked about the number of kids, and he said, when you have one kid, you can play zone defense. When you've got two kids, you've got to go man to man. When you've got three kids, you're always on the downside of a power play.
Evan Cooper: Yeah, yeah. No, there's a funny story I thought about. One of your dads was talking about the kid coming out dressed, like, covered in talc. Well, so our deal was, if you're sitting in the kitchen for more than 10 minutes and you haven't seen the children and you can't hear them, something's going on. That happened one day. I walk out into the hall, I look, and there's just these three little girls giggling and covered in dirt, and three house plants just, I don't know, dirt everywhere, all over them. It was insane.
Tony Cooper: Yeah, you know, that was the experience too. God, I remember at the end of each day, it was just like, can they please go to sleep so we can go to sleep? We looked forward to that every day. It was just so much. All the time. All right, so back to Steven Fielding, who lost his shit on his two-year-old son with the talc. How did you react?
Evan Cooper: That's nothing. It's nothing. Like that vacuum cleaner, you know, stick them outside. I don't think we hosed them off, but that would have been a good punishment for that. No, that stuff doesn't set me off. All you can do is just laugh and cry.
Tony Cooper: What did set you off? What were the things that set you off?
Evan Cooper: There's a real energy that happens when they start arguing with each other and yelling at each other and fighting each other. And I, for the longest time, would get sucked into that energy and it just would make me nuts. I couldn't control myself. I'd get like, shut up, stop it. You know, when they start yelling and screaming, I react.
Tony Cooper: What do you think triggers you about that?
Evan Cooper: Like, I know, you like to call it generational trauma, where it's embedded in me. Like, this yelling thing is just not good. And rather than being like, I reject this and I want to get rid of it, early on it just riles me up and gets me into the scene. And so one thing is, just get out of the room, just stay away. Because that energy, you can't fight it. Girl energy like that, when they're especially as they get older, is a lot. It's a lot.
Tony Cooper: Yeah. So that's interesting because you and I and Danny, our parents only had boys, and so we grew up with boys and really had very little exposure to growing up with girls. We had some girl cousins, but they were older, and we didn't really live anywhere near them. And then you go and you've got, you're the only guy in the whole house. So what were all the things you learned about girls?
Evan Cooper: Well, so the funny thing, there's a story when we found out, we went to get the ultrasound. Mom and Meg's mom were at the ultrasound for Pia and Evie, their first ultrasound. And at this point, we just knew Meg was probably pregnant. So the lady goes, oh, I see a vulva. And they're all cheering, so excited. And then they're like, I see another vulva. And then it was like, what?
Tony Cooper: And you're like, two different beings or one being with two vulvas.
Evan Cooper: Yeah. I don't even know what a vulva is.
Tony Cooper: Oh, my God. That's basically how it goes. When we were expecting Rachel, I was super into it. I polled all of my friends. I had a spreadsheet of all the things I needed to know and do, and I was completely ready for everything. And you know those books, the What to Expect books? So I studied those, and there was this section that talked about, if you really want to be close and helpful to your wife, you should massage her perineum. Okay. No idea what that is. I actually asked the OB. There was no Google back then.
Evan Cooper: Yeah. I mean, if I had OpenAI right now, being a new dad would be just a joke. But yeah, everything you had to figure out on your own.
Tony Cooper: There certainly was Google. That's not true. There was Google when they were born. I asked the OB. I was like, can you tell me what that is? And he just looked at me like, just stop. Just stop.
Evan Cooper: There's no sympathy. That's a very tough thing for being a girl dad. And I really believe I'm a girl dad. Coming from being a boy with brothers, and that's it, it is a lot of ignorance. And it continues. I don't really talk to my kids about their, actually Pia used the term intimacy, like being intimate. We just don't talk about it. It's not part of our subject world.
Tony Cooper: That is sort of interesting because I guess I wouldn't know because I didn't grow up as a girl or with a girl. But it seems like talking about being a parent might be something that girls would do. But I don't know that we ever talked about it. So I don't even really know, as you were growing up, what your thoughts about being a dad were. And then just to hear you say that you did a whole bunch of research and prep. One, it doesn't surprise me about you, but two, I didn't know that about you. When did it start for you thinking about being a dad? Was it after you were married, or was it something that you thought about growing up?
Evan Cooper: Yeah, I mean, we were conscious enough about how the thing works. If you're on birth control, you're less likely to get pregnant, and if you go off birth control, that's one barrier removed. But I had no thought that, oh, yeah, we're going to have kids.
Tony Cooper: So you're talking about you and Meg married. And up until that point, had you ever even thought about being a dad?
Evan Cooper: Not really, no, I don't think so.
Tony Cooper: And then you're married and you're like, I don't even know if we will. Is that sort of how it went?
Evan Cooper: Yeah, actually. I don't know. We dated for a while. We had a lot of fun. I used to work in South America and Meg used to come to South America and it was a good life. It was fun. There was no reason to disrupt that. But it happened. And when it happened, Meg showed me the stick and I'm like, I don't believe that. We have to go to the store and get another one to test again. They're not always correct. I guess I was definitely in denial.
Tony Cooper: Okay, so then you guys are becoming parents. So what switches in you then? Now you're like, oh, shit, I should pay attention.
Evan Cooper: I had a dream about seven months into Meg's pregnancy where this dark-haired little girl wearing a soccer uniform came running off the field crying. And I woke up and I was like, oh, I'm going to be a dad. The soccer thing is a thing, which is important to me. But that's an important thing too: just because you like soccer doesn't mean your kids are going to like soccer. I think that's an important lesson too. But as it turned out, that dream came true two or three times. Sometimes it was crying, sometimes it was laughing. When I was in business school, we wrote like a 15-year plan and had a bucket list of things. And one of them was to have my daughter run off the field after scoring a goal and hugging her and not crying. And Meg wasn't pregnant when I wrote that. So somehow I mystically knew that this was going to happen. I've certainly accepted it. It sort of became like, okay, yeah, you're going to become a dad. And then I just embraced it and was ready for everything. We had the exact stroller we needed. We had the right pack and play set up. There was nothing we didn't have. We were just prepared to be parents of one.
Tony Cooper: So tell me about this research project that you engaged in. You're like, I'm going to be a dad. I don't know about it. I need to figure some stuff out. How did you approach that?
Evan Cooper: Well, you were part of it. It's funny because I did have friends who were parents who were parent advocates. They're like, you gotta have a baby. There's one guy, George, he's like, Evan, have a baby, make it happen. And the first thing I did was to be like, hey, what are the 10 things we need to focus on? What are the areas we need to think about? A stroller is a good example. The pack and play. What kind of diapers do you use? Do you use wipes? What are the kinds of things that can happen, like diaper rash or whatever? How do you get your kids to sleep? So I categorized it and I have a spreadsheet, and I couldn't find that spreadsheet. I have a feeling I know where it is. I couldn't find it and it doesn't really matter. I don't need it. That stuff also is of the time, so it probably isn't even relevant 20-something years later now.
Tony Cooper: Okay, so you were trying to understand the practical infrastructure of becoming a parent. What does a kid need? But what did you do in terms of preparing for the emotional experience of being a dad? One of the topics that's really of significant interest is, how were you raised? What was the impression about parenting that was made on you? Obviously, you and I had the same upbringing, but probably had different experiences. What left a sort of lasting mark on you, either positive or negative? And how did that play a role as you were preparing emotionally to become a dad?
Evan Cooper: I can't say that I feel like I had any kind of preparation from our parents of how to be a dad. Our parents were always very supportive of us. I don't feel they were very, like, you have to do this, these are your rules. There were some rules. Like, there's some weird rules. I don't know if you remember, you could only have two friends at the house at one time. Did you ever get that rule?
Tony Cooper: I don't remember that rule, no. Maybe I didn't have more than two friends, so it didn't apply to me.
Evan Cooper: When we lived on Conde, we had like five friends just on the street. And one time they all came over, and mom was like, what is going on?
Tony Cooper: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, because that's when we moved to Miami. Our house was definitely not a place of welcoming for large groups of people.
Evan Cooper: For me, that was the big thing. That's crazy. Who cares? Bring as many kids as you want. We can always make more food. In fact, we were the house, this is jumping really far forward, but Rachel, she wasn't a crazy partier, but she did her things in high school, and we chose to be the house that would allow her friends to come over and hang out in the basement and drink. And we would take keys, at least initially, and not let kids have their keys if they were drunk. Be like, you can walk here, you can sleep on the couch, but you're not driving home. So I think some of that experience led me to be more inclined to just be very open, a house that is always welcoming.
Tony Cooper: Yeah. As far as being a dad and what it means to be a dad, what I remember most about dad when we were younger is he used to have a microphone, and he would interview us and record. Do you remember any of that?
Evan Cooper: Oh, on tape. On, like, a little cassette tape. Yeah. And that was, like, we engaged with him. I remember being in the pool. He loved freaking out in the pool and throwing us around. That's really fun. Those things, dad would be really fun with things like that. But what's strange is they didn't watch sports. They must have at some point. But I don't remember them watching sports with us at all.
Tony Cooper: We would go to some games at RFK.
Evan Cooper: I don't remember that at all.
Tony Cooper: Four tickets. I don't know what your memories are growing up with dad, but dad could be super fun, and he could also be super scary.
Evan Cooper: Yeah.
Tony Cooper: And my recollection is, it was a little bit unpredictable. It's a little hard to know.
Evan Cooper: Yeah. No, obviously, it's come out now that there's an aspect of me that sort of suppresses any kind of emotions, like really being very joyful or very, very sad, because it's just not practical. It would be too painful to live life like that. I've really worked a lot on empathy as a thing. I think it's hard to have empathy when you just don't want to have empathy because it's too painful. Physical abuse versus mental abuse, probably mental abuse is just as bad or worse. So I think we've all figured that out over the last ten years or so. We've all gone through our own processes on it. Eventually I've learned what not to do. And it took a long time, but I really worked on that aspect of being able to disconnect myself from all that emotion I was talking about. I'm here, and I'm not allowing it to get to me. I had this term that just showed up. It's around empathy, but the term of equanimity. So another E letter, equanimity. The definition is a state of composure driven by awareness and acceptance of the present moment. So it forces you to be like, okay, I need to separate. We really know what's going on here. They're screaming and yelling, but I'm not. I'm gonna stay composed and not engage in that.
Tony Cooper: You were talking before about when your kids would yell, you would yell, that natural yelling response when the situation was kind of out of control. Dad was really good at bringing down the hammer and yelling. And it showed up a lot for me when the kids were really young. It wasn't even a choice, but I would just catch myself kind of screaming. And then Meg could always go, you're being like your dad.
Evan Cooper: Yeah.
Tony Cooper: And it took me a while, like you said with the equanimity, to be able to have my desired reaction to a moment as opposed to the one that was sort of programmed into me. And then it shows up unconsciously. So what was your path to be able to shift that for yourself?
Evan Cooper: I think it just was a path of becoming aware, especially as they got a little older. God, this is damaging them. This isn't good for them. And also when I see that that was their natural reaction to things, like, oh, wow, now I just did it to them. And now their generational trauma has been passed on. I think it was that. I'm not going to say I'm a hero on this. No one's going to be like, oh, Evan, you are really a great model for this, modeling the good behavior. I did talk to my kids before we talked, and talked a little bit about it, and there really isn't that same kind of trauma. They feel it, hopefully they have a mindset like, this is something in me that I'm aware of going into it, rather than at some point as a dad, you're like, oh shit, my wife needs to tell me how I'm being. And that's not good. If it's not self-awareness, it's not really helpful.
Tony Cooper: I was remembering one time when Leo was little. I didn't even think I was really screaming, but he felt the anger or whatever it was that came out of me, and I just saw him get scared and sad all at once, and it just fucking broke my heart. I'm like, oh my God, this is what happened to me. And I'm fucking doing it and I'm passing it on. That was definitely a huge wake-up for me. I was like, I 100% don't want to do that.
Evan Cooper: And thank God, the first time I saw it, that is something I need to change, because it was the worst part of my childhood. I don't want my kid to have that experience.
Tony Cooper: So, yeah, sometimes it takes that heartbreaking moment too.
Evan Cooper: Yeah. Like I said, I don't think it's perfect now, but they all seem to be doing pretty well, so that's good. They're great kids.
Tony Cooper: I wanted to talk about something that came up on one of my earlier podcasts. I was talking to, I think it was Shane, who he and his wife consciously split. They're no longer married, but they're co-parenting. And in the middle of the conversation I was talking about how, in my opinion, I feel like it's a disservice that you do to your kids if you don't like each other and you stay married for the kids, which is what you did. I was making the case that I think it's actually better for the kids to not do that, to separate. Now I get it's inconvenient. I was just making this statement and then it got put out on social media and then you saw it, and you got upset because, one, I think you thought I was talking about you, which I wasn't. But the shoe fits. So I really wanted us to talk about that, because I have my opinion about it. I want to know, one, what impact did hearing that have on you, and what are your thoughts about it? Since then you've had a chance to even talk to your daughters about that. So I'd love to hear from you.
Evan Cooper: You know, I pull up my phone and there's you talking to me saying, yeah, parents should not stay together if they don't like each other. Like you talking to me. It's interesting, your words, with your face looking at me, that's how it came across. So I did feel attacked. But so, like, I'll back up. At a certain point, yeah, there was a blanket over us. I just was like, I've got to change. I started changing much more. I'd been in my job for nine years. It was a long time to be in one specific job. I was with GE for 23 years, but most of them I was in lots of different jobs, but this one was nine years and it was very absorbing. It was all of my time, 24 by 7. It was very hard to be engaged with my children. Plus I would go out of town sometimes for two weeks, sometimes for three weeks. So three weeks, you come back, you have a different child. You've come back to a different child.
Tony Cooper: True. They grow rapidly.
Evan Cooper: Plus, you know, Meg, it's her house. It's not my household. I'm just re-entering this house. So we grew apart. She more than me. As I started being like, I don't want a full-time job anymore, a lot of things I probably did did not make her happy. But I was very aware. I don't know, maybe the kids were like 12 or something, 11, 12. We were like, yeah, we're not getting along, but we need to agree to co-parent. That's what matters. These three children are the most important thing that matters. What I was very conscious of, I did not want them to do the live here a few days, live there for a few days, live here for a few, go back and forth. That was probably my most conscious thing. And so it kind of sucked for like 10 years. But there's a couple things that happened. One, not having to go back and forth, that's very, very traumatic for children. It's very hard. And I have a good number of friends who were divorced that went through that. And I was like, I can't do that to these kids. Plus, once you do that, especially if Meg had been like, hey, I want full custody or something, then you're not engaged with your children. And Meg and I have different philosophies about certain things. One thing is I'm really like, push the kids to achieve more than they imagine they can achieve. Try something that they're scared to try, to really get out there and be way beyond their comfort zones. And that's just not how Meg rolls, generally. And then I did get feedback, and I asked them, what are some things that really struck you as me being a dad? And it's not the, oh, because you hugged this dad and you were so sweet. It was like, you took us out there, you made us go out and accomplish more than we imagined we could accomplish. So I didn't want to not be present for that part of their lives. And Evie ended up not going to college. She stayed at home for another year. That kind of put things off for another year, because I didn't want her to not have that connection as well. And Evie, I didn't actually talk to her about it. We were just driving home from college. I was driving her home, and she brought up, oh, Olivia, your daughter, my niece, posted that thing. And she's like, fuck, Tony. Like, what is he talking about? Why would he say, he doesn't even know, he's never asked me. So it was hard. It's been a very hard life in a lot of ways, but I wouldn't trade it at all. And I'm happy where I am now.
Tony Cooper: Yeah. I think the point I was making, and look, I understand having them live in different homes, and I think there's different sides of that. I've seen people go the kids get to live in one home and the parents come back and forth. It's another way of doing it. My point wasn't about any of that. It was, as parents, we're raising kids, but what we're also doing is we're embedding in them their idea of what relationship is. So the point I was making is if you don't love each other, and you could even go to the far end of, like, if you hate each other, dislike is one thing, hate each other is one other thing, and if it's open and that's what's shown to the kids, subconsciously, it's embedded in them that that's what a relationship is supposed to be like. And to me, it was like, it's better to inconvenience everybody if what you're embedding in them is relationships really are meant to be loving and caring and respectful. So that was the point I was making about it. And what I just heard you say is part of one of the reasons why that wouldn't have worked for you is because you and Meg had such different opinions about how to raise a kid. It's almost like you were afraid to not be there to see what might go down when you weren't around.
Evan Cooper: It's not almost like it. It was. That is it. Yeah. And also, the reality is, Rachel's, I don't know, in her third year in a relationship. They seem very, very happy together. And I've talked about it. She gets it. They observe what happened, but they also, for the first 10 years of her life, and I sent you all those pictures, we were very close, and things were great. So I think they absorbed a lot of positive things. And they also absorbed, like, parents that they were aware didn't get along, but stayed together for them. And so I think they took the positive from that rather than thinking, oh, this is how relationships should be.
Tony Cooper: Yeah. Well, that's great. And what you're saying about Rachel and Jackson, they just seem really at ease and really comfortable with each other. And they really, really like each other.
Evan Cooper: Yeah, a boyfriend she's very close with. Evie has a boyfriend she's very close with. So Evie just went yesterday to go spend the summer with him. So they seem fine. They seem fine. We'll see what happens 15 years from now.
Tony Cooper: So what you were referencing is where your relationship started to fall apart was when you really made a big life change. Early part of being a dad, you were traveling a lot, you were working a lot. And then all of that changed, and you essentially then eventually kind of became a full-time dad.
Evan Cooper: I always knew that I wanted to be an engaged dad. If I'm going to be a dad, I'm going to be involved. So I didn't have that. It was too much. I would leave the house at 7 and come home at 6 on an everyday normal day. That was just normal. Nothing happened in the morning. By the time I get home, it's the end of the day. So that sucked. I just couldn't deal with that. So my job, I was able to structurally create some space. I became a remote worker before it was a thing. And then I got a new boss who didn't like that. That didn't help. I knew I couldn't have a job where I just wasn't with my children. It just wasn't where I wanted to be. It wasn't fair for them, it wasn't fair for me.
Tony Cooper: Yeah. And then you got really involved. And one of the things I know that you love to do is you love to cook.
Evan Cooper: Yeah.
Tony Cooper: So I've never asked my nieces about it, but what's their relationship to cooking? What's been the impact of you spending so much time? You had a cafe. You really tried a lot of things. You really brought the culinary art into their lives in a big way. What's the impact?
Evan Cooper: Yeah. So one of the things that Rachel was saying when I asked, what did I do for you? She's like, no matter what she wanted to try, you were always supportive of it. So she did a Bat Mitzvah project where she had a business called Rachel's Cookie Jar. So we worked together, came up with the idea. I helped her develop the recipe and really helped her learn how to make it. Then we figured out how to package it and we created a website, and she did most of the work, but I was there helping her. And so she had a business and she actually used to sell baked goods until she got told by the school she wasn't allowed to do that. But all through her life, whenever she wanted to learn how to make something, she would just come and we'd work on it together. And so now she can make anything. She's gluten free, so she has some limits on what she makes. But she's really gotten into it. Pia also. Pia just moved into an apartment, and she had an apartment-type dorm last year. So she's been cooking for herself. Her boyfriend cooks a lot too. She just sent me a picture. She had made peanut butter cookies with the little fork imprints on them. So they really got that. And now they don't even have to think about it. They just know how to make food for themselves. And Evie, I guess the jury's still out. I don't know how much she cooks. She's the funniest because she's, of all the kids, she's the one that least likes homemade food. You know what a Little Debbie snack cake is? She'll be like, I'll take that over one of your homemade brownies.
Tony Cooper: Not always, but yeah, she actually likes flavor.
Evan Cooper: Yeah. And they all would ask me to make things. It's one of my favorite things to do when someone says, hey, can you make this? And then I'll figure it out. Evie came over the other day and I made her some fettuccine Alfredo from scratch. And she was like, oh, that's awesome. Thank you, dad.
Tony Cooper: So you've been entrepreneurial for 10 years, how long?
Evan Cooper: Probably closer to 15. Yeah, 15 years.
Tony Cooper: And then you started a cafe. How did that impact the girls seeing you do that? Have they ever talked to you about that?
Evan Cooper: Not a lot, except for the fact that, at least Rachel and Pia, and Meg also, she started her own law firm. She's very entrepreneurial too, very, very inspiring. I think it just taught them, if you want to get things, you have to work for them. That's one of the weird things. Basically, up until the end of my 23-year career, I never thought about stuff like that. You just go to work and you get paid. You go to work, you're paid, you get a new job, whatever. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I don't know when I'm going to get paid next. Or whether what I'm doing is going to be successful. You're doing a lot more business development. As an engineer, that wasn't a thing. But now it's like a reality every day. I think they just took that. There's different ways to work, and there's a lot of different ways you can succeed. Some of the stuff I do isn't for money. All the stuff I do with the Cleveland schools and the culinary programs, it's to help people get jobs and help people graduate. So they just have a different perspective. They saw me as a worker guy, a corporate guy. And then they see me being able to wear T-shirts and shorts all day long.
Tony Cooper: So thinking back on the different years with your kids and being a dad, what's been some of the really hard parts that you remember that you struggled with? Maybe you learned something from. What were some of those experiences?
Evan Cooper: Really, the hardest part for me is when they get hurt. I grew up, I don't know if you remember, I used to get hurt a lot. Rachel hurt herself a bunch of times. Junior year, she was varsity soccer. First game out, she gets on the field, she's dribbling around. She looks great. And she was wearing a knee brace. And some girl from the other team just came in with her foot under her knee and just crushed it. And I was sitting in the stands, and you're not allowed to go onto the field. In high school, at least where we were, you're not allowed to go on the field. And them being hurt, in pain, it killed me. It killed me. I couldn't see it for like 45 minutes. It was one of the worst things I'd ever experienced.
Tony Cooper: What do you think is so difficult for you to watch your kid in pain?
Evan Cooper: Because that shouldn't be. They shouldn't be in pain. They should be healthy, and they shouldn't have to deal with this stuff. And it was just, especially, there was one game Pia was playing in. She's running down the field, little Pia, and she's got these girls all around her, and all of a sudden, she's in the air, she's vertical, and she's spinning around, and she slammed onto the ground. And I was like, what just happened there? She was in a ton of pain, really hurt herself. Elbow issues, arm issues, leg issues, hip issues, ankle. I don't like them not feeling well. They had a little bit of boy stuff going on. I really was kind of kept out of a lot of their boy stuff. But just seeing them be sad with that was also not fun. I know you've talked about that with Olivia a little bit. Just seeing their hearts break and you can't do anything. There's nothing you can do about it. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a miracle worker. So you just have to sit there.
Tony Cooper: I guess it's part of me really then feeling that pain for them. So they're developing some empathy.
Evan Cooper: Well, it's not just developing empathy. It's the depth of empathy when you become a dad. You love in a way that you just don't have access to previously. There's something that comes about, and so you love them so much, and it's your job to protect them, and sometimes you can't. And then they feel that thing, and you feel their pain.
Tony Cooper: It's a weird thing.
Evan Cooper: Exactly. Yeah. It's funny. The whole sport thing. They all ended up playing soccer at times in their lives. I know you did a lot of coaching.
Tony Cooper: I did some coaching.
Evan Cooper: And there's one time the head coach wasn't there, so he was like, oh, you gotta do the game. And it was almost impossible for me to coach them. Especially with Pia and Evie, it's very hard for me just to watch a game because they're in two different places, and I'm trying to pay attention to both of them. But then to be the coach and be like, okay, I'm not their coach, I'm everybody's coach. That was really hard for me. Anybody but their coach.
Tony Cooper: Yeah. What are some of the things that you have really appreciated about being a dad? Especially, growing up not even really thinking too much about it, being married, not even thinking too much about it, what have been some of these unexpected, gut-punch moments of being a dad for you?
Evan Cooper: Just hanging out with them. And definitely as they got older, they don't want to hang out with me very much, so I treasure those times. We used to go hiking all of the time, and there's this one particular park we used to go to in the middle of the winter. They would just march up and down hills. And that's the one I went to this winter. Like, the new town I moved into, that's our town park. Just spending time with them, being outdoors, cooking with them. Rachel, of all the three, is the most sporty and in the sports. Last year when we went to LA to visit, she's like, I want to go see the Orioles. They were playing in Anaheim. So we drove down to Anaheim for that. When that happens, it's pretty cool. Pia is definitely the, like, yay, sports, kind of person. She could care less. And Evie's in between. Evie's actually gone to a number of preseason games with me, so just going to things, even though they're totally not into it, and they're not able to talk about it, they don't really watch sports with me, but just hanging out with them, doing fun stuff like that.
Tony Cooper: Yep. I always like to ask for advice for a new dad. So thinking about that, becoming a dad, and in particular yours, for people who maybe haven't thought too much about it, but all of a sudden it's sprung on you and you're like, it's a brand-new reality, man, I haven't really done any prep. What would you have wanted to have known, what would have been helpful, and what would you impart to a brand-new father?
Evan Cooper: Okay, so my friend Guy told me this, not your guy, a different guy. Happy wife, happy life. I wish I had listened to him and really paid attention to that. And just in general, being a dad is important, but being a mom is more important. How it ends up, at least in our family with girls, all credit to all the great things that Meg did. And it's hard. I had a full-time job. It's a lot of things, but you just have to constantly come back to it. And just in general, having emotional intelligence and having that before you become a dad, and being very good at that and knowing that you can deal with the stress rather than reflecting it back. Being able to have positive mental health in a world of just insanity is very important.
Tony Cooper: Amen to that. Yeah. Getting more insane by the moment.
Evan Cooper: Yes.
Tony Cooper: Evan, it's so great. I'm glad we got to have this conversation. I love you. Thanks so much for being open to this and sharing your experience. I loved getting to hear your perspective. It is amazing. I'm really hoping that this somehow sparks more dads talking about the realness of what being a dad is. And you've shared that today, so thanks so much.
Evan Cooper: Yeah, thank you. I love you too, man. And I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk to you.
Tony Cooper: Yeah. All right, well, until next time.
Until next time, I just want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Dad Manual podcast and for supporting dads to become the best version of themselves as they strive to bring healing and inspiration to their families. I'm looking to grow a community of fathers who are ready to change the world. But I need your help. It's super valuable to the podcast when you like an episode, when you leave us a rating and subscribe to our YouTube channel, when you follow us on Instagram @thedadmanualpodcast. And maybe even the most important, when you share the podcast with the dad you love. Also, you can impact what we talk about here. If you've got questions or topics you want me to explore, email them to me at [e-mail]. I would love to answer your question on our next episode. And until next time, I'm Tony Cooper, and this is the Dad Manual Podcast.