Welcome to our first Dad Goals interview series, where we welcome dads to the chat to explore topics like fatherhood, family life and making it all work. Our first edition welcomes my old friend David Pacho from our NYC fashion design days.
"I grew up in East Texas where my journey took me to New York City in the early 2000s. Over the past two decades, I've had the privilege of collaborating with incredibly talented and influential individuals in the fashion industry. I live in Los Angeles where my wife Emily and I navigate the exciting world of twin parenting, raising our hilariously cute 1 year old twin boys, Roman and Luca. Beyond the realms of work, I find joy in exploring all the local farmers markets to cycling into the mountains that surround our beautiful city."
How do you handle life with twins?
Having twins is so crazy. Everything takes longer. Always. I bought an Apple Watch, not that I wanted one, but because things pop up and my hands are always doing something.
What's the best part about being a dad?
Oh man, there's so many things. You talk all day about how hard it is. But the good stuff is so much better. It's why all of us parents survive every day. I think it's just watching them - their personality flourish and change on a daily basis. If you're not a parent you don't know this, but they change every day, every hour. And when you become a dad, or if you're fortunate enough to have a family in whatever manner it happens, it makes you closer to humanity. It brings you down to earth.
How do you find time for yourself?
We haven't done anything for ourselves. Emily is like gonna go to the farmers market when the kids get up. She was like, "you should go on a bike ride or something." We're still in the grind and have a train of family just coming into town. I feel like the first year is just like that. We have no family out here. You know, we're kind of alone. It's a struggle.
On Modern Fatherhood
Dads are spending more time with their kids especially since the pandemic. To compare a situation in my own family, my father 100% was working all the time. And I'm so grateful for it. I'm looking forward to 20, 50 years from now to see what this all actually means, the way we're living today. With roles being a little bit more 50/50. I'm not saying it's equal. Emily does so much more than I can ever do. I'm always trying to keep up and I find that that conversation is quite common. When I talk to other guys, we're all just trying to keep up and do our best to make up for all the things we're not great at. And you (women) are just incredible beings. When you become a dad, you see how we have to step up more, you know, and become better parents and better dads.
What does being a good father mean to you? What are your Dad Goals?
I want my boys to respect everyone. A huge dad goal is that they're good people in society no matter where they are on this planet. That they treat everyone just with total utter respect. And I think empathy is a huge thing - that's massive. I want them to be grounded. You know, I'm a Texan. We were taught to say, "Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir." Open doors for women and help old people.
I want to give them the tools to deal with whatever their generation is going to go through. A big goal is to teach them how to adapt more than anything else. And if you can adapt, then laughing and humor are really big. My wife and I laugh a lot about how crazy things are.
Somebody told me "a family that plays together, stays together." And that resonated with me, because my parents got divorced. My dad always played with us and like, hung out. And we stayed really close to my dad. That's something I want to share with my kids. That's huge dad goals. My wife comes from an incredible family and it's stayed together. They are so tight they talk to each other every day. I'm so envious of that and want to pass that on. I want to give that gift to our kids and have this really healthy relationship with them. You know, we can all grow old together.
Have you had any role models for fatherhood?
My own father. Not to get too deep with him as he's also kind of complicated person. You know, his mother died given birth to him. That's so tragic. And his dad wasn't a great person. My dad was a professional boxer out of necessity, to stay off the streets and all that. He became very successful and had a whole other family - did the Don Draper thing which you kind of bail on your family, and do your own thing. And a lot of men did that at that period. And he had our family. And he was an amazing dad to us, and a shitty dad to another family. Which is so crazy to think that a person could be one thing, but also another completely different thing.
But he learned so much from his mistakes. And I think he did everything to right his mistakes with us. So I mean, that's kind of beautiful. And I think I'm trying to do the same thing. So that my dad is like a huge inspiration and so is my father-in-law. I'm so grateful for that. He sends me all the funny memes and Dad advice.
What's the best part about being a dad?
I love seeing their smiles the first moment when I come home. I remember, I came home after a long day. It was a first time Roman and Luca, like, showed that they miss me. They jumped up and down in excitement and smiled at me. And I could tell they're like, so excited to see me. And I was like, wow, so that's another great feeling, which happens every day now. But the first time was really something I'll never forget.
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