Fatherless father-of-two Rob Kenney has earned the “internet dad” title after millions tuned into a dad-help YouTube channel he created in April 2020.

Kenney’s simple “Dad, How Do I?” vlog now has 3.83 million subscribers with over 18.4 million views.

The 58-year-old social media “influencer’s” 30-year-old daughter Kristine Ponten attributes his popularity to COVID-19 lockdowns, stating,

 “I don’t think it would’ve gone viral in another circumstance.
It is definitely pandemic-specific regarding the beginnings of it.”

The Washington Post recounted that Kenney originally started the “Dad, How Do I?” channel for his adult kids.

 

The extended intention behind the vlog was to also help educate his grandchildren, who, one day, might be able to learn from his “How to” advice.

According to WaPo, Kenney recorded his videos on a smartphone, using a ‘free version of video-editing software.’

The 2021 article also explained how Kenney’s upbringing inspired the series.

His ‘parents divorced, and his mother was legally declared unfit to parent as she turned to alcohol while struggling with depression and anxiety.’

Not long after his father remarried, then abandoned Kenney at the age of 14, along with his 7 siblings.

From here, Kenney stayed with his newly married older brother and his brother’s wife.

Healing

The YouTube star told USA Today, “it wasn’t easy, but I needed to be able to forgive [my dad] in order to be the man that I am today.”

Forgiving his father, Kenney said, “was a big turning point in my life.”

Kenney’s story is one of victory, not victimhood. As a teenager, he committed to never abandoning his kids.

“Dad, How Do I?” is an outworking of this promise.

The YouTube series was expected to attract a humble 30-40 subscribers. The series attracted millions, and with it a media frenzy, including a HarperCollins book deal.

Through the ‘Dad, How Do I?’ vlog, Kenney offers life-giving survival skills.

In his words, this is ‘practical content to many basic tasks that everyone should know how to do.’

Kenney is doing for others, what his dad never did for him. He hasn’t let resentment nor fatherlessness define him.

Faith-filled

Attributing Kenney’s journey out of fatherlessness to forgiveness, WaPo added, the how-to helper has not let internet stardom affect him.

His daughter helps maintain social media accounts, he reads the Bible daily, and ‘leans on his faith to prevent himself from feeling too overwhelmed. ‘

Speaking with David Hirsch of the Dad-to-Dad podcast, Kenney said,

“I’m a Christian, so I’ve been forgiven much… I want to be able to in a small way, point people to the Lord… If a dad has gotten off track, try to encourage them, to get back on track because we need good dads. You know, the world needs good dads.”

Describing their relationship as “superficial,” Kenney reconciled with his own dad before he died.

With this week being the 7^th anniversary of my own dad’s passing, I empathise.

My father never sought to restore any relationship with me, and so we remained estranged. Like Kenney, a semblance of the father-son connection was made in the last ten years of my father’s life.

Unlike Kenney’s dad, my father was never apologetic. He was too proud to ask for forgiveness — too proud to admit where he got things wrong.

As a Christian, I am certain it was by way of the forgiveness of Christ working in my life, that I was able to make the 8-hour journey with my family to be at his bedside the week he died.

I was informed that my dad had been unable to communicate properly for a few weeks. Yet, the day we met for the first time in a decade, he was coherent and able to hold a conversation.

Rob Kenney’s biggest “Dad, How Do I?” ‘dadvice’ is that forgiveness is the first giant leap towards curing the effects of fatherlessness.

Thus, showing fatherlessness to be catastrophically immoral, but in no way inevitably terminal.

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