Why do dads feel scarier than moms?
Read time: 2 minutes
Welcome to issue #025 of Unicorn Parents. Each week, I share practical insights and reflections to help you build a profitable business without missing the magic at home. If you’re serious about winning at work while raising great kids, you’ve come to the right place. This is a community built for ambitious parents who want both.
Let me start with a confession:
Sometimes I raise my voice.
Not out of rage.
Not to intimidate.
But because I believe discipline matters,
and sometimes a sharper tone cuts through the noise.
Every parent knows that moment:
You’re tired
You’ve repeated yourself five times
The house is chaos
You raise your voice just enough to get attention.
It works…temporarily.
But later, something sits heavy.
Because even when the moment passes, something lingers…
in them and in us.
I used to think raising my voice was just a part of parenting.
A tool.
A reset button.
But the way my kids reacted made me realize there’s something:
There’s a difference between my voice and my wife’s.
It made me confront a hard question:
Why is it worse when a dad yells at his kid than a mom does?
When moms yell, the relationship usually repairs.
When dads yell, it can echo for decades.
Not because dads are worse.
But because, to a child, “Dad” doesn’t just mean parent.
It means protector.
It means safe place.
It means the world makes sense.
So when that safe place suddenly erupts, it does more than sting.
It shatters something inside.
Kids don’t think,
“Dad’s having a bad day.”
They think:
“Am I safe?”
“Am I loved?”
“Did I do something wrong… or am I something wrong?”
And when that confusion mixes with fear, something subtle happens.
They pull away.
They shut down.
They learn to stay small.
They start tiptoeing through childhood like it’s a minefield.
We forget this part:
Dads don’t just teach discipline.
Dads teach emotional templates.
Some say a dad’s voice is the first model of:
how to handle stress.
how to express anger.
how loud is “normal.”
how love behaves when it’s frustrated.
Kids study this without even knowing they’re studying it.
And then it comes out later—
in middle school, in high school, in college—
when the stakes are higher and the emotions are louder.
Some explode.
Some implode.
Both are symptoms of the same root wound:
They never learned how to be safe inside their own emotions...
because their safe person didn’t feel safe.
And once those patterns lock in, they’re hard to undo.
Not impossible…but hard.
A buddy recently told me something I needed to hear:
Your child doesn’t need you to be perfect.
They need you to be predictable.
Yelling feels like it’s getting the job done,
but it erodes the very authority we’re trying to build.
Our kids will grow into adults who treat themselves the way we treated them.
Let that sink in.
And if you didn’t grow up with a dependable dad yourself?
If you’re trying to build something you never saw modeled?
That’s not shame.
That’s courage.
You’re breaking generational patterns one quiet, steady choice at a time.
That’s the work.
That’s the legacy.
And that’s something worth being proud of as a Unicorn Parent.