I’ve been in radio for nearly 23 years, I’ve been a dad for nearly 6.
For the first 17 years of that equation, I was quite comfortable with putting my name, and face everywhere and anywhere I could for exposure. As early as my second year in broadcasting I was writing a column for the local paper with my mug attached to the byline each week. By my third year I was freelancing on tv. I started blogging in 1996, and I’ve been telling stories ever since.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, then, that I’m not afraid to put my kids out there too. In addition to being plastered all over my blogs, my boys have been on the radio, in the newspaper, and on tv – and none of it bothers them. Okay, they’re 5 1/2 and 3, not much will bother them, but they get a kick out of seeing themselves on tv, in a newspaper, or hearing themselves on the radio.
They are naturals around cameras, and microphones. Zacharie loves to sing the call letters of the radio stations I work at, and Charlie will often say “Hey Daddy! That’s you!” when he hears my voice on a recorded commercial.
Today I brought Charlie with me for a visit to Global Calgary for my weekly Tech Buzz segment. Jen was with Z at a birthday party, and so I brought Charlie along. My segment was on tech gifts for kids for Christmas, so the idea was to have Charlie on a couch playing some apps I was featuring that would be shown on the screen.
He loved seeing the cameras, and watching the monitors. When my segment started and the theme music came over the speakers, he perked up.
My boys, media superstars. Dad couldn’t be prouder.