SOMERS, N.Y. - “One of the most precious experiences I've enjoyed in my life has been being a father,” explains Somers’ Bart Casabona. “It's been this emotional roller coaster that has brought me to places I never knew existed before I had kids.”
For the proud father of two, the unpredictable journey of parenting also generated a creative spark that led to him penning his debut book.
“I happened to be looking for a gift for a friend who was becoming a father, and most of the books on the market today felt more like academic dissertations or 300-page doorstops waiting to collect dust,” he continues.
Wanting to provide a resource that the average person could relate to, Casabona put pen to paper and authored “The Guy's Parenting Playbook: A First-Time Father’s Playbook, from Rookie to Hall of Famer.”
“I chose to create something that was helpful and entertaining for men,” Casabona adds.
In order to make his parenting advice relatable, Casabona chose to frame it with concise and entertaining football analogies to keep things lighthearted and fun. And even if readers don’t spend their Sundays glued to the television for NFL action, the metaphors will still hit home with anyone undergoing the experience of being a dad.
“I don't think you necessarily have to be a die hard football fan to get the benefit from the book,” the author explains. “In fact, I'm not even a die hard football fan. But it was interesting to see how the parallels exist.”
“The Guy's Parenting Playbook” breaks down the journey of fatherhood into themed sections, including preseason (a look at the nine-month journey leading up to “game day”), rookie year (the trials and tribulations of the first year of fatherhood), and free agency (how dads can cope with older kids finding their own interests that move them away from their parents).
Casabona’s heartfelt exploration of fatherhood maps the road from birth to adulthood, eventually ending with the “Hall of Fame.”
“The Hall of Fame is when your children start to mature in their own right, and they grow,” says Casabona. “They start to recognize what their parents did to really help them be successful in their lives. They recognize the struggles, the sacrifices, the endless hours of support, and the sleepless nights that we all have sacrificed along the way to ensure our team scored big.”
A Somers High School graduate, Casabona is quick to point out that he is not a PhD or a psychologist, but rather just an average guy who picked up useful insights along the way.
“This book will only take a couple of hours of your time to gain a perspective that could help you throughout a lifetime of fatherhood, and at least give you again a framework to understand what's ahead,” he adds. “I'm not professing that I have exact notions on perfect parenting or exact plays to run to help you do everything exactly right. It's more about providing a framework and the stages of fatherhood for people to understand what's coming and then to design and run their own plays.”
And for anyone looking for Casabona’s fatherhood credentials, they needn’t look any further than the pair of happy and successful children he raised.
Currently, his son Bart Casabona III is attending SUNY Polytechnic Institute and studying cybersecurity. His daughter, Olivia, will be attending SUNY Maritime College in the fall where she will play volleyball and be part of the cadet program.
Drawing on his experiences throughout the many stages of fatherhood, Casabona lovingly and humorously sums up the blitzes and touchdowns of being a dad.
“It’s magical and scary as hell.”
“The Guy's Parenting Playbook” is currently available on Amazon.
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