On Father’s Day, This YouTube Dad Is There for You

Rob Kenney, 60, is here to be your dad — the dad you never had or the dad you could use right now. He’s proud of you, he can teach you how to do things, and he’s just a click away.

The seventh of eight kids, Kenney was barely a teenager when his dad said he was done raising kids — “a pretty tough thing to hear as a 14-year-old,” Kenney says. His mother was unable to care for him, so he moved in with his 23-year-old brother and his new wife in their trailer.

He promised himself then and there that he would never do the same thing to his own kids — that he would make it his life’s goal to be there for them, “walk alongside them.” In 1991, he married his wife Annelli, 60. And now, two kids grown and flown, he feels like he did the best job he could — and maybe understands his father (whom he has forgiven) a bit more.

“I’ve had a little more empathy for my dad, as you’re stuck in traffic and you had a bad day and you’re dealing with tough stuff, that as a kid you’re oblivious to,” says Kenney, who is based in Kent, Washington.

But with his life’s goal to be a good dad, Kenney lost a sense of purpose when his kids both left for good.

“It was doubly tough because my goal back when my dad left was, I want to raise good adults and I want to be there for them.... And so it hit hard because it was like, you know, I’m still a young man. I’ve got some life to live and my kids are gone.” 

Deciding that he didn’t want to “just sit around and get old,” Kenney started a YouTube channel, Dad, How Do I?, on April Fool’s Day 2020, teaching people how to do stuff that maybe your dad would teach you. His first video: how to tie a tie. He now has videos including how to put up a shelf and how to shave.

He expected 30 to 40 followers, but a news station got hold of his story and it started to go viral on TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.

Now he has a legacy that he can leave not only to his kids but to his grandkids as well.

“We’re here for a time, and then you’re not. So the fact that I’ll have this catalog of advice, ‘dadvice,’ that I can pass along to my grandkids and great-grandkids — that’s pretty amazing, right?” Kenney says.

One of the things that has shocked him the most is how much more his videos mean to people than just how-tos. Many of the people who watch his videos “didn’t have somebody as a guide to show them and encourage them and make them feel loved and capable,” Kenney says. And he tells his audience often that he is proud of them, something many tell him they’ve never heard before.

“I want to empower people to be able to do things for themselves because it just makes you, makes you feel good, you know, to be able to have the power that, ‘Hey, I can, I can do these things for myself.’”