So its father's day today and I have to work 18 hours. You do what you have to do to support your children. I try not to mince words and tend to speak my mind.

I'm a single father of a wonderfully bright 6 year old girl that I will give my life for if I need to. When shes here with me, I let her be a kid, something I don't see a lot of parents do any more. Like most little girls, she likes to dress up, the big gaudy jewellery, princess gowns etc. She also likes to play with make-up and nail polish. While I'm not to happy about the whole Disney indoctrination of girls, I am but one of two parents with limited time to instill in her the values that I hold dear.

From the age of four she has put make up on me, painted my nails, put horribly awful looking stuff in my hair with a true sense of glee. Its not uncommon for her to want to walk to the store to get a snack after this happens. Now, after two years I can honestly say I have never dreaded walking out the door like this, I don't care what people think of me one bit so I just roll with it. I do pay attention to the reactions of those around me though, and I find it very amusing. "Men" snicker and giggle like little school girls when I brandish my Tinkerbell wallet she gave me for fathers day 2 years ago. They look at me like I am out of my mind with 6 different colors of nail polish on. In fact I'm writing this because I made a post saying I got distracted while having my toenails painted to explain my forgetting to link to a site in an OP. The one reply was "I'm a man, that would never happen to me"

The women's reactions are exactly the opposite, they say how cute, how great of a dad I am that I would allow her to do these things and not worry about anyone else's actions. I have in fact scored a couple of dates!

So you think you are a real man, macho and ready to take on the world, but can you set all that aside for a precious little soul that you care and love?