REVIEW: from you to me Dear Dad Journal

Since becoming a mother I have realised just how quickly time flies and how easy it is to forget about all the small, but important, details of our lives. Sure, we have Instagram and Facebook for sharing photos and snippets of our days, but I wanted something more than that to record all the ordinary yet significant moments. I quickly became a fan of pregnancy journals, then baby journals so that I can jot down all the precious memories before they slip from my mind and be able to share them with my children in years to come.

But what about our lives? As wonderful as it is to be able to record everything about their lives as my children grow up, what about when they want to know about Mummy and Daddy? What if they want to know what our lives were like growing up? Where we lived? What we liked? What we felt and thought about parenthood? In my Father’s Day Gift Guide on of the gift ideas I featured was this wonderful “Dear Dad” journal* (£12.99) by from you to me.

from me to you began in 2007 when the creator realised that he did not know much about his own father’s life. How many of us are in this situation? “Dear Mum” was the first journal they created and have since then created many more.

The range now has over 20 titles including “Bump to Birthday” for pregnancy and baby’s first year, “Our Story” to document snippets from each year of your child’s first 18 years, and “Journals of A Lifetime” for relatives to share their stories with you. I had a Bump to Birthday journal for Baby J and I have Our Story for both of my boys. I’ve also got my eyes on the “Early Years” journals which also come with a notebook for jotting things down as they happen!

“Dear Dad” is a journal gives your Dad the chance to share his story with you. It’s a hardback book which is available in two different designs, it can even be personalised with a name. It has around 60 different questions printed on gorgeous thick paper which will prompt him to share experiences from his life. There is plenty of space for writing or sticking photos of precious memories.

Some of the questions it asks are:

What are your earliest memories?
What do you remember about the places you lived as a child?
How did you feel when you found out you were going to be a father?
What do you remember about your holidays as a child?
Is there anything you would like to change about me?
What did I look like when I was born?

This journal made me realise that I know so little about my own Dad. My parents were very young when they had me and split up when I was small. It is only since becoming a mother myself that we have become closer as he has embraced his role as a grandparent. I would love to know more about his childhood, what he liked, what he was good at.

My Dad is a man of few words so this is going to be a wonderful way of getting him to open up about his life, so I can learn more about him and so my children can learn more about him too. I’m sure he has a great story to tell us and I’m really looking forward to reading it. I think it’s the perfect gift for Father’s Day.

Dear Dad costs £12.99. To find out more or to purchase, click here.

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*from you to me kindly sent me a copy of Dear Dad to review, however all thoughts and opinion are my own. Bump to Birthday and Our Story were purchased by me.