The Goofy and Vulnerable Side of Dude Dad | Spotlight

If you haven’t met Dude Dad, then it’s about time you did. Taylor Calmus, local father and husband, started his Dude Dad YouTube channel as a creative outlet when he first became a parent. Since then it’s blossomed into an entire business, complete with entire tours of live shows, Dude Dad merchandise, and a parenting book for dads.

The whole thing started when Taylor and his wife, Heidi Calmus, were living in Los Angeles, with Taylor still trying to make it in the acting business. “When we had our first child, I started the channel just as a way to stay creative while being a dad,” he explained, “because I just didn’t know if it was realistic to keep pursuing that dream, knowing that I would need to kind of provide. And it just launched [me] into the channel, and it started to pick up steam, and then it eventually blew up and allowed us to just do our own thing and not need Hollywood. And so then we left and came to Colorado, where we had friends.”

The secret, in part, to Dude Dad’s success was having a supportive partner, as Taylor found Heidi to be especially supportive from the beginning. The moment of truth came when the couple found out that Heidi was pregnant for a second time. Taylor was working building sets for TV and movies while Heidi was working full time, and Taylor had to make a decision if continuing to make his videos was still viable now that they needed more income to support another child.

“It was too much, and I kind of broke down,” recalled Taylor, “and I was like, ‘I can’t keep doing all this. I have to cut something out of my schedule.’ And before I could say anything, she stopped me and and said, ‘You have to keep doing, Dude Dad. You have to keep going.’ So she pushed me to keep going, and she believed in me before I did.” Heidi is almost as involved with the Dude Dad videos as Taylor is, appearing in many of the videos and having her own presence within the larger Dude Dad mini-empire. “Honestly, I think people like her better than me,” said Taylor, “which is fine, because she’s extremely likable and she’s just authentic and she just is who she is.”

But, while Dude Dad has become popular for his goofball takes on fatherhood and marriage, there’s another side to the project as well — a more vulnerable side of Dude Dad. Some videos, what Taylor calls his testimonial videos, offer a more genuine take on fatherhood that isn’t shrouded in comedy. “And those videos are the ones that, when dads come up and talk to me, they’ll be like, ‘Thank you so much for making that video,’” said Taylor. “I made one about having a daughter, because, as a man, if you’ve never had a daughter before, you don’t know what that looks like. You don’t know what that is, and, for whatever reason, us men can get scared of that. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know what to do with that. But then experiencing it myself, and realizing just how amazing it is, and how she’s basically a smaller version of your wife, but she’s also a piece of you.”

In a similar vein to that vulnerable side, Taylor’s book, “The Dude’s Guide to Baby,” offers his perspectives on parenting for a potentially reluctant audience. “I realized that there [were] a lot of men that were about to become fathers that didn’t really know what to expect,” recalled Taylor. “And they’re also not big readers. And a lot of the books out there aren’t necessarily geared towards men in a way that you can get a man to sit down or read a book. So I wanted to make something that was fun and funny, but also had a lot of nuggets of truth in it, and a lot of perspective to equip the soon-to-be-dad [for] the road ahead.”

The next upcoming project from the Dude Dad project comes September 19-21 with their mini-golf charity event. “We do a mini golf charity event every single summer that we put on that essentially we make one mini golf hole, and then we get 17 other people in the community to make the other holes,” explained Taylor. “And then one weekend, we set them all up at New Belgium Brewing, and the whole community comes out to play mini golf.” This year promises to be an exciting year with the theme of “little things made big,” which opens up a lot of creative possibilities. The proceeds go to support Respite Care, a charity that provides care and support to parents of high-needs children, allowing the Calmus’ to give back to other parents who need a little extra help.