There are a couple genres of gooey viral videos out there. There are the ones of soldiers returning home from deployments. There are the ones where dogs are reunited with their owners after long separations. There are babies seeing or hearing properly for the first time. These reassuring, wonderful videos. 

But there is another one out that hits you right in the feels, and in so doing really proves that you’ve been transformed from a regular person into forever a dad. It’s the videos where a young kid surprises their dad with adoption papers. Not asking to be put up for adoption of course, but to be adopted, by the stepfather who has so lovingly raised them. It’ll get you every time.

We don’t talk about stepfathers in these emails enough and these videos really highlight just what incredible guys many of them are. To selflessly raise a kid that is not biologically yours? To take on, voluntarily, a responsibility like that—with all its initial awkwardness and complications and conflicts? It takes a special kind of person. But, of course, it comes with its own special rewards. And you can see it in the guy’s eyes when he pulls out that paperwork and can’t quite understand what’s happening. Then it hits him. Then they tell him. And then he starts crying. 

And so will you when you watch it. Because you’re a father or a stepfather now too, and you know what this means.

P.S. This was originally sent on November 28, 2019. Sign up today for the Daily Dad’s email and get our popular 11 page eBook, “20 Things Great Dads Do Everyday.”