After Preston Duron divorced from his wife, the Las Vegas father of three lost most of his social life.
“When you’re married, you have a community, you have friends,” the 36-year-old said. “After my divorce, except for two people, everybody ran like cockroaches. They didn’t want to communicate with me anymore. My friends were acting like I was a stranger. No one wanted to talk to me or even go out. I got ostracized.”
Duron’s experience is not uncommon. Single parents, along with more obvious groups including people suffering from physical or mental health, disabilities and financial insecurity, are especially susceptible to social disconnection, according to a 2023 U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the American epidemic of loneliness and isolation.
That puts the nearly 20,000 single fathers in Las Vegas at a crossroads with cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety and premature death, which is what the advisory says is more likely to happen to those without meaningful social connection in their lives.
Duron turned to father groups on Facebook for help. He was suffering with isolation and persistent depression even before his divorce. He had given up his dream of becoming a firefighter to homeschool his children.
But most of the groups he found centered on dating, which is not what Duron was looking for.
What he was looking for was Dad Tribes.
We felt the need for dads to connect. Dads need friends. And it’s very hard for a guy to walk up to another guy and say, “Hey, I’m Steve.” It’s not what we do.
“It has all fathers of all walks of life seeking a connection,” Duron said. “We, as men, need that community.”
Through funding free local events, helping fathers in financial crises and creating programs that bring fathers closer to their children, Dad Tribes liberates fathers, single or not, according to Andrew O’Brien, an Army veteran who founded the organization in Texas in 2020.
“Dads face the world in isolation,” O’Brien said. “We live in two environments. Work and home. And both environments ask a lot from us, as they should. Both environments take, but there’s not an environment that gives. So, there’s constant withdrawals with no deposits. The purpose of Dad Tribes is to become that deposit.”
Dad Tribes has over 50,000 members across 30 countries and 25 active chapters in America, O’Brien said. The organization also operates an app, allowing fathers nationwide to connect with one another by using a live, interactive map and filtering users based on shared interest and the ages of their children.
In March, Steve Littman and Luke Cunningham launched the Nevada chapter of Dad Tribes. In just three months, the group has grown to 340 members and converged at restaurants, karaoke bars and sports games for father-only and family events. They will host a cook-off at Vegas Springs Studios in Spring Valley from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday , open to all fathers and their families.
“We felt the need for dads to connect,” Littman said. “Dads need friends. And it’s very hard for a guy to walk up to another guy and say, ‘Hey, I’m Steve.’ It’s not what we do.”
Vaughn Allen, 39, is another single father who is a member of the Nevada chapter of Dad Tribes. In 2023, after splitting from the mother of his two children and three stepchildren and being separated from them, he fell down a dark path. Allen got into trouble with the law and relapsed into alcohol and methamphetamine use after 18 years of sobriety.
“I was isolated from the people who mattered most to me, struggling emotionally and completely without a support system,” Allen said. “I keep thinking how different might things have been if [Dad Tribes] existed for me a few years ago.”
Allen has since turned things around for the better, and Dad Tribes has helped him stabilize. He has been clean for over a year and focused on being the best father to his children, with the help of the community he desperately needed three years ago.
What Dad Tribes offers is something most men don’t realize they need until they’re already in a hard place. Real connection.
“What Dad Tribes offers is something most men don’t realize they need until they’re already in a hard place,” Allen said. “Real connection. A place to talk, to learn from other fathers, to share what you’re carrying and to know you don’t have to carry it alone. Sometimes one person who genuinely understands the weight you’re under changes everything.”
While the surgeon general’s advisory specifically identified single parents as being at heightened risk of loneliness and isolation, all parents, particularly in today’s environment, face an increased risk, according to Jessica Borelli, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of California, Irvine’s School of Social Ecology.
“Parenting these days is such an immersive experience,” Borelli said. “So much of parents’ time is spent thinking about their children, doing things for their children, supporting their children’s interests and academic success. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for the other types of pursuits that help parents connect with their own interests and identities.”
Married fathers also benefit from Dad Tribes. Las Vegan Matthew Fitzgerald, 34, longed for the kind of community his wife found through mom groups.
In Dad Tribes, the father of three discovered one that understood the pressures fathers face to be providers and examples.
“Even being a married father, I have felt isolation sometimes because there are struggles I have of trying to live up to the supporting, role model, breadwinner stereotype that goes out there,” Fitzgerald said.
Dad Tribes is built on the belief that fatherhood is deeply rewarding. But the challenges that often accompany it, which, alongside isolation primarily include stress, depression and burnout, are vivid. Organizations like Dad Tribes indicate a growing recognition that fathers face these struggles and deserve a space to remedy them, Littman said.
“It’s interesting that there are more organizations for fathers out there these days,” Borelli said. “I believe it’s reflective of an increasing awareness of fatherhood as an identity, and also the increasing involvement of fathers in children’s lives. Organizations that explicitly serve the function of connecting fathers to one another are really beneficial. It’s wonderful to provide people a place where they can connect with other people with that shared identity.”
Contact Alex Streinger at astreinger@reviewjournal.com or (702) 224-5505. Follow @AlexPStreinger on X.
