"Eighteen Walks with Dad" Turns Father-Daughter Birthday Walks into Life Lessons in New Book
Michigan - November 25, 2025 - What started as a simple family tradition of taking a walk on his daughter’s birthday has become the heart of a new book. Eighteen Walks with Dad, released this fall, follows Kaelyn's growing-up journey through 18 father–daughter walks, each teaching a valuable life lesson.
In the book, each walk is counted in steps, one for every candle on Kaelyn’s birthday cake, and each carries a story, a rule, and a lesson. By her eighteenth birthday, she’s gathered eighteen life rules that guide her toward adulthood.
“It wasn’t meant to be a book at first,” Garvey said with a laugh. “I just started writing down the things I wished I’d been taught as a child. The walks were real. The lessons grew from them.”
The book’s rhythm is simple yet deeply human: one year, one rule, one moment of clarity between a father and his daughter. The rules are practical: “Be nice to people,” “Listen,” “Live honestly,” but they carry real emotional weight. One chapter shows Kaelyn learning that asking for help “doesn’t make you small.” Another ends with her father’s final, hardest lesson: “Choose love, even when it’s hard.”
Garvey explained that the project, which began as a few short notes in 2022, eventually grew into a full manuscript. “Each time I revisited it, I found something new I hadn’t noticed before, how kids teach us as much as we teach them,” he said.
Early readers have called the book “quietly powerful” and “a reminder that parenting doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be present.” At its heart, Eighteen Walks with Dad is less about advice and more about time, how fleeting it is, how sacred it feels when shared, and how it shapes who we become.
About Jason Garvey
Jason Garvey is a writer and father based in Michigan. Born and raised in Massachusetts, his work often explores the intersection of family, growth, and everyday wisdom. Eighteen Walks with Dad is his first published book.
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