Reggie Harper
Single-fatherhood coaching — primary parent, school years
I have been the primary parent for my two kids since 2018. I am a social worker by trade and I run a single-dads peer group at my church in Baltimore. I coach brothers who are newly single — through separation, widowhood, or sole custody — on the practical work of running a household alone while staying present for your kids.
Sessions are structured around a worksheet you keep. Free first call. Sliding-scale spots open every quarter.
I have been the primary parent for my two children since 2018. My ex-wife and I separated when the kids were six and eight; after a long mediation we agreed I would be the primary residential parent, with the children living with me Monday through Friday and with their mother on weekends and during a long stretch of the summer. The arrangement has worked for us, but only because both of us did the work to make it work. The first three years were brutal. The five years since have taught me what I now bring to the brothers I coach.
I am a social worker by trade and I run a single-dads peer-support group at my church in Baltimore. The coaching practice is separate from the peer group; I started it three years ago because the brothers who came through the peer group often needed more structured one-on-one help than the group could provide. My typical client is a Black father six to twenty-four months into being the primary parent — by custody agreement, by widowerhood, by a partner who left, or by some other path — and trying to figure out how to do the daily work without dropping the pieces.
The work I do is concrete. We start with the calendar. Brothers who are new to primary parenting usually have no system, and the lack of system is the first thing that fails. We build a shared family calendar for the school year, with the routine items locked in and the irregular items scheduled in advance. We build a morning routine and an evening routine that the kids know by heart and that you can run when you are tired. We build a meal-planning system that does not depend on your energy being high on a given night.
From there we work on the harder things. The communication with the ex, when there is one, which is the single biggest source of stress for most of the brothers I work with. The communication with the schools, which is its own ongoing project. The money work — most single primary parents are running tight budgets and benefit from a concrete savings and spending plan. The work of being present for your children emotionally while also running the operational load alone, which is the hardest thing about this work and the thing that the peer-support group at my church spends most of its time on.
I also do specific work with brothers in the early ninety days after a separation when custody is still being worked out. I am not an attorney; I do not give legal advice. I do help brothers prepare for mediation, build the documentation that will matter in court, and make decisions in this period that they will not regret in two years. The brothers who come to me in this early period and do the work tend to come out of it with arrangements they can live with for the long term.
My rate is eighty dollars per hour, with a free first call to figure out whether we are a match. I work with brothers in arcs of three months, with the option to extend. Sessions are by video. I am based in Baltimore but my clients are across the U.S. I work in English. I keep a small sliding-scale list — write me directly if cost is the issue.
I am not the right coach for every situation. Brothers in the middle of a high-conflict custody battle with domestic-violence dynamics need an attorney and a therapist before they need me. Brothers with severe mental-health challenges need clinical care first. I will refer you to colleagues for those situations. For the brother who is doing the slow, unglamorous work of being a present primary father over the years, I can help.
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How a session works
What to expect when you book Reggie Harper.
1. Intro call
The first conversation is short and free. You describe your situation in your own words. Reggie Harper listens, asks a few clarifying questions, and decides honestly whether this is the right working relationship for what you are trying to do. Not every brother ends up being the right match for every mentor; the intro call exists so the decision is mutual and clear before any commitment.
2. Working sessions
Most ongoing engagements run on a biweekly or monthly cadence. Each session is roughly an hour. There is usually a piece of homework between sessions — a writing exercise, a conversation you have committed to having, a small decision you are sitting with. The work happens in the space between calls as much as in the calls themselves. The platform commission of 15 percent on paid sessions covers hosting, support, and the editorial vetting that keeps the mentor roster honest.
3. Long-arc relationship
The brothers who have worked with mentors on this platform longest are the brothers who treated the relationship as a long arc rather than a single transaction. The first three months are where the patterns get named. The next nine months are where the patterns start to shift. The years after that are where the relationship becomes something more like the long mentor relationships our elders had, which were rarely about a single career move and almost always about the slow shaping of a life.
Related circles
Brotherhood rooms in Fatherhood and African American.
If Reggie Harper's scope overlaps with what you are working on, you may also benefit from the brotherhood circles in the same topic area or diaspora region. The circles are free to join with an account; the conversation happens between brothers rather than between a single mentor and a single client. Many of the brothers who eventually book Reggie Harper arrive after months of reading and posting in the circles below.
The Fatherhood Circle
Raising the men our fathers tried to be.
Girl Dads
Raising daughters who'll outgrow us. Doing it well.
First-Generation American
Born in America to African parents. Both, always.
Single Dads, Full Hands
Sole custody, primary parent, weekends-only — all of us.
Other mentors in Fatherhood
Different price points and approaches.
Mentorship fit is specific. The right mentor for one brother is the wrong mentor for another, even when the topic area is the same. The brothers below all work in Fatherhood but bring different backgrounds, regions, price points, and approaches. Read their full pages before you decide. The intro calls are free for a reason.