Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Rise and Fall of Dad Bloggers: Rinse and Repeat

I'm part of a fantastic group of Dad Bloggers where I am lucky enough to surround myself with great writers and storytellers, comedians, businessmen, entrepreneurs, established authors, stay home parents and I'm happy to call many of them "friends." The only things we all have in common is that we are fathers and bloggers (with the obvious exception of Blogless Joel). Occasionally we'll discuss the repetitive nature of parent blogging. Sometimes it can seem like it's all been done before, but usually we come to the consensus that while we do share some of the same topics, we all bring a new perspective and some of us are usually "right" about more things than others; I'm not calling any names here, Aaron Gouveia of Daddy Files. No matter how big or small or what type of Dad Blogger you are, it seems we all follow a similar evolution.

The topics and life cycle of a Dad Blog:

- I'm a blogger! (this one is embarrassing to read in the future).

-My wife is pregnant it's hardest on her but kind of sucks for me too, just sayin'.

-I am or am about to be a Dad.

-My baby doesn't sleep much.

-My baby poops a lot.

-My baby is cute.

-As a Dad of two months, I'm a changed man and I think I have this Dad thing figured out.

-My baby cries a lot.

-My baby is laughing, life is grand.

-My baby is trying solids. He's messy.

-My baby is becoming a toddler now. Woe is me.

-My wife is pregnant again, holy shit!

-My toddler is walking. and talking!

-Sentimental post about children growing up too fast.

-My toddler says the darndest things.

-Look how fast he's growing!

-I thought I had this fatherhood thing down before. I was stupid, now I'm in the know.

-New baby! Sibling love, toddler meets baby.

-This is harder than I remember.

-Single Dad Laughing is terrible. Why does my wife read it?

-Rinse and repeat first 10 for the second and any additional children and add in funny sayings from the older sibling(s). "How big is the poop this time, Daddy!?"

-Why I don't spank (or do).

- Letters to my kids in the future.

-Sibling fighting.

-I thought I had this fatherhood thing down before. I was stupid, now I'm in the know.

-Why I started spanking (or stopped)

-Life Cycles of a Dad Blog (This is so meta...)

-School starting.

-Sentimental post about children growing up too fast.

-Witnessing first love.

-I need to drink.

- My kids are dating.

- My kids are driving.

- Lessons my kids need to learn.

-I thought I had this fatherhood thing down before. I was stupid, now I'm in the know.

-My wife doesn't understand me.

-My parents were smart.

- I got a vasectomy. It hurt yo.

-Sentimental post about children growing up too fast. Enjoy yours!

- I found a hobby!

- I'm not just a Dad Blogger. At this point some will renounce the term altogether and take a giant crap on others who are not as far along in the cycle. After all, It's all inane drivel now that I've already been through the things you are just experiencing for the first time.

- I think I might have to delete my old blog so as not to ruin my children's school life.

- Writing about your kids is a bad idea. Here's why.

-Sentimental post about children growing up too fast.

-I thought I had this fatherhood thing down before. I was stupid, now I'm in the know.

- From now on call me Blue Soccer Buddha. Here's my new link.

- Why my blog is awesome (or why I'm retiring my blog)

- Kids these days are crazy. More parents should be like we were back in the day.

-Empty nest approaching. Lessons learned.

-What I won't miss about a house full of kids.

-Things I'll miss about a house full of kids.

-Open letter to my children about parenting.

-I thought I had this fatherhood thing down before. I was stupid, now I'm in the know.

-Why grandkids are great.

-Things my kids taught me about parenting.

-My kids think they know it all, and they started a twoog about it (similar to a blog, but in the future).

- Hey, I wrote a book. Check it out at www.manupthebook.com (disclaimer: I didn't write that book).

-I thought I had this fatherhood thing down before. I was stupid, now I realize the teaching and the learning will never end.

-I'm a twooger!? In the olden days, we had blogs. Hey, I should write about that!

13 comments:

  1. Dude, thank you! No dad blogger need ever suffer writer's block again. Seriously, you totally nailed the whole thing and anyone that doesn't see themselves in this post somewhere is just plain lying!

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  2. This made me chuckle, you're spot on with so many of them. I've only been blogging for a bit over three months and I've already ticked off quite a few of these!

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  3. I'm always here to serve. Thanks for reading, Barmy!

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  4. The first part of the list is probably most accurate as those are the ones I've already done and experienced. Haha!

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  5. Good job, my friend!! You seemed to have hit the blogger/dad benchmark flawlessly. :)

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  6. I think I skipped directly to sentimental, then to the following: throw your hands up and privately declare blogging an essence-less enterprise and start writing anarchistic tales of whatever-you-want while still, ironically, obsessively watching the audience exodus via Google Analytics. (I aspire to be to marketing what The Producers is to successful theatre. So far so good.)

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  7. Haha! But I think you forgot, "I got something for free! This blogging thing is really paying off!!"

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  8. I think you're more like the Aristocrats to stand-up comedy....

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  9. True. I had to keep a few things set back for myself.

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  10. A twoog! I guess it really doesn't sound any more crazy than saying blog.

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  11. I know, right? Who would have though "blog" or "google" would be words? Thanks for stopping by!

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  12. Well, I guess I have my road map of dad blogging planned out! As a new guy to this game (fatherhood, not writing) it's great to see what I might be in store for. Thanks.

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  13. Thanks for reading, Matt. Glad I could show you the way. LOL.

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