Don’t Be This Dad

Posted on 09. Aug, 2010 by Brian Reid.

Lest you think all I do is post pieces about how great dads are, I feel I must put a link up to my college buddy Eric Lipman’s post at Legal Blog Watch about a father who was daddying under the influence and was, subsequently, arrested and sentenced to a year of probation.

So, word to the wise: if you need to hold the stroller to stay upright, maybe you should pause for a moment and reconsider your choices. Just saying.

[Though I don't want to imply that the father here is an alcoholic, I do want to be sensitive to the topic. There is no question that drinking problems are serious, and hats off to those that have remained sober. This is a good excuse to link to Mike Adamick's brilliant and moving guest post for the NYT's Motherload blog last year: "Gins of our Fathers." If you haven't read that yet, please click over and check it out.]

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Ur Doin It Wrong: Silliest PR Pitches of the Summer

Posted on 08. Aug, 2010 by Brian Reid.

I have to admit: I don’t have much use for PR pitches to me as a parenting blogger. Most PR folks are pitching products (in one form or another), and I have to admit that I really don’t care about stuff you can buy. I care deeply about where dads fit in the social fabric. I’m immensely curious about how dads are portrayed in the media. Everything else: meh.

That doesn’t mean that I mind getting pitches from people who want to get their viewpoint across across. Pitch away! I’m very good with my delete button. No harm done.

Here is my only requirement: please do your best to note that I am a man/father/dad. (It’s right there in the title of my blog: “REBELDAD.”) This is not because I’m somehow insecure in my masculinity. It’s that I believe deeply that fathers are not interchangeable with moms. We bring different things to the table, and lumping us all together isn’t cool.

That said, here are the people on my last nerve. The Activision people are at the top of list, trying to sell me what could have been an interesting event in this way:

To Our Favorite Mommy Bloggers:

On behalf of Activision, we’d like to invite you to an exclusive media preview activity in New York City to get an in-depth look at the hotly anticipated Activision title for 2010: Tony Hawk: SHRED …

Should I be flattered to be on a list of most-favored moms?

The Manzetta people tried this subject line. Fail:

Moms, put your sandwich-making skills to the test. Mezzetta’s $25K prize Make that Sandwich Contest is on!

BlogHer — a huge gathering of bloggers, including gobs of blogging mothers — is going on right now, which means that there are probably gobs of marketers ready to redouble their efforts to catch the wave. If so — word to the wise — feel free to include us dads in the effort. Just remember: we don’t like being called ma’am.

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Dads: Happy Parents

Posted on 04. Aug, 2010 by Brian Reid.

Of the many things I missed during my now-completed summer hiatus (sorry about that!) was a New York Magazine story titled All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting. It got a ton of attention, and I decided not to comment on it for the simple reason that a) it had been totally dissected by every other parent with an Internet connect and b) happiness research is a pretty sketchy science, and I would hate to validate the research or the journalism by carping on it.

But I’m bringing it up for two reasons:

1. I want to find an excuse to “For Jessica,” a blog post written ostensibly in response to some of research about why parenting doesn’t make us happier. The word I saw used to describe the post is “devastating,” and that about sums it up. I’m not sure a blog has ever made me cry before. Neither parenting nor happiness can be broken down well into data points.

2. I want to find an excuse to find to this NPR segment in which some dads talk with the author of the New York piece about why dads, in general, seem to be happier when it comes to parenting. It features the wonderful Jason Sperber of Rice Daddies, and it touches on some of my favorite topics: the increasing work-life balance issues for men, the differences in expectations and the like.

I’m loathe to float my own theories on why dads appear to be happier, given that I’m suspicious of the research in the first place, but this seems as good a time as any to bust out with one of my favorite assertions: the one thing that fathers do better than mothers is parent without worrying about judgment from others. From what I’ve seen, dads almost never feel like they’re not living up to some unattainable standard. And that makes me happy.

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