Since I started this blog a couple of weeks ago, I've suddenly noticed a proliferation of public dads on the web and in the general media. They're on the news. They're in the movies. They're releasing books all over the place. More than a dozen of these media/publishing dads have added me on my extremely humble Twitter account. I'm one of these media dads myself. So, where did we all come from? As I see it there are several possible causes for this phenomenon:
To me, the third possibility is the most interesting, and I think it probably because it matches up best with my own story (Clever marketers take note: I'm broke! Sorry, lol). I'm blogging because I have a lot of time on my hands, and I want to do something productive and relatively meaningful. I figure that, if nothing else, this blog will provide an honest record of my thoughts during my kid's earliest days. It's the kind of thing I wish my own dad had done for me when I was floating around in the womb, unborn.
If it is the case that there are a lot of other unemployed or underemployed young dads out there, I also wonder how much of our increased involvement with pregnancy and child-rearing has to do with some unfulfilled biological need to do something useful with our time. In general, masculine roles in society have changed a lot since I was born 35 years ago, and these days I don' think a lot of men know exactly how to be a beneficial force in the world. It wasn't so long ago that you'd never see a man taking care of a baby, let alone writing about it, unless it was done in some kind of farcical, insincere way that underhandedly mocked supposed women's roles. Now it seems like a way to participate in one of the most important events in a lot of people's lives.
Please don't take me the wrong way. I'm decidedly not one of the reactionaries who laments the decline of a restrictive patriarchal masculinity. In fact, I think that regardless of the historical reasons for the shift to more public fatherhood, it could have a very positive impact in the long run. I just find the whole thing to be tantalizing food for thought. I'd love to hear others' stories on why they're involved with the mediasphere, or public parenting in general. Perhaps it can even give me a little more insight into my own reasons!
- These media dads have been there all along and I'm just noticing them now because it finally matters
- Suddenly clever marketing teams have discovered that the media-dad market is WAY under-tapped
- There are suddenly more young fathers with more time on their hands, because they're all unemployed
To me, the third possibility is the most interesting, and I think it probably because it matches up best with my own story (Clever marketers take note: I'm broke! Sorry, lol). I'm blogging because I have a lot of time on my hands, and I want to do something productive and relatively meaningful. I figure that, if nothing else, this blog will provide an honest record of my thoughts during my kid's earliest days. It's the kind of thing I wish my own dad had done for me when I was floating around in the womb, unborn.
If it is the case that there are a lot of other unemployed or underemployed young dads out there, I also wonder how much of our increased involvement with pregnancy and child-rearing has to do with some unfulfilled biological need to do something useful with our time. In general, masculine roles in society have changed a lot since I was born 35 years ago, and these days I don' think a lot of men know exactly how to be a beneficial force in the world. It wasn't so long ago that you'd never see a man taking care of a baby, let alone writing about it, unless it was done in some kind of farcical, insincere way that underhandedly mocked supposed women's roles. Now it seems like a way to participate in one of the most important events in a lot of people's lives.
Please don't take me the wrong way. I'm decidedly not one of the reactionaries who laments the decline of a restrictive patriarchal masculinity. In fact, I think that regardless of the historical reasons for the shift to more public fatherhood, it could have a very positive impact in the long run. I just find the whole thing to be tantalizing food for thought. I'd love to hear others' stories on why they're involved with the mediasphere, or public parenting in general. Perhaps it can even give me a little more insight into my own reasons!
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