Red Hot Chili Papas

Kara's Father's day bloggect seemed a good time to reveal that MOTHER-WOMAN blogging is actually all about Dads. Can you believe it?? I love Dads. I am a bonefide Daddy's girl and to be honest I hope my girl is too.

I thought I understood a lot about Dads cause, well, I can be an egomaniac. So when, our first year of parenthood elapsed and I was so perplexed by the new Dad in this house, the infamous p-man, I was rattled. I realized I needed to get help with questions like... What is he doing? Is he ok with this? He seems sort of off-put or wayward. Weird. Usually addicted to big dog-itis there is suddenly some sort of mommy-deference-mantra. Is it me? Can this be right? Damn his inscrutable nature... Where can I find me some empirical evidence, please. What should this be like?

I put on my best Batgirl hat and declared: 'This sounds like a case for the INTERNET!'

Around this time I was off for a number of weeks due to a province wide teachers strike. I had to keep up on the news in case of a sudden settlement, yeah right, so I got surfing with my new laptop. I bounced from cbc.ca, to Google news, this got me into, I think it was, the bosh first and then celebritybaby.com (blush). On CBB there is a link to Daddytypes, the weblog for new Dads...

I hopped over to Daddytypes and read some great stuff by Greg. My interest was piqued. Although, I do in the overall reject the trappings of anthropological study (read too hard for me)... I can sometimes get sucked in. All can be demystified with just a little field work. So it began.

I love Dads.
I love Dads who blog.
I love blogs.

From Daddytypes I jumped to learning all good things t-shirt on Sweet Juniper.
I nodded vigorously at MetroDad's comments on Dutch's posts, better check him out.
Which led me to Dadcentric and Cheeky's Hideaway, Jason et al.

Sometime after this I clued in that there were Mamas blogging, too, but that was, of course, secondary to my fieldwork. Observing Dads in their internet environment was what I 'needed'. Was pretty damn excellent to get a backstage pass into some rather righteous child-rearin'. It emboldened me to start our blog, as a parent tag team, nicely skirting a lot of junk -- at that point unbeknownst to me -- about Mommyblog politics.

But back to the Superfriends of Internet Dad-dom... These are the archetypes of modern male parenting? What are they saying as they cycle from Consumer Reports to Chaos Theory to Boob reportage? Tell me: what is it all about Alfie?

'P-man ya gotta take a look at this.' I'd say reading something over. Oh, come on I know you are gonna love this guy. Are you reading x? what about y? All the subsequent laptop passing, snickering and sniping was good; the blog we built has thanks to these first indulgences has been good.

Parenting has not been some relationship cinch for me and the p-man. I was glad to have the talking points, big, small, silly, and wise from the circle of fellas I found out there last autumn. I wonder if it occured to you when you started our your enterprises that it would fill a need like mine - that any Mom a bit tongue-tied on the road to co-parenting would benefit so enormously from having the chance to peek into your homes, your fatherhood. Well, it has.

Gentlemen, have a great day this Sunday.