Dad Bloggers Can Suck It!

I came across this little gem from Babble.com. Right now they are running a deal where you can nominate and vote for your choice to be among their list of the Top 50 Mommy Bloggers. That's all fine and dandy; in fact several of the people on the list I consider to be personal friends who are absolutely deserving of such an honor. Then why am I writing this?

Well, I'm pretty sure everyone knows how I feel about mommy bloggers. They deserve a great deal of credit for what they've accomplished and I certainly don't want to take anything away from them. Yet, when I see lists like this, I can't help but wonder why dad bloggers are snubbed.

There are a number of guys out their are doing great things in the bloggospher. DadCentric, Dadlabs, DadWagon, and a slue of others that day in and day out reach large parenting audiences only to be snubbed by "parenting" webzines and publications. These guys have all earned attention from the likes of CBS, CNN and USA Today just to mention a few, and still, there's been very little if any validation at all within the parent blog niche.

In my opinion, this is part of a bigger misconception--the one about dads having little to offer in the way of parenting. Remember? We're the fat oafs that can't change a diaper, the ones marketers shy away from unless it's some gadgety doohikey with all manor of bells and whistles. Basically we dad bloggers can go suck it.

I guess there's a part of this that gets my ire. Remember the flack networks and print media was hit with over not having more female reports and visible sportscasters? If you take a look at such publications as Parent and Parenting magazines you'll notice that the overwhelming majority (almost 100%) of their contributing writers are women, and I've heard from several credible sources that, unless you're a doctor or some kind of parenting expert, it's tough to get published with them as a man. (*Update* But that's not always the case as talented journalist Aaron of the dad blog "Daddy Files" proves with his upcoming article in Parents.) One the surface, this would present a double standard of sorts--one that I believe is carrying over to the Mommy/Daddy Blogging arena.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not out to malign Babble or any of these other media sources. After all, they're are trying to cater to a demographic made up largely of mothers. However it would be nice to have a little male representation given that dads are more involved in the parenting process than ever before.

PS. I probably shouldn't have done this, but I went to the Babble site and nominated myself as a Dad Blogger. I guess I saw it as a form of signing a petition meant to get Babble's attention. I did go and vote for a mommy blogger to make up for it because there are some fabulous moms on the list, but I had to wonder what would happen if every dad blogger I could think of "signed" the petition by adding themselves to the list. Somebody's got to be the first guy hired to wait tables at Hooters.