Dad
Top 50 Dad Blogs of 2012
Last year, when we inaugurated our Top 50 Dad Blogs list, we praised dad bloggers for “changing the way we think about fatherhood.” Indeed, a number of our favorite bloggers on this, our second Top 50 list, insist our thinking needs to be changed. They describe themselves as advocates for fathers, taking to their keyboards in order to counter dominant cultural stereotypes of dad-as-incompetent-buffoon. (You don’t believe them? Tune in to most any family sitcom on most any night of the week.) Others on the list aspire simply to entertain us with funny, relatable tales from the trenches. A few write to work through the shattering grief of losing a child or spouse.
This list features straight dads, gay dads, working dads, stay-at-home dads, geek dads, single dads, and more. In a culture where the dominant conversations around fatherhood center simply on whether dads can deign to change their kid's diaper, it's refreshing to see these guys take the public perception of parents into their own hands. We are again struck by the variety of their voices and experiences, which itself puts the lie to the notion of any one “typical dad.” A lot of our favorites from last year are back, while many worthy entrants are making their debuts. We hope you’ll enjoy laughing, crying, nodding, and discovering along with them as much as we have. As dads' online influence grows, this list will only become more and more difficult to curate — and that's a good problem to have. If you think we missed any of your favorite dad bloggers, nominate them here. – Barbara Spindel and the dad blog panel
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Dad Wagon
Dad Wagon, which ranked #4 on last year’s group blog list, has been blessed by no less an authority than Parents magazine as “a little better than most blogs.” That’s no surprise given that the dads helming this operation boast some serious journalistic bona fides — Nathan Thornburgh, Matt Gross, and Theodore Ross have written for the New York Times, Saveur, Time, and New York magazine, among others, and Ross recently published a memoir, Am I a Jew? Their prodigious skill set shows in the quality of the writing. The categories are funny (“Dad + Gadget = Fail,” “Bad Dads We Love,” “The Tantrum,” “Actual Advice,” and our personal fave, “What Almost Made Me Cry Today”). And even the disclaimer is hilarious. (In it, they acknowledge that sponsored posts are necessary to keep the blog running but lament that they take time away “from the core work of DadWagon, i.e., congratulating ourselves on being awesome fathers while simultaneously violating our children’s privacy without their consent.”) If you’ve fallen off this wagon, get back on board!
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I am humbled to be included.
Many thanks.
Mitch