MetroDad: Pater familias

As you can probably tell from this website's design (which may best be described as a pumpkin tossed onto a pile of shit), I'm relatively new at this blogging thing. I've only really been blogging for a few months. Before that, I didn't even know what a blog was. I discovered them by accident when my lovely wife, the BossLady, became pregnant and I wanted to find a community of like-minded fathers and fathers-to-be.

Now don't get me wrong. Although I bought my wives off the Internet, I've never really had much desire to meet my fellow citizens on-line in the much-talked about "internet community." I'm usually more of a face-to-face kind of guy. I like seeing whether people shake hands firmly and look you straight in the eye or whether they have one of those sweaty, limp handshakes and can only stare at their own feet. Being a stickler for good manners, I also like to meet people in person to see whether they have decent social graces. Do they hold the door open for women? Will they say "bless you" when I sneeze? Do they have the decency to understand the merits of a courtesy flush? Nothing pisses me off more than rude people.

Anyway, what the hell was I talking about? Oh yeah...my search for a community of like-minded fathers. Well, at first, it didn't quite work out as planned. Everyone told me that I'd meet people at Lamaze class, Infant CPR or at Baby Care & Feeding. Maybe even in Fatherhood 101. Since I was taking so many parenting classes, everyone figured I was sure to meet some like-minded fathers somewhere! But unfortunately I didn't. Maybe it was karma. Maybe it was bad luck. But, for whatever reason, I ended up meeting the most random group of fathers-to-be that you could ever imagine. First, half the guys were completely uninterested in any of the classes and were clearly only there because their wives had threatened them. Second, more than a few of the other guys seemed generally interested in being fathers but were so mild-mannered that you could barely hear them. Anyway, those were generally not my kind of guys.

From there, things tended to get even stranger. I met one guy in Lamaze whose parents were 60's radicals. He had spent most of his life as a fugitive from the law. I thought he was really cool but then he overheard me calling him Little Nikita and our friendship was over before it began. Another guy I thought was cool was an actor/bartender/contractor. For those of you living outside of Manhattan, this means that he was a bartender. Locally, we call people like this "/slashes/" and I didn't think it would be a very good idea for me to befriend a bartender while my wife was pregnant. You know. That whole "lead me not into temptation" thing. The only other guy who had friend potential was this really cool tattooed and multi-pierced lighting designer of Off-Broadway shows. We hung out for awhile but I don't think I was cool or hip enough for him (and you have no idea how much it pains me to say that.)

Anyway, for the most part, the only thing that I seemed to have in common with most of these guys was that we'd impregnated our wives somewhere around December 31, 2003. Not much of a bonding connection.

So it was in search of a more like-minded community of fathers and fathers-to-be that I discovered blogs. I was searching for guys who, at first glance, might never have been mistaken for dedicated and committed fathers but yet were guys who were serious about being truly great fathers and, most importantly, still retained a sense of humor about their lives. I was seeking guys who had enjoyed the freedom of not being a parent but were now ready to embark on a new journey and most of all, were guys who I could either learn from or share common experiences with.

So turning to the Internet, I began my search. And did I find the kind of guys I was looking for? In short...absolutely not! What I found was an avalanche of mommy blogs, one after the other. The number of mommy blogs actually seemed endless. It didn't matter whether you could spell correctly or understood even the most basic nuances of proper grammar, every mother in the world seemed to have their own blog. Sometimes, the minutiae of it all could choke a horse. But you know what? I literally (ok..maybe just figuratively) read EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. (Here, the casual reader may very well ask, "Well really, MetroDad. Surely you jest. In actuality, just how many mommy blogs did you truly read?" To which this author humbly replies, "Let's just say this, my friends. I even read the fucking knitting ones.")

But eventually, some great mommy blogs turned me on to some cool fathering blogs. Like the red-headed step-children of the internet, the community of fathers who blog about fatherhood as a theme is disquietingly near extinction. In comparison to the number of mommy bloggers out there, the number of fathers doing the same is so paltry that they're actually difficult to locate. But, like wild boars sniffing in shit for black truffles, if you look hard enough, you'll find real treasures. And so it was in my quest to find my own Fathers of the Round Table.

By looking around incessantly, I discovered a group of really cool and GREAT fathers...guys like the Zero Boss, Laid-Off Dad, DaddyTypes, and Human Writes. From there, I met guys like Genuine, modern day dad and Daily Yak. And though I'd never met any of them, I could surmise from their writing that these were my kinds of guys. They talked openly and honestly about what it meant for them to be fathers. They wrote of the highs and, equally important, they didn't shy away from discussing the lows.

So I started this blog to join in the conversation with these gentlemen. And in a Haley Joel Osmet, Pay It Forward sort of way, I seem to have similarly been discovered by a great group of future like-minded fathers. For example, I've recently "met" Brandon over at Brain Dump, who I'm sure I know from a past life one way or the other and whose wife is pregnant for the first time. Short Story Dude is an expectant father who continues to crack me up on daily basis. Then, there's my long-lost, hip-hop loving, Asian step-brother Oliver over at O-Dub, whose wife just gave birth to a beautiful new daughter this week. And similarly, I've also met a few new dads who have entered the blogging world recently to document their own journeys into fatherhood; guys like fellow New Yorker Ideashak, more diapers, and F-Bomb.

More than anything, I wish them all the best and look forward to having them joining in the conversation. So whether you're a new dad, a dad-to-be or a slightly-used dad, go check these guys out. We need more guys writing about fatherhood out there.

And while you're at it, guys? Leave me a comment so I know you're out there. Otherwise, I might feel like I'm talking to myself again and my therapist will have to up the dosage.