#OccupyBabble is over. And I’m declaring victory.

Bold statement? Maybe. But I gotta be honest with you: I’m feeling more than a bit smug. A few weeks back, when Babble did yet another Top 50 Moms list, a few of us dads raised an eyebrow. Yet another shout out to blogging moms from a “parenting” website whose content was overwhelmingly written by, for, and about mothers. To be clear, Babble isn’t the only parenting publication that gives dads the short shrift – in fact, all of them do. So we crashed the party, and one slightly controversial Top 50 Dad Blogs List later (where’s DaddyTypes?), we have a seat at the table.

While I’d agree that 2011 has been a bit of a breakout year for dad bloggers, I’d like to point out that dads have been writing about their experiences online since the dawn of the Internet. Six years ago, a few months after my son was born, I opened up a Blogger account because I wanted to document my experiences, recording my life as seen through the prism of fatherhood. I didn’t give much thought to a name – back then, there were no Social Media Gurus to guide us through the vast wilderness of cyberspace – so I copped the title from a Jerky Boys routine I was listening to while setting up my account. And then I started writing. About my kid, about being a dad, about anything and everything that came to mind. (I’ll share something that I’ve never told anyone – the REAL reason I started a blog? We lived in a tiny two-bedroom condo, and where the hell was I going to store all of those notebooks?) I quickly found that I wasn’t the only one out there doing this – I made friends with a few other guys online, and one day I thought it might be fun to team up and do a group dadblog, something that hadn’t been done before. Thus DadCentric was born.

Six years, thousands of words, cups of coffee, glasses of Scotch and wine, late nights, impossibly early mornings, inspiring comments, maddening trolls, and all of the other highs and lows that come with plastering one’s parenting life up on the vast wall of the Internet – and still, when people come to me and say “Wow, I didn’t know dads blogged!”, I get excited. I tell them what I’ll now share with you, who may have just said the same thing.

• Yes, dads blog. In fact, there are LOTS of dads blogging, and the number grows every day. Babble’s Top 50 Dad Blog list is an excellent place to start; DadCentric’s Twitter stream maintains a growing list of great dad bloggers. In fact, I just checked it, found another good one – welcome aboard, A Dad’s Mind! – and it’s now at 168. Google “daddy blog” and you’ll get 304,000 results.
• There’s an incredible amount of cultural, ethic, and political diversity amongst dad bloggers. The guys at Rice Daddies, Fred at Mocha Dad and Eric at Makes Me Wanna Holler, Trey at Daddy, Pappa and Me, Tim at Army Dad – all fine examples of dads that don’t conform to stereotypes.
• Dad blogs are not just about parenting. I’ve been asked on more than one occasion to define “dad blog” – indeed, I’ve been told that my site’s not really a dad blog because where’s all the stuff about changing diapers and watching my kid play a tree in the school play? Most of my favorite dad bloggers are doing what I mentioned earlier – viewing the world through the prism of fatherhood. Dads are writing about politics, pop culture, science and technology, art, economics, religion, you name it. Being a dad colors every aspect of our lives, and informs our stories, ideas, musings, and opinions.

So that should get you started. I’ve given you a bunch of dad blogs to check out – did I miss anyone? Feel free to give your favorites a shoutout in the comments section. I hate to cut and run, but the kids are awake and clamoring for breakfast. It’s a dad’s life, y’all.

Read more of Jason’s writing at DadCentric.

And don’t miss a post! Follow Jason on Twitter!

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