greetings. welcome to the blog. maybe you’re here because you saw me in a little rock family story about the top local bloggers. i’m the large, hairy woman in the middle. you know, the one who looks like the offspring of a lumberjack and a grizzly bear. yeah, that’s me.

the lone dude.

I was glad to be asked to take part in the story by jennifer pyron, editor of little rock family. (as a matter of full disclosure, jennifer is a coworker, as I am the advertising art director for arkansas business publishing group, the umbrella company of little rock family.) there was suppsed to be one other male blogger, apparently, but his wife came in his place (if i understood correctly).

this is probably a good moment to pause and address something that has come up in a couple real life conversations as well as in social media outlets. the following sentence has generated a little “controversy” (for lack of a better word): *Here, we’ve pulled together a group of talented women (and one man!) who live, work and blog in central Arkansas.* of course, the thing that has tripped up a few people—and even me on first read—is the “and one man!” part. on the surface, it would seem that it shows a little surprise that there’s actually a man who can blog or, more specifically, blog about family-related issues. it might seem like a poor choice of words—and maybe it is—but as someone who knows jennifer, i can literally hear her saying this line and laughing in a sorta disarming way. sure, it probably draws undue attention to the fact that it’s very slanted toward a single gender, but i know jennifer’s intention wasn’t to do that. for what it’s worth, i thought i’d put that out there.

so, alas, is was me & 12 little rock mommies. I was left to carry the mantle of daddy blogging all by myself. and ultimately, I’m cool with that. (and it was good to reconnect with several blogosphere/twitter friends that I hadn’t seen in awhile or never met.)

the day of the photoshoot, several of us joked about me being the only dad involved. (we vowed to register www.littlerockfathershatetheirfamilies.com.) in the midst of our joking, though, I couldn’t help but to think that there’s probably quite a bit of cultural dynamics at play in this realization. it’s worth stating, first, that by no means do I consider this a “family”-centric blog. it’s really my space to talk about—as the tagline reads—life, theology and culture. but certainly, at the core of all 3 of those things is my wife and 3 children. life certainly speaks for itself. to talk of god and divorce the ramifications for my family is pointless and to even talk about popular culture without regard to how it interplays with my family is somewhat dishonest. nevertheless, though, I don’t—like many other bloggers in the feature—solely dedicate my blog as a space to feature every movement of my childrens’ lives (not that that’s not an engaging/interesting thing to do).

with all that said, I’m curious as to why the pool of “daddy bloggers” is so shallow. I’m not so naive as to not understand the cultural gender norms of our society. i get it. I’m also not so cynical or judgmental as to feel compelled to rail against these norms (I’ll save that for another time). 🙂 but undoubtedly, there’s ample room to question why, of all the bloggers in little rock (and surrounding areas), only 1 single dad—who only occasionally blogs about his children—can be scrounged up. dads, where are you?

again, I certainly don’t mean this as an indictment. please understand my intentions. more to the point, it’s a bit of a challenge for dads who blog to offer a more holistic view of your life.

talk about work. talk about your hobbies. talk about your gadgets. talk about your favorite team.

and also talk about your family. talk about how amazing your wife is. talk about what makes your children incredible & unique. talk about how you engage your family.

in the meantime, i’ll be the lone dude. the big hairy guy on the tunnel. surrounded by mommy bloggers.

maybe next year, they’ll feature 13 local daddy bloggers. how ’bout it guys?

i thought it might be helpful to get a running list of local daddy bloggers. by that, i mean men who actually at least occasionally blog about their family (as opposed to just fathers who have blogs). feel free to leave a comment with suggestions/links.