You mad?
Grow up and stop being so fucking ignorant. You're a damn embarrassment to Dr. King and his legacy.
To be clear, I'm not addressing all black folks here – because the overwhelming majority of my black followers are kind, clear-thinking, and intelligent individuals.
It's just that the dumbest ones are usually the loudest ones.
I have a dream that people will view a man's love for fatherhood for what it is instead of thinking there's something "fishy" going on.
A lot of people really dig the fact that I dig daddying (yes, I made it a verb) as much as I do. However, since I started my blog 17 months ago, I've come across some people who will look at me and think, "There's no way this guy can be as passionate about fatherhood as he is. I bet he's using his kids in an attempt to become rich and famous." It's sad.
Think of the Mommy blogs you like to follow (some of which have a larger following than I have). If they share their love for motherhood, you probably wouldn't think twice about it because that's what moms are "supposed to do," right? But if a human being with a penis shares the same passion for being a parent, it somehow becomes strange and fishy? And that makes sense…how, exactly?
I love being a dad and I love sharing my love of fatherhood with others. Shit, being a dad is one of the few things in life I'm actually good at. Of course I'm going to be passionate about this gig. My dream is that ALL people will embrace men who embrace fatherhood instead of wondering if they have ulterior motives. Remember, we're the good guys in this fight.
I have a dream that people will view a picture like this and not think it's such a big deal.
Don't get me wrong here – it's a very cute picture, and it's cool when people say so. However, I start to get a little uncomfortable when people want to start planning parade routes for me because of it. Somewhere there's a dad doing the exact same thing for his daughters. Somewhere there's a dad who put his foot down with his boss and refused to attend an "urgent staff meeting" so he could leave work early to attend his daughter's dance recital. Somewhere there's a single dad successfully getting his three sons ready for school. Somewhere there's a stay at home dad crushing all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry for his family. Somewhere there's a dad who would rather play catch in the backyard with his son instead of killing pixelated terrorists on his Xbox.
In other words, there are plenty of good, involved dads out there. Many of them are reading this post right now.
I've posted hundreds of pictures of my family since I started blogging and I had no idea that this one would cause such a seismic shift on the WWW. But what if I posted a picture of my wife doing what I did in that picture? Many would probably think it's cute, but after ten seconds of looking at it, they would probably move on to the next shiny object on their newsfeed. Why? Because it just wouldn't be a big deal to many people if a woman did it.
Until we can get to the point where men and women can complete the same parenting tasks and the reactions are the same, we will have problems. If you want to create a statue for me for taking care of my daughters, create one for the moms who are doing the same damn thing everyday for their kids without receiving a "Thank you" or an "Ooooh" or "Ahhhh."
These behaviors should be expected of moms and dads. No exceptions.
That ends my rant.
For many of you, this is the first blog post you've ever read from me. Just so you know, I'm usually the lighthearted guy online and I'm rarely this angry – but today I had to regulate a bit.
In time you'll determine if you love me or hate me. If you love me, that's good news because I'm going to continue doing the stuff you love. If you hate me, that's bad news because I'm going to continue doing the stuff you hate. If you fall into the "hate" category, just send my blog to all of your enemies (that'll show 'em). For the rest of you, I'm so humbled and happy to be a guy you follow and enjoy as we embark on this crazy road of parenthood together.
On a side note, I wrote this entire post while my baby girl was sleeping on me in the Ergo.
It's not a big deal. That's just what a Daddy Doin' Work is supposed to do.
Boom.
