Some backstory: I was stoked to join the Babble collective, not because the writers were "hip" and urbane (it can be argued that I am neither - the last accessory I bought for myself was one of these, because it's the same bag used by Agent Bauer, and now I have a JackSack! Cool!), but because the site devotes an (almost) equal amount of bandwidth to dads. This is a rare thing in the world of parental publications.
Today's edition of USA Today offers up a brief take on the "hipster dad phenomenon". With Neal Pollack's Alternadad hitting the shelves, there's been a bit of murmuring in traditional print media about the nature of modern fatherhood. Olivia Barker's piece, unlike some of the borderline snide "reporting" on "hipster dads" that we've seen of late (I'm talking to you, New York magazine), presents a pretty positive take on this segment of the dad population.
One of my biggest beefs, as a father and as a writer, is the almost complete lack of media attention paid to dads; even so-called "parenting" magazines skew heavily toward mothers, and as Rebel Dad Brian Reid points out, it's hard out here for a daddy writer. Whether or not you buy into the concept of the hipster dad (I kinda don't), it's good to see that there's (fingers crossed) a growing interest in the other half of the parenting equation.
