Dad
Top 50 Dad Blogs of 2012
Last year, when we inaugurated our Top 50 Dad Blogs list, we praised dad bloggers for “changing the way we think about fatherhood.” Indeed, a number of our favorite bloggers on this, our second Top 50 list, insist our thinking needs to be changed. They describe themselves as advocates for fathers, taking to their keyboards in order to counter dominant cultural stereotypes of dad-as-incompetent-buffoon. (You don’t believe them? Tune in to most any family sitcom on most any night of the week.) Others on the list aspire simply to entertain us with funny, relatable tales from the trenches. A few write to work through the shattering grief of losing a child or spouse.
This list features straight dads, gay dads, working dads, stay-at-home dads, geek dads, single dads, and more. In a culture where the dominant conversations around fatherhood center simply on whether dads can deign to change their kid's diaper, it's refreshing to see these guys take the public perception of parents into their own hands. We are again struck by the variety of their voices and experiences, which itself puts the lie to the notion of any one “typical dad.” A lot of our favorites from last year are back, while many worthy entrants are making their debuts. We hope you’ll enjoy laughing, crying, nodding, and discovering along with them as much as we have. As dads' online influence grows, this list will only become more and more difficult to curate — and that's a good problem to have. If you think we missed any of your favorite dad bloggers, nominate them here. – Barbara Spindel and the dad blog panel
35 / 50
Moe Daniels, Father Muskrat
Father Muskrat is not for the faint of heart. Moe Daniels’s blog is named for the code word used in Meet the Fockers by Blythe Danner’s Dina to rein in Robert De Niro’s Jack when he’s veering into inappropriate territory. You’ll find reason to cry “muskrat!” in virtually every post on this blog. An Iraq veteran and self-employed attorney who lives in Atlanta with his wife and four kids, Daniels, who also blogs at DadCentric, hits a wide range of topics, from his painful hemorrhoids (“a twisting hot poker tip in my ass” — you get the point) to why his 10-month-old son is obviously a stoner (eats weird food combinations; sits and stares; sleeps all day; uh, “lack of libido”). Father Muskrat sometimes drinks too much and throws up all over the lawn while his children gather around, asking him if he’s okay. He’s even posted a picture of his posterior region.
But all subjects, profane or not, are treated with the same sharp wit. Posting pictures of his children on the first day of school, he wrote this caption underneath a smiley shot of one of his younger kids: “And this is her little sister, giving the world a shit-eating grin that says, ‘I don’t start back to preschool ’til after Labor Day, bitches!’ To paraphrase one commenter on the site, if loving him is wrong, we don’t want to be right.
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I am humbled to be included.
Many thanks.
Mitch