Mums’ blogs and communities are one of the strongest social media verticals but Dads’ blogs are few and far between and good ones are extremely hard to find.
Parenting isn’t equitable between the sexes of course. But Dads are more involved than any other previous generation in the upbringing for their children and Dads as the primary career are increasingly common. At least that’s what our work for Tesco Baby tells us.
Yet this level of involvement isn’t spilling over into online conversations. Why is that? I polled my Twitter network on the topic last week and received a variety of answers.
Thanks to @markpinsent, @mynameisearl, @dannyWhatmough, @rhoughton, @andismit and @katiemoffat.
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Don’t we have to think about who the mums are that blog? Are they mainly on maternity leave/stay at home and therefore, in theory, have more time to blog than their working partner, and also more keen on sharing information with other mums to help cope with day to day life of bringing up children.
If the Dad is the primary worker, a) he is at work and can’t blog about being a dad, b) goes home and spends time with the children rather than blog about what he would be doing with them if he wasn’t blogging.
Just had a big debate with ‘im indoors about this…..
Possibly the same answer as stems from how many parenting books have you read? How many playgroups/parent and toddler sessions have you attended? How many online parenting networks have you joined? Can you honestly say the inner workings of being a parent interests you? beyond being a dad and what your own kids are up to?
I expect it is a simple question of supply and demand…..Dads are interested in their own kids and “being a dad” but not to the extent of benchmarking themselves against other dads (which a lot of these mum networks and communities enable us to do) or reseaching the inner psychology of parenting….
My husband will spend 4/5 hours online researching a basic tech product (i.e. a case for the computer he is building) before he buys it….but he has yet to even look at the Ofsted site once regarding our daughters school? Does he care? Of course but not enough to need to dig beneath the info I provide him. Ditto parenting…..
Sorry…waffling now but to answer the question “why are there so few daddy bloggers?” I suspect it is because there are so few dads who’d read them…….
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I agree with Becks but I think another key issue is that the majority (I know not all but still the majority) of early years care is done by the female and it’s at this early stage that (especially with first child) we tend to want to endlessly debate the minutiae of being a parent. Add to that the fact that lots of women start blogging when pregnant and then carry on into babyhood.
Completely agree with Katie and Becky….just look at traditional media and consider who parenting, baby magazines and who the majority of titles and articles are aimed at.
Good point about mums being an active group of UK bloggers but the reality is that relatively few active online mums become bloggers rather than joining other groups and networks such as mumsnet, badmothersclub, ivillage etc. Those who have have many different motivations but I guess it’s about feel confident enough that your individual experience of parenthood is something that you can write confidently about. What are the statistics? How many dads in the UK are the primary carer for their kids?
At the risk of getting a dead leg and a chinese burn from MR G if he ever reads this…….when left alone with the kids for any period of time, my husband can struggle with, for the want of a better phrase, household and kid management (i.e tidy, cook, pay bills, do the laundry, post letters, remember outings/packed lunches, doctors/dentist appointments, play dates, after school clubs etc) If I suggested that he blogged about his experiences, he’d snort and probably explode….he’d much rather talk about bicycles.
There are some Dad bloggers out there such as Craig McGill who write brilliantly. I’d like to see more and more importantly many more dads attending toddler groups, picking up their kids from school, taking extended parternity leave, giving birth…etc….
Completely agree with lots of comments here!
I think new mums crave a sense of community – belonging to a new club, whereas Dads don’t. We gain a whole new group of friends when we become parents – through toddler groups, NCT classes as well as the huge and supportive network online via forums, Twitter and blogs.
Dads don’t really change their friends. Yes life changes, straight onto bath duty when getting home from work, less visits to the gym and some arrivals home to find a frazzled tearful wife. But their job is often to support us, so that’s what they do, and bloody well!
We like to release our emotions to friends and family, but to strangers too who can offer an impartial view. Dads don’t seem to need that reassurance so much because we give it to them – praise for helping and credit for getting little ones to bed.
Reading this back it may sound a little sexist but I’m basing it on my own circumstances. I am a mummy blogger, but I work – a three day week yes but running my own business so plenty of pressure!
There are great daddy blogs out there which often prove a better read than our own blogs. Hopefully they’ll start to get more recognition, though limited in numbers, it is currently about quality not quantity!