The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for April 2011

The Father/Daughter Connection

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Here is a copy of the guest post that ran on Scary Mommy’s blog. I try to keep a copy of all guest posts on my blog so that I have them. You never know if other bloggers are going to decide to close up shop one day. Anyhow, that is a post for a different day.  Here is what I wrote:
You can call me Jack, the father of the most beautiful girl in the world. Yep, I have a daughter that is one of the great loves of my life. I have a little girl who makes the sun shine and the moon rise at night.

I know that some of you mothers sometimes feel like your girls have unfairly branded you the enemy while dad is the hero. And there is no doubt in my mind that you love your daughters. I have read enough of you posts to know that there is nothing that you won’t do for them.

And I also know that it can drive you crazy that the miniature version of you looks at your husbands as if we can do no wrong. I hope that you had or have a father that you feel/felt that way about. And I hope that you know that we love this attention from our baby girls.

Because if we dad’s are smart we remember that there is going to come a day where our girls will forget how incredible we are and that for a time they won’t shower their love down upon us in the same way.

I don’t know. Maybe I am the only father that feels this way. Maybe I am the only man who looks at his daughter and thinks that angels have come down to earth. Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware that my girl is a terror who is capable of terrorizing myself and others.

She is not perfect. She has her faults and her flaws, but daughters are different. I don’t quite know how to say or write it. I can’t properly express these things. I love my son fiercely and he knows that, but our relationship is different. Not in a bad way. My love for the children is equal, but daughters are just…different.

Maybe it is because I am 240 pounds of boy; a boy who was trained by his dad to protect his sisters and to watch out for them. Maybe it is because I know all of the stupid lines that boys/men use on girls/women and it infuriates me to think that some schmuck will try doing that to my girl.

Don’t get me wrong. I talk to my daughter about life. I work hard to make sure that she understands that her value and self worth shouldn’t be based upon her looks. I want her to use her mind because she is smart.

We got her into team sports because we want her to exercise her body too. She is growing up in a world where she doesn’t see the limitations that other women once did. She can be who she wants to be and I will support her in her endeavors.

But there is this protective side of me that bristles a bit when I think about the harder things. There is a seven year-old boy that lives inside me that remembers when his father told him that he couldn’t hit girls and that his job was too look out for his sisters.

My middle sister is tough. She is closest in age to me and she survived growing up with me. It is not that I was so bad, but I was the big brother. When my brother-in-law tells me that his wife is tough, I smile because I helped her become tough.

It is harder to do this as the father. It is harder because children are different than siblings. If ever my sisters needed me they know that I would be there, but daughters are different. Call it what you want, but if I had to be the avenging angel for my daughter that is what I would do.

Because I love my girl I would take the bullet, jump in the flames or fight the bear. I don’t really worry about any of the terrible things happening because statistics say that I don’t have to and I believe in them.

But not like I believe in my girl. The dark haired beauty will be turning 7 this year. I am infinitely proud of her and love watching her grow. I have one more confession to make. I suppose that one day she’ll fall in love with some boy and maybe even marry him. And while I want her to have the kind of relationship that the poets write about it will break my heart just a little bit to know that some other boy has a piece of her.

But she deserves it and I will be glad for it to happen. What can I say, I love my girl.

Dear Russian Spammer

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Dear Russian Spammer,

I’d like to introduce myself. I am Jack and this my blog. Every day I make a point to check my spam folder to make sure that legitimate comments don’t get caught there accidentally. Most of the time Akismet does a fine job of sorting the wheat from the chaff but every now and then someone gets caught and I have to set them free.

Unfortunately you don’t receive the same courtesies as the few who are mistakenly sent to the cyberspace version of Siberia. No sir, you get stuck in Cyberia and linger there until I choose to delete you.  This happens every day, throughout the day.

I must admit that I have begun to wonder what it is that you are writing about. I have to admit that I wonder if you aren’t trying to use me as your Jack Ryan so that you may defect. It would be kind of cool to know that you and your small crew of sailors want me to take custody of your nuclear submarine so that you can start your new lives as farmers, ranchers and wacky bloggers.

But you keep writing in Russian and though some of my ancestors came from Russia I don’t speak Russian. So I haven’t the foggiest idea what the hell you are really writing about and consequently I have to let you remain incarcerated. Of course it is always possible that you are a Cossack and that your relatives chased mine through the fields and cities. From that perspective I would have to say that you are getting off easy because the family owes you a giant boot the head as well as one for the wimp.

Well, it has been fun but I have run now so I’ll leave you to your spam efforts. Godspeed and carry on.

Timing

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“Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
Well run till we drop, baby well never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire
`cause baby I’m just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real”
Born To Run– Bruce Springsteen

“Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream she said
The one that makes me laugh she said
And threw her arms around my neck
Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I’ll run away with you
I’ll run away with you”
Just Like Heaven– The Cure

If you close your eyes and listen carefully you can hear the soft clink-clank of metal against metal. You’re so focused upon your task it is hard to say how long the rhythmic banging has been going on. Your name is Johnny and you’re lifting weights in your garage. It is well after midnight and you can’t sleep.

You don’t feel much like talking to anyone and even if you did your friends are all asleep. It is a work night so you don’t really want to have a drink. Or maybe that is because you suspect that it won’t just be one drink and you’d rather not finish that six-pack. Besides, you don’t really want to drink alone.

So you decide that you are going to take your nervous energy and make use of it. You strap on your iPod and head outside to exercise because you know that you always feel better afterwards. And besides it will help clear your head.

Alone in the garage you start your workout and try not to focus on June. Been forever since she was a part of your life. But some days you can’t help but wonder what could have been. Sometimes timing is a bitch and that has you shaking your head. It seems more than a little unfair that circumstances could be the reason that a relationship doesn’t work.

As you focus on your form you can’t help but smile wistfully as you think about how unexpected it was to find June. Neither one of you could have ever predicted it. You grew up in different places and in different worlds. She used to tell you that she would never forgive you for not finding her earlier. You’d laugh and tell her that you could say the same thing.

Time would pass and you’d confess that you had never been more in love with anyone or more scared. This was the kind of thing that only happened in books and movies and that made you drag your feet. She’d tell you the same thing. And in no time you would forge a bond that was deeper and more powerful than any either one of you had known or experienced.

But life is not a book or a movie and things would happen. The world outside the one you shared would come to exert its influence upon you. The timing was off and no matter what you did you couldn’t fight it. You tried. You did what you could and when it wasn’t good enough you beat yourself up and wondered how it fell apart.

So sometimes late at night you’d wander outside and stare at the moon. Looking up at that giant white orb you’d sometimes smile and wonder if June was doing it too. Other times you’d stare at it and feel like howling in frustration and you’d wonder again if she felt like that too.

There would be good days and bad days. Moments when you were determined to walk away. You’d tell yourself that it didn’t matter why it ended or who was at fault or what. All that mattered was moving on with your life. But in the silent recesses of your heart, you’d never completely let go.

The bond that you had forged was too strong and too deep. And once you acknowledged this truth of your heart you began to feel better. Once you accepted that you would always love June you were able to start living again. It wasn’t exactly what you wanted, but it was a start.

Because the truth was that your heart told you that June was still out there and that the end to this story had yet to be written. The promises you made were still valid. The love you shared still lived. And maybe, just maybe there might be a chance to pick things up somewhere down the road.

And then you took off your watch and stuffed it in a drawer because the last thing you wanted to be reminded of was timing.

The Day That Dad Bloggers Overthrew The Mommy Blogger Cartel

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Bruce Lee Statue on the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong

Ladies it is time for the Marvel Comic loving dad bloggers to take down your weaker DC Comic loving mom blogging cartel. Today marks the day that The Fantastic Four and the X-Men torch the Justice League. The Avengers will take out the watchtower and all will be lost. Just give up and accept that we aren’t taking this kind of crap anymore.

Stop asking ridiculous questions about what dad bloggers want. It irks me to no end to read most of that post. Since we are short on time let me cut and paste from it:

What is the motivation for dad bloggers?  Do they want to be like mom bloggers?

Before these questions can be answered, of course, they have to be defined.  What is the what moms have that dads don’t have yet?  A few things:

1) readership / traffic
2) an established community
3) opportunities for revenue generation

I am trying to give the benefit of the doubt to whomever put this post together because it is lacking or maybe I am just really grumpy. I consistently fail to understand why people ask if dad bloggers want to be like mom bloggers. Maybe it is because I don’t understand the question.

Is this supposed to be about men and parenting. Are we talking about whether men like being fathers. Is this just one more version of the conversation so many of us have heard where moms talk about how cute it is to see dads parenting. If that is the case let me disabuse of you the idea that there is anything novel about this. We’re dads. We parent. We cook, clean and care for our children just as you do. And though you may carry and deliver the children that doesn’t provide any more knowledge or ability to parent than we have.

If we are talking about the business aspect of blogging than we have a different topic altogether and one that merits some discussion. This blog and the blogosphere are riddled with posts and comments from me about how bloggers make bad business decisions. It makes me crazy to see how many bloggers wreak havoc upon our collective ability to earn an income from blogging because they do things that devalue all of our efforts.

If we are talking about things that mommy bloggers have that dad bloggers don’t have than maybe that business end is worth talking about. Maybe we need to talk about hard numbers and explore the myth of women making the majority of household purchases. Maybe we need to pull that apart and talk about what purchases they are making and comment upon the SAHD and WAHD communities that are heavily involved in household purchases. Maybe we need to remember that most marriages are a partnership in which both spouses participate in big ticket purchases.

Maybe we need to talk about whether mom blogger/dad blogger refers to bloggers who focus primarily upon parenting type posts. There are an awful lot of “successful” bloggers who have been doing this for a long time that are parents but don’t focus upon it.

Or maybe what we need to do is focus upon working together. Maybe the better use of our time and efforts is for mom and dad bloggers to work together as parent bloggers because collectively we have more influence. That doesn’t mean that we have to change our blogs or what we write about. It is just a way to reorient the discussion so that we get more out of this than we are getting.

The brands and businesses that want to reach us have money for marketing. They have resources and we can help them spend their money more wisely. We can help them be more effective at reaching their target audience while simultaneously receiving better and more appropriate compensation. Or maybe that is just a dream.

Anyway, this work at home dad has to go feed his kids lunch or risk being beaned with matzah balls.

P.S. I am thrilled to see that we are going to have another Dad Blogger conference next year. That link doesn’t provide much yet but in time I am sure that it will. In the interim don’t forget to follow along on Twitter.

Blogging, Passover, Daughters & More

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Per our custom here is a quick list of recent posts. They cover a broad spectrum of topics including a discussion about how to generate comments for your blog, music and parenting.

 

I Am Guest Posting At Scary Mommy’s Place

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I am pleased to have the opportunity to run another guest post at Scary Mommy’s blog. Read the excerpt below and then point, click and surf on over there.

You can call me Jack, the father of the most beautiful girl in the world. Yep, I have a daughter that is one of the great loves of my life. I have a little girl who makes the sun shine and the moon rise at night.

I know that some of you mothers sometimes feel like your girls have unfairly branded you the enemy while dad is the hero. And there is no doubt in my mind that you love your daughters. I have read enough of you posts to know that there is nothing that you won’t do for them.

And I also know that it can drive you crazy that the miniature version of you looks at your husbands as if we can do no wrong. I hope that you had or have a father that you feel/felt that way about. And I hope that you know that we love this attention from our baby girls.

Because if we dad’s are smart we remember that there is going to come a day where our girls will forget how incredible we are and that for a time they won’t shower their love down upon us in the same way.

I don’t know. Maybe I am the only…

Click here and go read the rest.