No, this post isn’t about a late 80’s movie starring John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and a baby who talks in a voice the sounds oddly like Bruce Willis. No, this is about a bunch of people who have started talking: Dads. Of course, this isn’t new. DadRevolution and other dad blog sites have had dads talking for awhile now. What is new is that the dads have begun to organize on Twitter using the #DadsTalking hashtag. (Note the capitalization. This is “Dads Talking”, not “Dad Stalking.” That’s a completely different discussion.)
Two nights ago, there was a DadsTalking Twitter party. Over the course of an hour, 80 dads tweeted about 1,200 messages back and forth. Needless to say, it was quite dizzying. And yet, despite the fast and furious nature of the chat, much good advice and information was passed back and forth. For example, we congratulated tweetingdaddy on the birth of his daughter. We busted a few myths like all dads like beer. We even complimented SpinyNorman on his Twitter Ninja skills. (Oh wait, that was just me.)
To me, real-time chats like #DadsTalking are important. At home, I’m pretty isolated. My usual routing when I get home from work is to make dinner, get the kids into bed and then hop online for a bit. My closest friend doesn’t have kids so he doesn’t quite get some of the priority changes that take place when you become a dad. I need fellow dads both to share lifes little triumphs with and from whom to seek advice during those less-than-happy moments.
A couple of days ago, Dadarocks posted an article about Dads in Media. He was right that we need to see more positive dad role models on the television, but perhaps we don’t need dads on TV to be more knowledgeable. Just more aware of their knowledge limits. Real dads don’t have all the answers. Sometimes they’ll have a friend who’s been through it before, but often they are muddling through, doing the best they can and learning as they go.
Luckily, dads today don’t need to go it alone. The Internet can be a wonderful tool to bring dads from the far reaches of the world together. We took the first steps with separate dad blogs springing up here and there. The next step was taken by sites such as DadRevolution which helped band dads together. And now, dads can add #DadsTalking to their tool chest. None of these tools replaces the other. They will work hand in hand to help us be the best dads we can possibly be.
