The Revolution Grows

I’m Military Dad, and I have officially joined the Revolution. I have written guest posts here before, and I have now been asked to become a full contributor on this incredibly valuable site. It’s an amazing honor and quite humbling for a blogger as small time as myself to digitally work alongside such huge names in this field like The DaddyYo Dude, NewYorkDad, DaDa Rocks, and the rest of the distinguished cast here. It’s a special kind of awesomeness, and I am grateful.

I think it’s important to establish what Dad Revolution means to me. There are a lot of group blogs out there that deal with fatherhood, and they’re all great. They are all slightly different in what they stress, and there is an amazing group of bloggers that keep them populated. When I read the articles on Dad Revolution, there is one central concept that always stands out and speaks to me personally: do the right thing when it comes to fatherhood.

Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, and it isn’t always obvious. Being a good father is as much about sacrifice, pain, and fear as it is about hugs and kisses. There is no map, and there are no road signs. You take the advice that you can get, and then you try to apply it to your special set of circumstances. If it doesn’t work, you make it up and hope it doesn’t explode in your face. This is true whether you’re a married dad, divorced dad, stay-at-home dad, work-at-home dad, gay dad, adoptive dad, or whatever your case may be. Every family is different. This is a fact that makes parenting incredibly difficult and incredibly rewarding all at the same time. There are times when you will question your methods late into the night, and there are days where you will fall asleep instantly with a smile on your face. Whatever the case is, as long as you get up the next morning and try again, you are doing the right thing. You are trying to raise your children to be kind, couragous, and just all around awesome. 

Are we going to make mistakes along the way? Absolutely. When that happens, are we going to dust ourselves off and try again? You better believe it. Quitting is easy. Disappearing is easy. Letting someone else take care of it is easy. Parenting is hard. Caring for sick kids is hard. Putting aside your own desires to make things better for your children is hard. With all that in mind, why do we do it? We do it because we are dads, we love our kids more than life itself, and it’s the right thing to do.

Now, I know I’m preaching to the choir to a certain extent. The fact that you are reading this post means that you believe in what I just said enough to search for it, or you’ve been here before and liked the message enough to return. This brings me to the second core concept of this site that appealled to me: caring.

You’re reading this because you care. We blog because we care. Sure, maybe the message is mostly falling on the ears of believers. Does that make it any less potent? Of course not. Horrible fathers are in the news every day. They give the rest of us (the huge majority) a bad name. It’s time to spread the word about good fathers and great dads. It’s time to make our voices heard and ensure that we are counted fairly. We are doing the right thing, we care, and we should be known.

Join the Revolution. Read our posts and maybe even submit one of your own. Search through the other great daddy blogs out there and read what they have to say. Most of all, continue to do what brought you to this site in the first place. Do the right thing and care. Being a dad isn’t easy, but nothing worth doing ever is.