To give some of the new daddy blogs a jump start I thought It was time for a first (annual?)  best rookie daddy blog contest  for 2007. 

There's only  2 requirements to worry about: 

 - Your blog's first posting must be in 2006 or 2007.     

 - It has to be a "daddy" blog  (relating to at-home dads, fatherhood, ect.)

That's it, so just send (or nominate) your link & I'll add it alongside the first two entries,  thinkdaddy & horray for saturday on the left sidebar for all to read.  If you just post artsy pictures of  kid poops as they twirl down the toilet I don't care. If you think your postings on baby naps are a bit too trivial just look what Ben MacNeill did with them. Or if your template looks like this its not my call, It will be your call. In January of 08 the readers will vote for  the top three new daddy blogs of 2007.  If you make the top tier you get bragging rights, glowing reviews and your site meter will stream straight up like your new baby should. If you get first place, your site name will be emblazed on the toilet for all to see and for you to display on your site. 

I added 2 new groups to the playgroup list:  Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati , OH area. & Lawrenceville Gwinnett (GA) Stay at Home Dads  also check out this new TV feature on the Middle Tennessee Dads  "From The Daily Grind To Daddy Day Care"   

Eamon Stookesberry,  the Texas at-home dad featured (see video on right) on the Colbert Report last week agreed to clear up a few questions the readers had on the planning and filming of the SAHD piece.  Eamon says Colbert Report producer, Aaron Cohen originally thought of doing the piece at the At-Home Dad Convention last November but felt he needed something with a more personal feel. When he saw a local CBS affiliate story (left video) done on the Austin Stay At Home Dads  group they tracked Eamon down and asked if they could film "a day in the life"...

I'll let Eamon share with us the rest of the story......

That was a hard sell to the boss (also known as my lovely and gracious wife Tracie/Tasty!) but she agreed and the producer and asst. producer arrived at my door step at 6:30 in the morning to capture the morning routine. They followed me around all day with a camera crew in tow. They interviewed a bunch of the dads at the park and tried to get every one of us to say: "My name is ------ and I am SAHD  :-(        They had me do multiple takes folding laundry, vaccuummmiiinnnggg... and I think I cleaned the kitchen counter about 8 times and used a Wet Swiffer(c) (which does ROCK!!!) for about 6 passes. That floor was CLEAN!!!! 

They taped us waiting for Lord Tracie/Tasty to arrive home and then had her sit on the couch and drink a beer while they interviewed her. I was waiting for them to ask her to scratch her balls and burp, but they didn't. One of the funniest lines from her was when they asked her about how she felt about making me do all this house work and how I do not get paid. She said "he does get paid! He has a roof over his head, he is obviously well fed. He's my Bitch!!!!"  I was surprised that that did not get in there instead of saying" Sometimes I feel like I have a wife". " He's my Bitch!!" would have been way funnier.

They then went with me to one of our monthly DNO's (Dads Night Out) to film us there. They had the bar/restaurant put the home shopping network on the big screen TVs and had a bunch of Shirley temples dressed with the fruitiest frilliest crap possible delivered to our table and asked us to sip at them like women do. I revolted and got my team, when it was our turn to drink them on camera, to pound them in a race. I guess it was too manly, it did not make the cut. Hehehehehehe

They said that the original idea was to do a piece about how pissed off Colbert is to find out that there is a sub-class of workers in the US that are being exploited. Here is a copy of the original description from the producer about what angle they might possibly take:

Our angle is more or less the following:

Stephen is astonished to learn about the existence of stay-at-home-dads. He believes that they are  economically oppressed, exploited workers. They rise early, clean, cook, perform child-care and household-management duties -- all for no money!  He wonders whether they should be paid a decent wage.

(And by the way, for Stephen, women who stay at home don?t need to get paid because they innately know to do this work, and they enjoy it to boot.)

Here are some sample questions for Tracy :

what reactions do you get from people when you explain that your husband stays at home?

-did you ever have second thoughts about your decision?

-is it sometimes a relief to head out the door in the morning, off to a relaxing office?

-is there a working-wives-of-stay-at-home-dads group in your area?

-are you planning to give Eamon a Christmas bonus this year?

They had NO interest in the acronym that I came up with which is DADMAN (Dad All Day - Man All Night) or the shirts that I had made (see below). They very much wanted us to play up the fact that we were sad/SAHD.

Even though it was different than what had originally been planned, it was still funny as hell and we have had very positive feed back from just about everybody from members of the group, family and friends and even a teacher at my sons school approached me today and said she saw us on TV and thought it was great.

Well I have to go clean the kitchen with my Rockin' Wet Swiffer (c) and then get dinner started.

Thanks Eamon!!! 

The biggest question bought up was a near shocking, but hilarious scene where  Colbert appeared to be  hugging and groping  Eamon's wife Tracie in the mirror. Was he?  Eamon assured me it wasn't his wife.  Several people were shocked that  "Tasty" would let Stephen grope her ass, but it was not her. My guess is it was one of his interns or something.  (Stephen did not come out for the actual filming.) 

Personally I though the piece was hilarious, and a quick  look at the dad message boards show that most that viewed the piece agreed.  Had this been a "serious report" the outcry would have been deafening but only Stephen Colbert and writers could pull off a parody like this and get such a positive response.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)

momblocker

?noun

a dad having a strong need to control his wife.

---

[Origin: March 12, 2007 - Amy Sohn]

Today's new made up word is Momblocker.  It's courtesy of  Amy Sohn who will show it off in next weeks New York Magazine article.  In short a momblocker is a control-freak dad.  Amy defines them as the men you see chastising their wives for not dressing the baby warmly enough or using only the three-point latch in the stroller, not the five. They insist on pushing the stroller on family outings, they crowd their kids on the jungle gyms, they spend hours online researching high chairs. Somewhere along the line, Mom gave up her automatic veto power?and Dad seized it for himself.  As proof that these dads exist she interviewed Greg Allen of Daddytypes who actually does spend hours online researching high chairs.  Sohn notes that Allen became a de facto momblocker during the first three months of his daughter?s life, when he and his wife stayed home to care for her. ?We decided that I would do EBB?everything but breast-feeding?to help her out. It was so much easier for her to let me change the diaper and give the kid a bath than to do it herself and risk screwing up. It took a lot of effort for her finally to say, ?I need to learn how to do this now.'   

Coincidently, (amazingly?) Allen was also quoted last year to discuss the opposite theory in a Time article titled ?When Moms are Gatekeepers?. (These are moms who ask for help but tell hubby exactly how they want it done).  In it Po Bronson quotes him as saying,  A pattern is established in childbirth and breastfeeding that can be hard to break, The mother becomes the expert first, then cringes as she watches her husband awkwardly stumble through his learning curve. As she hears the cries of her fragile infant, she can't help but interrupt.  

As for the new word? Amy actually thought of it in response to this same Time piece, where Bronson states, As many as a quarter of all new moms are actually blocking their husbands' attempts at involved fathering.  

Oh and another thing about that sentence. A quarter of all new moms? I'd like to know where that statistic come from.... but if it were true, 75% of us must be Momblockers.

Thanks Rebeldad for spotting this absolutely hilarious Steven Colbert video featuring Eamon Stookesberry of the Austin At-Home Dads.  It's a  Colbert Report Exclusive Report: Stay at Home Dads - part of a dangerous movement that's threatening  the American way of life. No doubt Eamon, (if that is his real name) and his wife were very good sports to agree to be a part of Colbert Nation.

While cruising for stories  I came across this headline from the Baltimore Sun: In primate colony, titi monkey dads take on the role of Mr. Mom.  I can't interview these monkeys on what they thought of the headline but the story is worth mentioning. Seems that the folks at the California National Primate Research Center  found that mom monkeys are pretty rough on their kids and dad is more than happy to take over. In the story UC Davis psychology professor  Karen Bales, says,  In most monogamous species, the dads are really good. It's just taken to an extreme in titi monkeys because the moms are kind of bad, sometimes  you watch a titi monkey mom and you feel like she doesn't like her babies." Titi babies tend to ride draped across a parent's shoulders, and when mom wants the kid off her back, her favorite strategy for shifting responsibility [to dad]  is to make the baby cry.   

A new Digg for Dads  - Don Leister of DadStaysHome.com fame has turned his main page into sort of a  Digg for Dads. He's done great with his dads forum, and with the dads site clogging the blogosphere It's a great idea.  If you would like to submit your blog send him a line with your feed.

 An alert reader, found this excellent piece in the Daily Telegraph by British reporter Sarah Ebner on male nannies or mannys.  She interviews Holly Peterson's for her book The Manny due for American release in a few months. Peterson (who has 3 children) notes "Boys play differently to women, the nanny is more of a comforter, while the manny is a 'throw me across the room' kind of guy. They fool around, play football and are happy to run around and around the park.''  Of course we knew this all along, in an old At-Home Dad Newsletter article I wrote 10 years ago  daycare daddy John Wise said "The only structure around here is snack, nap and lunch time." Wise calls it the "rhythm method". "Why would you want to break that rhythm by forcing another activity when everything is fine. If things are running smoothly we will continue with it as long as the kids are enjoying it." 2 other day care daddies I interviewed for the same story had a similar "let the kids run around" style.  

We can thank Britney Spears (and her Fed-ex) for sticking this whole manny issue into the limelight last year,  but an  interesting stat may reflect the true public opionion. In an online survey from a Tinies Nanny Agency quiz it was revealed that four fifths of mothers would feel threatened by a female nanny, but only half of the dads felt the same threat. 

Posting on the manny story in the message board last week "Carlos" wrote:

 "Careers have been more important for a long time.. take a look at the before school program that includes breakfast.  or the after school "latch key" programs.  it seems that most of America would rather "farm out" time with their kids.  The saddest part is that most of the time the second parent is working and earns just enough to pay for the new cars in the driveway, and day care expenses.  I even know a few stay at home parents that send their kids to day care 5 days a week....(so they can have a break)....does that qualify as a stay a home parent?  or is it skipping out on the kids and perusing laziness as a career?     I think it's about time that The "Manny" gets some attention. I'm waiting for the debut of "Super Manny"....