Don’t fathers matter?: “Parenting” magazines

Mom to Mom. Woman to Woman                                                                                
- Tag line for American Baby Magazine

Straight Talk for New Moms
- Tag line for Baby Talk Magazine

“This new edition of Parenting brings you reality tested advice that’s truly relevant to your life as a mom with young kids.”                                      
- Parenting Magazine direct marketing flyer addressed to me

If you stop to think about it, these tag lines and marketing propaganda are pretty audacious. Before I got started blogging about my experiences as a father I was willing to chalk it up to them not scrubbing their marketing lists very well. After all, who would send gender specific marketing messages to the gender opposite of their target audience? Then, as I began to notice the tag lines these magazines have, I basically realized that the people in charge of writing this drivel have surmised that men either can’t or don’t read.

Now, I will admit the one good thing about their assumption that us dads can’t read is that when they publish articles like “The One Discipline Secret Every Mom Needs” in April’s Parent Magazine I can skip it.  Realistically speaking it wasn’t information that they felt was important for me to know.  So why should I fill the space in my head otherwise reserved for sports statistics and playmate of the month dimensions with knowledge that is not intended for me?  I mean, I’m just the dad.  I’m the one that is supposed to serve chocolate cake and grapefruit juice to my kids for breakfast.  I guess I should feel fortunate that they have taken the burden of defining the roles in my family from me so I can continue along in my Neanderthal ways.  

Can you sense my utter disdain for “parenting” magazines? I hope so, because I’m laying it on pretty thick. Just to be clear I don’t think “parenting” magazines suck because many have a dozen or more pages dedicated to stuff for women, not at all. In fact I think it is important that they have that type of stuff in them for mom’s that may not have the time to read the magazines they used to enjoy before they became mothers, or to provide a different perspective on those topics.

No, I hate “parenting” magazines because of what they omit, ignore or otherwise ridicule: fathers.

I bet you think you know where I’m going with this rant, right? Well, I’m about to toss you a curveball.

In the immortal words of Eric “Otter” Stratton: “We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.”

“And we’re just the guys to do it!” (Thanks, Bluto!)

Do what you ask? Why start our own magazine!

That’s right, we’ll call it something obnoxious like “Raising Cain” and we’ll have cool articles on things like building tree houses and making forts in the living room out of sleeping bags. Our magazine on fatherhood will have sections on sports, fantasy leagues, cars, single malt scotch, toys for boys of all ages, and, of course, parenting and fatherhood. We also need a section on food, and not any of that girly crap with cilantro or avocado. No, our food section will just be about meat – be it grilled, ground into sausage or served raw.

It can be everything the “parenting” magazines should be, only better and without the “shiny happy people” attitude. We can bring on Bill Simmons to write a column called “The Dad Guy” and talk about how he balances his family life with his obsession for sports. The only nonsense about relationships and feelings will be written by the esteemed Dr. Denis Leary with his “Shut the F@#% Up” column to help you solve all of your personal and professional problems. And the magazine just wouldn’t be complete without our guest columnist – Mr. Chuck Norris.

We can take the foundation laid at dad-blogs.com and build from there. Just like the way ESPN begat ESPN.com, which begat ESPN the Magazine. Start it out in digital format and ultimately sell out to advertisers – you could have Pampers ads right across from Glenlivet ads.

It’s brilliant, and, no, I haven’t been drinking.

LET’S DO IT!!!