What's it like being a dad blogger in a blogging universe populated largely by mums? Garry, who writes The Blog Up North, gives the XY side of the story.
A year ago, I wouldn't have been writing this. A year ago I wasn't really a blogger at all. Sure, I had started my own blogging space but like so many before me, I had faltered. Initial intentions crumbled and the posts became fewer and further between. I felt I had nothing to say, even though I had somewhere to not say it.
Then at the start of 2010 I gave it another go. I realised I needed to take a fresh look at my content (described previously by a Facebook friend as a cure for insomnia). Out went the "Dear diary..." tone and the mind-numbing subject matter. I injected humour and wrote about subjects readers could connect with. But that was only part of the story.
I still needed to get the word (and my words) out there to those readers. I saw other bloggers using Twitter and realised I too could use this tool to draw in readers. It was at this point I became aware of a community out there.
As I'm sure you're aware, Twitter relationships have a strange evolution of their own. Follows and follow-backs forge connections which you're soon hard-pressed to remember the origins of. All I remember of that time is following one or two great people who happened to be bloggers, and who I came to quietly admire for their skill and content. They were mummy bloggers (who I'm not going to embarrass by naming here) and they wrote about all manner of everyday stuff. I realised I was doing the same. Did that make me a daddy blogger? Was I part of this parent blogger community?
The marvellous mummy bloggers I began to read were expressing their joys and frustrations of parenthood, and at the same time shaping their own identity online. They were not just mums, they were intelligent women with something to say and an audience to say it to. So where did I fit? I wasn't a stay-at-home dad. My children were not babies or toddlers any more. So again I asked myself the question. Did I qualify to contribute to this affiliation?
What I found was, of course, my family were a rich source of inspiration. Sometimes fun. Sometimes exasperating. Always challenging. Whether it was school, behaviour or the always unpredictable dynamic around Up North towers, there was always something to make me stop and think.
I mean stop and think, "Ooh that would make a good blog post..."
But no! It also made me realise I'm a parent, I'm a husband, I'm a wage-earner, but I'm more than the sum of those parts.
Since this epiphany I like to think the mummy blogger community has taken me to its collective bosom, and it's a nice place to be, I have to say. I've made some great online friendships and even actually met a few of you. I don't feel so much like the cuckoo in the nest any more.
Now at the end of 2010, after almost a year of serious blogging, I'm incredibly humbled at the support the parent blogging community has given and the opportunities it has presented me. If you had said to me a year ago that in the coming year companies would be throwing products at me to review for my readership, I would have snorted in your face. Maybe not snorted, I'm too polite. I would have sniggered to myself behind your back instead.
And what is it like to be a man in a mummy's world? Of course, I'm the different one. My experience as a working father is not the same as many writers out there. But what I like about this community is, once again, it is more than the sum of its constituents. Blogging is a lonely business and to know the network is there, doing what you do, is both comforting and motivating.
I liken it to a solo round-the-world yacht race. We're all alone piloting our craft through stormy seas, but we know there are others out there battling the same elements and heading in the same direction with the same goal.
We all have something to say. We write it, we agonise over it, we publish it, we might even regret it. But do it we must.
- Garry, The Blog Up North
Twitter: @himupnorth
