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I forgot to mention in yesterday’s short update that I had a guest post on my friend Erin’s blog Dropped Stitches.
Obviously, I would love for you to go and read my post, but I also recommend looking around the entire site. Erin has spent the past month trying to bring more focus and recognition to daddy bloggers, dads who blog, and dads in general. You’ll find a lot of great posts and awesome bloggers. Besides yesterday’s blog post, you’ll also find me kicking the month off with a slightly cleaned-up language version of my post on how to be the guy your partner craves and parents need.
I also have a question for you. In yesterday’s guest post, I mentioned that I could write thousands of words about my thoughts on religion and philosophy and, if anything, that was an understatement. But would anybody be interested in reading those words?
It would be outside the usual scope of this blog, and I have no overwhelming need to write those words (especially since I think it’s important to form your own ideas and relationship with whatever spiritual path, or lack thereof, that you choose), but I’m more than willing to have these conversations if my readers want to hear my thoughts and are willing to share their ideas with me.
To be clear, these wouldn’t be debates. Faith is a large part of this type of thing, because there is no way we can logically know the answers with absolute certainty. And I will not have people disrespecting each other’s ideas. I would be interested in respectful discussions about the subject, and respectful disagreements, but only in the interest of understanding each other.
Let’s make a very unscientific poll out of it. By show of comments, is this anything you would be interested in reading and/or participating in?
If so, let me know. If not, no problem – less work for me – but I would like to know if it would turn you off, as well. As I said, I don’t feel an overwhelming need to do this and definitely have no interest in alienating readers by doing something that doesn’t need to be done. This is purely on the basis of what my readers want, and everyone’s opinion matters.
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I don’t know why, but I haven’t really talked about a major deadline that my wife and I are facing.
On October 28, Quentin Xavier is due to be born. And, as everyone knows, a due date is really just a guess, so he could be born at any moment.
I had planned to build up a backlog of posts so that there would still be at least one going out every week, but I’ve had some other projects that have required my attention and we’ve been busy preparing for Mr. Q, and… building a backlog ended up at the bottom of our list of priorities.
With luck, I’ll still be able to slide in some blogging besides the inevitable “Meet Quentin” post, but if things get a little quiet for a week or two, now you know why.
If you find yourself suffering withdrawal, you can still follow me on Twitter — I promise not to livetweet the birth.
 This time last month, I was struggling to hit 400 followers on Twitter and barely holding on to a Klout score of 49. DaddyGeek had 20 subscribers through Feedburner and three people following through Google Friend Connect. My average daily visits were somewhere in the range of 50-60.
As of this writing, I have 722 followers on Twitter and my Klout score is 61. On Feedburner, DaddyGeek has 57 subscribers and 16 people are signed up through Friend Connect. My average daily visits are now somewhere in the range of 110-130.
The importance of any of these numbers is debatable, but there’s no denying that, as a whole, they represent a huge increase in audience for both myself and my blog, especially for DaddyGeek – the audience more than doubled!
And here’s the thing – I put in almost no effort. Where I did put forth any significant effort, I could have easily done more or done better. Considering how big the return was with almost no work, I plan on making a serious effort this month.
Yes, the knowledge that more people are watching has made me pay more attention to post and tweet quality, and I’ve been more consistent with my blogging schedule, even if it’s only once a week. I’ve spent a bit more time with networking and engaging followers on Twitter. None of these things hurt, but they were more reactions to a bigger audience than a cause.
My stats tell me that the increase is due to two tools that I started using last month – Buffer and Triberr.
Since I work the night shift and spend most of my daylight hours hanging out with my boys, I’m usually not online in any real sense at the same time as most people. In the fast-paced world of Twitter, this means most of my tweets were just shouting into the wind and never being read by most of my followers.
With Buffer, I can schedule out my tweets and have them sent out during the “Prime Time” that most people are online. Retweets, replies, clicks, and follows have gone through the roof. The one thing I’ve done wrong is filling my queue with links. This month, I need to work on sending out more personal messages interspersed with interesting links.
Buffer offers free users 10 spots in their queue. If you use the link in this post to sign up, we each get an extra spot.
Triberr offers a system to organize users into “tribes” of bloggers and tweeters (We really need to come up with a good word for Twitter users) with (hopefully) similar interests. Blog updates are fed into the Triberr website and tribe members all share each other’s blog posts, extending the reach and exposure of each individual user.
When it’s done right, this is a win-win situation. Bloggers get their content out to a larger audience and Twitter users have more interesting content to curate.
When it’s done wrong, it can be a universal loss. Twitter users can spam their audience with completely inappropriate content and bloggers have their content overexposed to uninterested audiences and run the risk of being labeled as spammers. Potentially, everyone can lose their audience and reputation.
No offense to my tribe members – I’ve obviously gained some benefit – but I’ve been doing this (somewhat) wrong. I’m not the best fit for some of my tribes.
My content is not for everyone. I’m opinionated and don’t hold back on those opinions. I occasionally use profanity. I’m sarcastic and irreverent. There’s not much audience overlap for me and, for example, Coupon-clipping Christian Soccer Moms. If we’re smart, we exercise our option to not share each other’s links, but there’s not much point in being in a tribe together if we’re not going to share content.
As the month has gone on, I’ve found myself sharing less and less content (for various reasons) and noticed that my click-through-rate is horrible with some of my tribe mates’ audiences. Again, that’s not their fault – we just don’t have an audience overlap.
But I have seen a definite boost in my stats, so I’m getting some value. I could just do better.
Which is why I’m starting my own tribe, and I need your help. Hopefully you’ve read at least a few of my posts and have a feel for the tone around here. If you think I’m a good fit for your audience and you might be a good fit for mine – and you’d like to give Triberr a try -comment here or contact me on Twitter and I’ll send you an invite.
If you’re already on Triberr and are interested in being in a tribe together, please let me know, but it’s going to be a short wait while I recruit new members and unlock inbreeding. Once that’s done, you’re in.
There’s no obligation in joining. If you decide my tribe’s not for you, feel free to leave for another tribe or leave Triberr altogether without any hard feelings. In fact, I’ll help promote you to other tribes if you like. If you want to try Triberr but we wouldn’t be a good fit for each other’s audiences, still let me know and I’ll try to connect you with someone that’s a better match for you.
Again, use my link to sign up for a free account with Buffer and we’ll each get an extra spot in our queue.
If you want to try Triberr, just leave a comment or contact me on Twitter and we’ll work that out.
 Image via Wikipedia
I’ve seen a lot of posts regarding the author’s idea of what makes a man, how to be a man, the definition of masculinity, or some variation upon the theme. So I thought I’d chime in.
You want to know how to be a man?
Stop reading posts like this.
When you strip away all the obvious clichés like do what you say you’re going to do, stick by the people who mean the most to you, never compromise your ideals, blah blah blah, that’s all there is.
The truth is, nobody can tell you how to be a man. That’s a path you have to forge on your own.
You have to decide what’s most important to you.
You have to define your ideals.
You have to decide what makes you a man, or what makes you fall short of manhood.
If you rely on the standards of others – be it your redneck uncle’s disdain for anything even remotely feminine or my rejection of all traditional gender roles and insistence that you do whatever necessary to make your wife and children happy and secure – you will never be secure in your own masculinity. And with good reason. You won’t be a man, you’ll just be a boy trying on his daddy’s shoes.
Make a gutcheck and look deep inside yourself.
You know if you’re a man – never let someone else make that decision for you.
Walk your path and never let anyone else define you.
If you absolutely must have a second opinion, look at how your wife and kids look at you. Why would anybody else’s opinion even matter?
I mean, are you really going to let some dude sitting in front of his computer tell you how to be a man?
 I have no idea what this image has to do with this post. (Image by dvanzuijlekom via Flickr)
We had our meeting with Nick‘s teacher yesterday, and it went better than I hoped. She seemed to have asked for the meeting to reassure us and not complain about any bad behavior.
The teacher started out by telling us that Nick is easily the smartest kid in his class, which disarmed us right away. She also said that she realizes that Nick hasn’t been challenged up until now and she has some plans to push him in the subjects that he’s ahead and to help in areas that he needs work (mostly calming down and doing his work). Now that she has an idea where everyone stands, she has Nick in a reading group with the other kids who can read well (for kindergarteners) and they’ll be taking on more challenging projects instead of sounding out “cat” and “dog”.
We also talked briefly about ADHD. The teacher has a son who grew up with ADHD, so she’s familiar with it as a teacher and parent. She advised us not to jump into a diagnosis, but thought it was definitely something to watch for and “keep in the back of (our) minds.” At first she wrote a lot of his issues off to maturity levels and excitement being with so many kids. When I explained that he behaved better for me than anyone and still occasionally had these problems, she agreed that ADHD or something similar was a possibility, though she – of course – stressed that she was not a doctor and had no real training in the area.
At this point, Rhonda and I are going to keep researching homeschooling and will get Nick evaluated for ADHD. We’re planning on trying to ride out the school year in public school, since the teacher”gets” Nick better than we had imagined, and we’ll see how things go.
In the meantime, I’ll still be posting about ADHD, ADD, homeschooling, and other information we find in our research.
Nick‘s school and ADHD saga continues.
We’ve taken a relaxed approach, acknowledging that not being able to shut up or sit still sometimes or just zoning out and not always hearing adults when they’re telling him what to do is just part of Nick’s personality. In general, we don’t punish him for those things and just encourage him to try to remember what happened so that we know his side of things.
We also made a plan where, if he can come home with all smiley faces and no discipline all week, he’ll earn a prize (something we likely would have gotten him anyway).
Not a perfect system, but one that was resulting in some success. Behavior seemed to be improving slightly and Nick seemed more comfortable talking about what happened in his day.
…and then there was last Thursday. Instead of the usual one or two – maybe three – keys (each misbehavior incident results in a key pulled), Nick pulled four keys. And brought home a note from his teacher requesting a conference to discuss his behavior. That was bad enough, but Nick couldn’t or wouldn’t tell us anything that had happened. Even when I tried to explain to him that, without being able to hear his side, we may have to assume he was just being a bad boy, he told us he didn’t know what happened and didn’t know if he was a bad boy.
And that scared me — Nick prides himself on being a good, big boy. Telling us that he didn’t know if he was a bad boy is a sign that there is something very wrong.
The last time I talked about this, Rhonda and I decided that we need to get Nick tested for ADHD. Then we forgot about it because it seemed like things might actually be working themselves out. Obviously we were wrong. Our big boy is having problems, and we need to figure out what needs to be done to help him.
Nick meets so many of the criteria for ADHD, I can’t see how he can not have it. But I’m not a medical professional, and I could easily be wrong. We called Nick’s doctor’s office, and they told us that the doctor doesn’t test kids as young as Nick for ADHD, but would try to find someone who does so they could refer us.
We’ve also been putting some serious thought into homeschooling Nick (and possibly Harper, when he’s old enough). The more I read, the more my reservations seem to fall away. I know that Nick’s teacher is good at her job and that she’s been at it for a long time. She knows teaching, but she doesn’t know my son. Not like I do.
So far this year, Nick has learned better penmanship and, to a limited extent, conformity. That is, quite literally, all. The only reason for Nick to attend kindergarten in a public school at this point is that it’s just what you’re “supposed to do.”
I’m not big on conformity, if you haven’t noticed, so I don’t see value in doing anything just to fit in, especially if it may be causing my child emotional distress.
The public school model was originally designed to produce good factory workers and it hasn’t departed much from that model. The thing is, I don’t want an assembly line, cookie cutter kid. I love my kids’ unique qualities and I don’t want to see them crushed.
I’m not trying to degrade public schools, and especially not public school workers. They work hard and I know many that are frustrated with the system, too. It’s hard to change a system that has been around for generations, especially with tragically low funding. But, to be blunt, that’s not my problem. I have to do what’s best for Nick, not what’s popular or easiest on people’s feelings or sensibilities.
Anyway, this was a long explanation of why you’re likely to see a lot of information on ADHD and homeschooling on this blog and my Twitterfeed.
It’s also a request. If you have experience with children with ADHD and/or homeschooling, or you know someone who has experience with these things, please share your stories with me – good or bad. I need to make informed decisions here, and the more information I have the better.
In the meantime, I have a parent/teacher conference to prepare for.
Wish me luck.
 Photo courtesy of Sean Drellinger You’re having a rough day. You may be getting sick, the house is a mess, you’re exhausted, and the kids are being monsters. You need to vent, so you post to Facebook or Twitter that your children just might have to die.
A few hours later, you get a call from a family member chastising you for voicing your frustration for the world to see. They’re concerned about what people might think and that you may look like a bad parent.
My question - Who cares? Unless you actually are a bad parent, does it really matter what people outside of your immediate family think?
And let’s be honest here. Getting pissed at your children does not make you a bad parent. Occasionally wishing you could (or had) put your kids up for adoption does not make you a bad parent. Locking yourself in your room for ten minutes to regroup does not make you a bad parent. In fact, taking that time to regroup instead of losing it on your kids actually makes you a damn good parent for recognizing your limitations and not making your children suffer for them.
I’m going to reveal one simple truth that will make some of your lives easier and stress free. If you hear this truth, really hear it and take it to heart, you’ll feel more free and you’ll be much happier. You ready for this?
It is perfectly normal to have moments that you wish you didn’t have children.
This doesn’t make you a bad parent. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean you don’t love your children with every fiber of your being (unless you don’t, and that’s also okay. We’ll talk about that another time). It just means that you are a human being who misses the freedom and simplicity of not having your life ruled by tiny, irrational dictators. I’m sure North Koreans sometimes wish they could get rid of Kim Jong Il, too.
Don’t get me wrong, there are people who never, ever, regret having children for a single moment. Their kids never annoy them and they walk around perfectly happy with their lives as parents. Those people are either very rich with nannies, on very good drugs, or insane. Usually all the above.
One caveat, in all seriousness — if you find yourself constantly resenting your children and are never happy that you’re a parent, that is a problem. But not necessarily one to beat yourself up over — You may be suffering from some type of depression, in which case you should talk to someone about how you’re feeling. There is no shame in getting help. There is also a remote possibility that you’re just not cut out to be a parent and you should consider adoption.
Recognizing either of these things – and doing something about them – is not a bad thing. They don’t even mean you’re a bad parent, even if you may not be cut out to be one. Doing something actually makes you a damn good parent because you’re stepping out of your comfort zone and taking steps to make your children’s life better. That is what makes a good parent – putting your children’s needs before your own, even when you really don’t want to do it.
But back to my original point. Don’t ever let anyone tell you whether you’re a good parent. Nobody knows you and your children better than you. Look at your kids — if they are healthy, happy, and not torturing small animals or people, you’re doing a good job.
Rest easy, rest well and tell everyone to kiss your tired, overworked, and under-appreciated ass.
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At my core, I am a very lazy man with very low standards. If it was up to me, I would probably work in a job with next to no responsibilities that paid just enough to keep me in a one-room apartment with internet access and food. I don’t need much, and the less effort I have to expend to get what I need, the better.
Which makes it very hard to stick with a job when your boss pisses you off, a project stresses you out, or you’re just surrounded by people’s petty bullshit. And forget pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone — it’s easier to just maintain the status quo and zone out in front of the television. The paycheck and the sense of achievement are both worth it, but that’s the future — how do you get through the day-to-day crap now?
You need to find yourself a source of motivation. The proverbial prize on which you should keep your eyes.
I follow the Homer Simpson method:
I have a collage much like this in my cube at work, without the stupid sign as a background. Whenever management hands down another brain-numbingly stupid edict, when my supervisor lets the shit run downhill, when I get stressed out about the impending layoffs and consider just walking out, I look at this collage of my wife and kids and remember why it’s worth it to stick it out a little longer and push myself to find another way to pay the bills.
At home, when I would rather go to bed or read a novel or watch tv or do just about anything other than write, I look at my sleeping kids and remember the people who care about and believe in me and know that it’s worth the hard work to make a living out of my talent.
If that doesn’t work, I remember those moments at work when I have to deal with stupid shit and think about how nice it would be to make a living at something I love.
Then I get back to work.
Your family doesn’t have to be your motivation. It could be that house or boat that you’ll buy when you finally make it big, or even medium.
It could be the cheeseburger you’ll reward yourself with once you make it through the workday.
It could be the ice cream cone you’ll buy yourself after you run five miles. Which would kind of defeat the purpose, but whatever.
The point is, remember what you’re working for, and remind yourself constantly.
Be like Homer.
I just wanted to thank everyone for stopping by.
My post on how to be the man your wife and kids deserve has gone viral and, as of 12:45am, is my second most popular post ever and Yesterday, September 20, 2011, was this blog’s second biggest day – both are behind only that damn Yogi Bear/Ridiculously Long Movie Title mashup and the day it went crazy on Stumbleupon, respectively.
If you’re new here, please consider clicking on the button on the top of my right sidebar to subscribe to my blog. I’m usually not a heavy poster, or a regular poster. I try to only post when I can be proud, or at least satisfied, with the content. The idea is to make up for low quantity with high quality. I’ll let you decide how well I succeed in that, though I’m creating a backlog and hope to have a regular, if not prolific schedule soon. Subscribe and you’ll get anything I write delivered right to you.
For those of you that have reading for awhile, stick around — I’m about to up my game.
Hey everybody, Jess at IRockSoWhat was talking about this BlogLovin thing, and I decided to check it out.
So, if you’re into that sort of thing…
Follow my blog with Bloglovin
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