Triple The Dad

I've seen lots of posts about how you explain the election of Donald Trump to your daughter. I'm just not sure what all the anxiety is about. I say this as a man who didn't like Trump, who didn't vote for Trump, whose wife probably didn't vote for Trump, and whose daughter cried when told "the girl" didn't win. All three of my kids voted for Hillary Clinton in their class' mock election. So I write this not from the Trump Train in some gloating fashion but with honest and open eyes. How do you explain this to your daughter? First, it might help if we stopped defining every single life event as if it was the apocalypse. Not every election is the "most important one of our generation," even though someone inevitably trots that out ever stinking year . How am I explaining it? Like I would any election. As this post from Popehat.com suggests: W e move on.  (Seriously, read the l inked article , its awesome). Elections are won and lost...

Care Norway has a new video out on YouTube supposedly detailing the life a woman. The video takes the form of an unborn girl's letter to her father. It comes complete with a #DearDaddy hashtag. And loads of crap. Are you kidding me? I'm not saying middle school-aged girls aren't called the names mentioned in the video (whore and slut are specifically name dropped) nor that teenage boys don't make sexual advances on teenage girls. Both happen. The little girl makes a point of reminding her Dad that he probably did many of the same things growing up. He probably did. I'm sure that if, showed a video of my life, I'd be embarrassed about lots of it. So would my wife, most likely. So would you, I'm guessing. Life isn't something we are born knowing how to do. Our 20-year-old selves often have different goals, values and understanding than our 40-year-old selves. As it should be. We shouldn't want or understand things the same way at 20 as we do at...

I posted last week about why I dropped my opposition to the color pink. Lo and behold, I stumbled upon this article about pink lockers at the University of Iowa. The lockers in the visitor's locker room, you see, are pink.  The walls have been that way since forever, apparently, but during a 2005 renovation the school took it a step further and added shades of pink everywhere, including lockers. There is pretty no question that when the practice started in 1979 it was intended as an insult.  And the new pink-hued lockerrooms were of course was called out as sexist and discriminatory.  But why is that?  Would it be sexist to put Tonka trucks out?  To make the benches appear like tires rising out of the ground?  If the visiting women's team's locker room was blue would that be sexist? Being offended by the presence of pink gives the people using that symbol, and the symbol itself, power.  If the visiting team wins 9/10 games, does the color pink...

When I first joined the world of Dad blogging I couldn't help but notice that lots and lots of Dads who blogged hated the way they had to dress their daughters.  There were plenty of articles in the mainstream press on the same issue.   Mommy blogs  jumped in as well. Were we limiting our daughters, or worse yet, damaging them, by dressing them in pink? I was certain that society limits girls, telling them both subtly and not-so subtly that they can't do certain things.  And sure, an adult is free to do whatever an adult wants, but once those signals are broadcast its hard to overcome, especially when those signals are received early and often. Now, my daughter wasn't going to run into quite the same situation, because she has to brothers the exact same age so they pretty much all play with the same stuff.  The boys play with Minnie and she plays with trains.  Though, somehow, she shows more interest in Minnie and baby dolls and they have more inter...