About Father Doesn't Know Best

Back in 2009, my wife gave birth to a beautifully amazing (as well as purple and somewhat slimy) baby girl, at which point the title of "Father" was thrust onto the permanent record of my life, and I became someones Dad. At that moment, so many things about parenting became suddenly clear to me, but it wasn't always that way.

For the nine and a half months prior to that moment, I had innumerable panic attacks at the thought of being a father; not because I didn't want to be one, but because I didn't know how to be one. As I searched the book store for some kind of instruction manual for new fathers, I discovered that the vast majority of parenting books available today are marketed towards mothers.

In fact, the entire "New Fathers" collection comprised only a handful of books that were relegated to half of a lower shelf in the parenting section of the book store. Half of said books for dads were written by women, and the other half used so many sports analogies and cliches that they were unintelligible. As for the rest of the parenting books, while I didn't mind the occasional illustrated chapter on how to breastfeed my baby, they made me feel a little neglected. After all, I had certainly been there for the making of the baby, but somehow society had decided that my job was done at that moment, and that I would have to wait in the dugout until my wife called me up to the plate to knock another one out of the park! (See what I mean? Sports analogies are asinine.)

Having been a close age to all of my siblings and cousins, I had never really been around babies, much less been responsible for the well being of one. Luckily, once my daughter was born, I learned most of what I needed to know on the fly (like figuring out how to change my first diaper, filled with a lovely substance called "meconium") and the rest became clearer as we learned more about our new family member.

In an effort to chronicle the exploits and milestones of our little one, without wanting to share every picture and piece of vital information on my child over public mediums (like Facebook, MySpace, etc), I started a private website, where I could invite my family and friends to view pictures of our family, as well as tell the stories of our family and the joys of parenting. However, I quickly realized that while it was nice to chronicle the G-rated milestones with my family, like "Baby's First Bottle" and "Baby's First Time Sleeping Through The Night" (riveting stuff!), that the funniest stories about parenting have come in the form of stories that weren't suitable for all audiences, like "Baby's First Level 3 Blowout In Public!"

Enter, the Blogosphere. After all, if I don't want to embarass my daughter in the future by keeping stories of her diaper blowouts on our family website, why not broadcast them out to millions of strangers on the internet? It makes perfect sense!

In an effort to capture all of the funny moments of being a new dad that can make you want to pull your hair out while laughing hysterically, I started this blog. My Goal: To provide some much-needed guidance to all of the new fathers and dads-to-be out there, and to let them know that they aren't alone in their lack of paternal knowledge. I hope to share my own stories, as well as the stories of other fathers, and all of the hilarious, bizarre, and down right gross aspects of parenting from the perspective of a new father.

Hopefully, we can figure it all out before our kids realize that "Father Doesn't Know Best!"

(Note: I also write a beer review blog called Beer for Daddy)