DadCentric Alumni: We Check In With BHJ

This week, we're bringing back some old friends to help us celebrate DadCentric's Fourth Anniversary. Not to blow sunshine up our own asses, but this site has been the standard bearer for dadblogging excellence since its inception, and DadCentric writers like BHJ are the reason why. The greatest trick that the BHJ ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist; thankfully, he does, and the blogosphere is a better place for it. I'll pass the mic to him:

Hello again DadCentric audience. It’s been a little while. How are you? I hope your lives have been filled with depth and power and lots of getting laid. And good food too. If you’ve got good food and sex and a few people who can stand your ass, hold your chin up—you win. 

Jason gave us—the DadCentric guests—some themes to focus on. The first thing he mentioned was addressing the Dad-Blog-O-Sphere itself, how it’s changed and how it hasn’t. And, you see, today I had a great French Dip. The Au Jus was good and salty. What I mean to say is that it’s hard for me to stay focused on a theme. The Dad-Blog-O-Sphere itself? I don’t think I’ve been around long enough to assess it in a way that means anything. Really. My first answer is that I don’t know. 

But when has not knowing ever stopped me before? It seems to have become more populated, even in the short time I’ve been around. It’s filled with dudes who love their kids. And there’s still no money in it. There’s a lot of the same old junk about making fun of how Dads are stupid. Dads cut themselves down and try to make it look funny and humble. It’s a lazy cliché and people who perpetuate this stereotype ought to be shot and killed.

It doesn’t feel unified in any fundamental way. Or if it is, I’m alienated from it. I wish we could get it together and make a million dollars like those BlogHer chicks. It seems to me that DadCentric could spearhead something like that. I’d go to a DadCentric conference. I mean, seriously. I love my kids so fucking much. My feelings about them are so vital and strong. There’s got to be a way to convert the force of that resounding love into buckets of cash. 

Next, Jason asked how being a high-profile Dadblogger has affected me. Well, anybody who knows my story knows that my blog exploded very quickly and my ego inflated to unprecedented levels. But then I started hating myself and eating big handfuls of pills. Then I kinda self-destructed and started writing about depression and suicide and anger until I wasn’t really a high-profile Dadblogger anymore. Now, I feel more like my audience is my audience and less like a fad cracking the same old jokes.

How has this affected me? It’s been great. It’s kept me consistently writing and improving and it really boosted my confidence. It was shocking to discover that some people enjoyed my writing. Immensely gratifying. And now that my addiction to popularity has waned, I’ve been able to focus more on the quality of my writing, which is to say I’m more focused on the quality of my experience. They go hand-in-hand. To seek on a daily basis for ways to write about my life is to be more attentive to my life. And this makes for more attentive fathering. So in the process of what some would call exploiting my children, the kids actually end up with the best of me: an observant Dad who’s bursting with things to say about them.