Clare's Dad

“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
- Mark Twain
- Clare’s Dad
- commercial-free blogging

Can I even call myself a blogger anymore? Is there some authoritative panel that gets to determine that? Maybe the FTC? Or maybe the Blogher bosses (even though they refused to list dad blogs when I first asked four years ago)? Or maybe I should just ask Whit? He seems to be connected with every blog on the internet.

It is kind of shameful that I’m barely getting one original post up each month. In the past year or so, I’ve made some excuses about why I’m not blogging much anymore. More work. Too busy. Clare’s older and should have more privacy. But I think that Dan over at All That Comes With It may have hit on an even greater reason this week. In Blogging for Fun and Profit, Dan laments that blogging—and mom and dad blogs in particular—have become too commercial. I’ve noticed the ads and reviews too, of course. (I’m actually in favor of the FTC regulations.) I’ve been paid for links and have done reviews for free products too, but not within the last year (not that anyone has even offered in the past six months). And I’ve listed this blog on promotional websites and social networks for like-minded parent bloggers to connect. Somehow though, I didn’t realized where that was headed. Somewhere between the first blog promotions and today, blogging became less about connecting with other bloggers and more about “what can blogging do for me?”

Dan pointed out that four years ago I was able to include  just about every dad blogger on my blogroll. After a year or so, it became impossible to keep up. I even deleted dad bloggers who no longer write or who have never commented or linked to me. With the explosion of bloggers, there are so many more who seem focused only on increasing the number of hits they get and trying to make a buck or just get attention. I miss the days when blogging was more about reaching out than trying to hook people in.

Don’t get me wrong. Some of the dad blogs I still follow have become more commercial. I have nothing against advertising or product reviews, but I don’t follow these bloggers because of that. If anything, I follow them despite that. I honestly respect the bloggers who have found a balance between personal writing and blog promotions. (I’d be surprised if many of them spend much time promoting their family blogs at all.) To those of you who do work hard to promote your family blogs, I have to ask: why are you blogging?

It’s a rhetorical question. You don’t have to tell me why you’re blogging. I’ve told you a few times though: I’m blogging as a record for Clare to highlight some things we’ve done, some things we’ve said, and what her world is like as she’s growing up. Keeping true to that purpose can be increasingly difficult in the new commercialism of blogging. But, like Dan, I’ll make the effort. There’s still a great community of dad and mom bloggers out there that I’m proud to be a part of. I won’t post daily, and maybe not even weekly, but I’ll make a renewed effort to be here.

When I started typing this post, I was just going to upload some pictures from a hike that Clare, Clare’s Mom and I took in a state park a few weeks ago. A walk in the woods. Walks like that are always good for getting back to basics and spending some time in thought. Maybe this post has been about a walk in the woods in a couple of ways.