What is a Daddyfesto?

I've tinkered with writing about fatherhood in the past, but I've now written several pages and thought I would start blogging. For the stuff I wrote at home, I saved it to a WORD file and stuck the name the “Fatherhood Manifesto” at the top of it.

That sounded too horribly serious. In addition after reading it, I realized that there was nothing really "manifesto" about what I was writing. If anything it was about uncertainty.

I am generally a confident person that generally sees the world in black and white terms. But fatherhood is the one experience, more than any other in my life, that has taught me about the various shades of gray.

What might be right and proper for one kid isn’t for another. What was right for you might not be right for them. There is a vast middle ground between spoiling your child and giving them so little that their upbringing is similar to that of someone raised in a war zone.

I still think that there generally is a right way and a wrong way to do this fatherhood gig on a lot of questions; I’m just saying that others of the questions don't have yes or no answers that lend themselves to simple analysis.

Like this: Should you have kids? If you can, of course. Should you have five? No. Should you have only one if you can have more? No. But I’m not sure if two, three or four is the right number.

Or like this: Should you ever physically discipline your kid? Of course you should. When your 2-year old reaches for a hot pan on the stove, a light slap on the hand is going to get the message across 1,000 times better than another “no,” primarily because he’s heard the word “no” spoken to him about 10,000 times, but has only gotten his hand slapped, like 10 times (unless you're an ass). If the question is “how much should I physically discipline my child on a scale of 0 to 10,” I know that 8-10 and 0-3 are the wrong answers, but I’m not sure if the answer is 4, 5 or 6. And maybe even 7.

I can tell you a lot about what’s definitely wrong. But I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s right. So as much as I would have liked it to be a manifesto, it ain't.

But "Daddyfesto" seemed right to me. It's some opinionated thoughts on how this fatherhood schtick works, and how it doesn't. And it ain't quite a manifesto.