Archive for February, 2012

Speaking of Children……..

Posted on February 27, 2012. Filed under: Atheism, Atheist Ethics, Children, Parenting, Personal |

Many of my readers know that I have children.  Some may not.  In a comment thread over at Lousy Canuck, it was mentioned by more than one commenter that there was a dearth of atheists blogging about parenting and the intersection of parenthood and skepticism. At that moment it struck me- why do I never blog about fatherhood or the challenges and rewards of parenting?

I mean… in my life outside the internet, I am regularly accused of spending an inordinate amount of time talking about my kids.  I excuse myself of it by explaining how very much of my time is actually spent with my kids- and how I might have very little to add to any conversation if you held “off limits” the majority of my waking hours for the last 12 or so years. Yet if you came to this blog and read every post without ever clicking the “about” tab, you likely would have no idea that I am the father of five (yep, you read that right, FIVE) kids.

I assumed that since many of my readers don’t have kids, and no other bloggers were really talking about parenting, that it was a subject that was of little importance in the skeptical community.  I assumed that on a scale of relevance for the average atheist, children were ranked slightly higher than baseball scores but merely a fraction of LOL Kittens.  It turns out that some people actually want to discuss parenting and children with like minded atheists.  Huh. Who knew?

Now that I think about it, virtually every blog I frequent has some co- or sub-theme to atheism that I find less than interesting to me.

For example, Jeremy over at Cafe Witteveen (the first stop on my daily blog rounds) has many interests outside of atheism that I find fascinating- photography and cooking are a few examples.  On the other hand, I tend to skip over Caturday posts and feel ambivalent about Wednesdog.

Likewise, when I visit Jason over at Lousy Canuck I enjoy his posts about old school Nintendo games and physics- but tend to avoid posts about Ubuntu or how to hack source code.  At Dan’s blog, Camels With Hammers, I love all things philosophy and Star Wars but skip over some of his questionable music suggestions.

Anyway, you get the picture.

I have been running a pretty shallow blog for almost two years now.  I never took the time to consider that maybe a blog is a place to do more than rant about how wrong someone else is on the internet.  (Don’t worry, I’m still gonna do that)  I’ve spent the last two years writing opinion pieces at the expense of really injecting myself into my blog.

So, as of today, that all changes.  My blog is going to be anchored to atheism, devoted to skeptic and rational thought, and be about how I apply skepticism and atheism where the rubber meets the road.

I’m still ironing out the details.  Do I use the names of my kids? (probably not)  Do I change certain details to maintain some sense of privacy? (likely)

Expect posts that speak directly to my experience raising kids who are engaged, educated, and empathetic.  Expect me to relate some anecdotes about raising my kids that tie into certain atheist related issues in the blogosphere.  Expect me to talk frankly about the challenges of parenting as well as the infinite rewards.

I hope that this is going to lead to new readers- people who want to share their own experiences with parenting, people who want to learn from my mistakes, and people who want to point out those mistakes I’m not aware I’m making.  I hope that this will get me back on track with a regular posting schedule- since now the most important thing that keeps me from regular blogging will be a topic of conversation.

I hope you are going to stay tuned.