Dad Blogger Round-up: Sad, but forward looking

For all bloggers, dads and otherwise, there has been one very significant and sad development over recent weeks. This is the passing away of Oren Miller.

Oren was a US-based stay at home dad and wrote Thebloggerfather. He was also the man behind the Dad Bloggers Facebook page, not only somewhere to showcase blog posts but a place where dads open up and talk frankly in a way you rarely see elsewhere.

Oren lost a battle with lung cancer, leaving behind his wife Beth, son Liam and daughter Madeline. He was just 42 years old.

You regularly hear bloggers in the UK referring to the Dad Bloggers Facebook page and the badge adorns many a website. The international impact of Oren’s work should be recognised. Many dad bloggers have benefited from Oren’s work, even though they never met him.

Many, many people have written about Oren over the past week or so. Lewis, who writes Dadwhoblogs (@dadwhoblogs) penned a very fitting tribute. I’ve long admired Lewis’s writing style and he did a wonderful job with this heart-felt blog post.

One of Oren’s passions was to see Amazon rename its US-based Amazon Mom programme to Amazon Family. With his passing away, bloggers across the world have swung behind this campaign. Look out for the hashtag #AmazonFamilyUS. One thing the organisers are very clear about; this is a campaign for mums and dads and they want all to get involved.

Something Oren would no doubt have supported would have been extended paternity rights. The Labour party’s announcement that it would extend paternity leave and double paternity pay created a major buzz among the dads.

Choosing which posts to include in this round up was really tricky but Jeegar Kakkad’s stands out. Jeegar is a new blogger to me and he works as a business lobbyist. In this uncompromising post he states that there is no logical argument against extending paternity rights.

Over at Thedadventurer, Dave (@the_dadventurer) spoke out in favour of the proposals. In fact he claimed it was his first “serious” post. I hope you’ll agree he did well playing the straight man.

Adrian from Dadwithoutamap (@Dad_Map) took a slightly different stance. Although he’s in favour of Labour’s plans, he also wrote about the benefits of flexible working and how this is allowing him to spend a day a week with his little one.

One particular dad blogger, who shall remain nameless, ended up discussing the issue live on Channel 4 news. You can watch the broadcast here.

Moving on from politics (there will be loads of it over the next few months after all), the Dawnofthedad (@dawn_dad) blog is focusing on embarrassing moments. From reading the blog post it seems the older generation is much better at creating embarrassing situations than children.

Jonathan (@Jonny_C85) at Diaryofapregnantmanchild is looking forward to getting some “me time” back. His wife is about to return to work after maternity leave and the pair have “re-evaluated” their lives in a bid to make sure they aren’t just “mummy and daddy.” I think any parent can relate to this and reclaiming some self-identity.

I’ll be back next month. If you have any suggestions for future round up then please do get in touch.