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lost musings

I’ve made no bones about the fact that I’ve toed the metaphorical line of my purpose here.

If you’ve been privy to the six months that comprise the early development of this blog, visiting often, reading diligently, and participating on the fringes of wordsmithery that drapes this domain in some vague recollection of pandering advice, then you have also witnessed a bumbling fool of a new father attempt to compose the impossible. I often have this deep rooted fear that my own cherry-picked musings on the state of critical thought are in jeopardy, caught in the gravity-well of logical fallacy — and it is with straining effort and scattered triumph that I continue to pluck away on this project. As such, we were traveling recently, bumbling through an international jaunt with our little hatchling in tow, and lest not be saved from our typical mid-vacation discovery of some local bookstore, we spent a few hours wandering the foreign stacks and perusing literature from a bevy of random topics. Of course, old book shoppes with heaps of used tomes are an interesting place to uncover out-of-print editions and I quickly wended my way to the parenting shelf, crowded and bursting with published efforts in various degrees between lilting harmony and brash contradiction to my own, right here on skepdad. Child strapped to my chest, impatience incarnate, I had but a generous ten minutes to thumb through that particular section, but I did by chance pluck a judged-by-cover book from the shelf that, while sketched on a particularly different topic, was written upon a framework not entirely unlike this blog; abstractly, that book was built around the motif of verbose father raising a child askew to the regular grain of society, and anecdotally explored the experience.

That was two weeks ago.

And in that time, my readers — few and scattered as you are — may have noticed that there has been a vacancy in my own presence here. I’m sorry about that. I’ve been thinking.

I’ve made no bones about the fact that I’ve toed the metaphorical line of my purpose here, dabbled in a number of formats and functions trying to find a place for my writing as a skeptical parent. And I’d be lying if I claimed that I knew with any certainty what that purpose actually is. I stepped into this role, rented a little scrap of web-turf, pitched a tent, hung out my shingle, and have been distributing my own brand of lost musings on the topic of skeptical fatherhood with no more than a vague sense of direction and the feeling that there was a hole in the dijk and someone ought to stick his finger in it before all our feet got really wet.

Early on, I found myself plucking some topic of personal interest from the air, reading hours upon hours of primary and secondary literature on the topic, penning some tangible impressions on the topic from a lay-perspective, and inviting commentary. That was skep/dad’s role, I told myself. That is where the “leak” is happening. But a few articles into that purpose, my appetite for a idle commentary of that particular sort grew stale; I’ve felt the impression that I’m not (as a spectator and a busy parent) in much of a position to analyze these complex topics with any real depth.

Later, I dabbled in the abstractions of definition: what is skepticism, what is critical thought, and why bother? This seemed important — it still does — but one can’t help feel that there is a limit on how far one can go whilst studying one’s own navel.

What became apparent as the months have worn onward is that my explorations as “the skep/dad” had opened a channel of curious exploration that had originally seemed not much more than a few (again with the metaphor!) spotty leaks in the dijk, but more and more proves to be a general and fundamental weakness of the same. Since, I have struggled to find some kind of focus, wrapping my observations on parenting (literature, marketing, myths, and fears) around a skeptical framework and a philosophical approach to fatherhood. And every new investigation opens a dozen more in the telling.

So I take a deep breath and soldier on. But I’ve only got so many fingers.

But I’m still not so sure I’ve figured out where I fit. If you count, in the last few months I’ve written about forty articles on an eclectic collection of topics and enjoy a rich bounty of visitors from around the world, Googling for a variety of inquiries. But there is something of a trap in a project such as this one, particularly for the author: credibility as a rational thinker hinges on the accuracy of every syllable I write. And a novella’s worth of text viewed by thousands of people can be a weighty responsibility.

You might understand now why I seem to think I may have attempted the impossible here. And why, as I mentioned that random parenting book I pulled from the shelf of an unfamiliar bookstore while on vacation has got me to thinking about what I can really accomplish in a space like this. I realize I’ve likely drawn readers down a ill-lit path here, perhaps even coming across as though I was throwing in the towel. But I’m not. I think I might be evolving, and these long-winded explanations are nothing more than fair warning about the realities of blog-stability. I spent that few short minutes flipping through that book and it struck me (kappow!) that my purpose here can easily become so many things. I could attempt a kind of pseudo-journalism, flail along a path of scientific meta-analysis, stroll casually and muse poetically on the op-ed-ish angle of modern parenting, or I could reflect anecdotally on the life of one poor fool trying to raise his kids against the grain of his own entrenched societal pressures.

There is so much work. And I’m gonna need to focus. So I hope you can all spare a little patience while I think about this, that’s all.

The SkepDad Blog is meant to casually reflect on questions surrounding parenting and raising kids to become critical thinkers by asking questions and examining parenting ideas with a skeptical eye for facts and science. Each article is one dad's personal opinion, backed (where relevant) by literature and published research, or otherwise based on personal experiences and insights. SkepDad welcomes balanced discussion, comments, and ideas.

March 25, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Meta-Skepdad

Popularity: 15%

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