Parenting Blogs Are Like Sitcoms, But I Need More Dimension

Dear Bloggers,

This is Rassles. I would like to apologize for the lateness of this review, but I currently do not have internet in my shitty apartment because the guy I scammed it from moved to South Carolina, so I've been writing this during my lunch breaks. Okay, and yesterday I took a three hour lunch break because I am devoted to you all, and because I am sick of working. Game on.

Let’s get one fucking thing straight: I probably don’t give a shit about your fucking kids. If I did, I would read their blogs.

But if you must write about your kids, and you have every right to do so, force me to care. These are the most important people in your lives, so fucking make it count. Be Studs Terkel or Ira Glass for your blog and give your children words that justify your adoration, give them quirks and vices that mean something to you, make your love for that little beast a main character in this tesseract of drama and sippy cups and diapers and parenting and bullshit. Most children do the same silly crap, and the fun in reading this stuff is learning how you see your child.

Embarrass yourself, because your devotion to them is more important than personal pride. Perceive and accept your own temporary insanity when you get that blinding excitement because your child like, does stuff.

Do it for me. Do it for your readers. Do it for your sticky children. Blogging parents usually don’t understand this. Oh sure, they say they get it. But they don’t. They speak in cliché’s and recite Hallmark cards (Oh, my child lights up my life and he’s the greatest gift God has ever given me and I am so very thankful for this journey called life that we are traveling together) instead of actually writing something meaningful.

Baff. You make me baff. Not like a drunken secret hand-baff, where you just swallow it right back up again. I'm talking like, ruined shoes baffing.

Blogs are interdimensional – I want your goal to be five. Five dimensions. Point, line, cube, gravity, time. That’s what we’re trying to hit here, people.

Point: You have to start somewhere.
Line: Connect your points.
Cube: Start adding corners (quirks and vices, for example).
Gravity: Your corners are connected, now pull. Fill them with something. Some corners are dirty, some are exposed, some are wrong turns, some bring about self-awareness. Some are scary-ass cliffs, some are fun, swervy curves, but all of them are a part of you.
Time: This is the hardest one, because people don't understand that it's cyclical. They don't think about the velocity of their words, about navigation and history. Your blog should be a maze of personality. It represents YOU, for chrissake. Everyone believes they are unique. Fucking prove it.

Just so you know, Daddy Files, I’m using some of your blog as a decent example. You are doing it right half of the time, even though I feel like you're gunning for a family sitcom. You've mastered the cube, and sometimes you have gravity and time, but usually? It's just the cube. Still, your child is a person to me, not another zombie brat.

You're unafraid to voice your opinions, and although I love that you have an opinion in the first place that isn't just a rehash of something you've read, sometimes that shit gets a little bit tedious. I think, in those posts, you're trying to be controversial, the way you start on the offensive and punch with conviction, but they just don't ring true for me. I kind of glazed over them. Like plain Munchkins.

I don't care for straight up opinion in my stories. I prefer artful narrative propaganda.

Also, any post that mentions Tiger Woods I skip on principle.

Technically, your writing is flawless. At first, you are careful, with slight, thoughtful humor. In reference to your early posts, I wrote this: Dude, I am sure you have a tirade lurching around inside of you somewhere, and you're straining to hold it back. WHY ARE YOU SO INHIBITED? I was bored. I was all set on Abercrombie-rating the fuck out of you.

But then summer 2009, you start spinning things around. You get a little feisty. Things don't vary in topic, just tone. You unshackled one manacle, but you still have one more.

I want to see you hurt, Johnny-Cash-covers-Trent-Reznor fucking HURT. You hide that, pretending it doesn't exist or shifting the blame onto something else, because you're afraid of...I don't know what you're afraid of. Public vulnerability? You follow the trend of aggressively berating things that should make you feel shame but are a secret source of pride (you can't hide it from me, I fucking invented that tactic). You never just soul-out. Which is fine, it takes time. I'm just letting you know I can see through you.

Template is fine, I guess. A little Aryan Nation, but fitting (I don't mean you're a neo-Nazi, but it's just...you know...OMG LOOK AT MY PEACHY BLONDE FUCKING ADORABLE SON POINTING AT SOMETHING). Your archives drove me fucking bitchcrazy, with the whole "one post per page" at a time thing. Your Twitter feed is just a black wordless box right now, which I strongly prefer to an actual Twitter feed. But the rest is fine and uninspiring.

So.

You write well. I've been reviewing seriously well-written blogs lately. In terms of sitcoms: The whole thing is a little Everybody Loves Raymond (and that show is hysterical sometimes, I don't care what anyone says), I prefer Roseanne or Arrested Development, but be careful: you're teetering into According to Jim territory.

I've used that before.

I wanted to give you three, but I just can't do it.






Because I feel like you're doing half of this just to be cool.