About Us

Inspiration

We hope that the blog links, sentiments, poems and photos on this page inspire you to think about your children in new and different ways, and to perhaps let them know how you feel in your own words and expressions.
If you want to share some of your thoughts, we inv ite you to submit them to the Fatherhood Collaborative for possible posting on this page, or send us links to your favorite blogs.

BAY AREA PARENT Interview with Bruce Collins The June 2008 issue of Bay Area Parent featured an interview with Bruce Collins, Chair of the Fatherhood Collaborative and father of three. Click here to read the interview.

Daddy Blogs

The term “blog”, in case the term is new to you, is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site. There are blogs written by political pundits, and would-be pundits, by reporters, by kids, and by parents. Many blogs are interactive – resulting in what amounts to on-line conversations between blogger and readers.

We have collected a number of ‘daddy’ blogs, and list their sites here for you to check out. You may find valuable advice, a community of dads just like yourself, or inspiration to start your own blog. If you do, and would like the link posted here, let us know. Or, if you know of a blog that you particularly like, let us know that too.

Rebel Dad – http://www.rebeldad.com

Daddy types –http://daddytypes.com

The Trixie Update— http://www.trixieupdate.com

Baby Blog - http://babyblog.org/

Cubicle Dad - http://cubicledad.wordpress.com/

L.A. Daddy - http://www.ladaddy.com/

Being a Good Father -- http://beingagoodfather.blogspot.com

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'A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child.'- Confucius

Father by Ted Kooser
(US Poet Laureate)

May 19, 1999

Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
miserable, you and your children,
driving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient, fearful hypochondriac
and his fretful son and daughter,
asking directions, trying to read
the complicated, fading map of cures.
But with your dignity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
I miss you every day -- the heartbeat
under your necktie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with stories.
On this day each year you loved to relate
that at the moment of your birth
your mother glanced out the window
and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today
lilacs are blooming in side yards
all over Iowa, still welcoming you.

From Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser,
© 2005, Reprinted by permission of
Copper Canyon Press

My Father's Hat by Mark Irwin

Sunday mornings I would reach
high into his dark closet while standing
on a chair and tiptoeing reach
higher, touching, sometimes fumbling
the soft crowns and imagine
I was in a forest, wind hymning
through pines, where the musky scent
of rain clinging to damp earth was
his scent I loved, lingering on
bands, leather, and on the inner silk
crowns where I would smell his
hair and almost think I was being
held, or climbing a tree, touching
the yellow fruit, leaves whose scent
was that of a clove in the godsome
air, as now, thinking of his fabulous
sleep, I stand on this canyon floor
and watch light slowly close
on water I'm not sure is there.

From Bright Hunger by Mark Irwin.
Copyright ©2004 by Mark Irwin.
Reprinted by permission of BOA Editions, Ltd.
All rights reserved.

“My heart is happy, my mind is free— I had a father who talked with me”
Hilda Bigelow

Whose Mouth Do I Speak With by Suzanne Rancourt

I can remember my father bringing home spruce gum.
He worked in the woods and filled his pockets
with golden chunks of pitch.
For his children
he provided this special sacrament
and we'd gather at this feet, around his legs,
bumping his lunchbox, and his empty thermos rattled inside.
Our skin would stick to Daddy's gluey clothing
and we'd smell like Mumma's Pine Sol.
We had no money for store bought gum
but that's all right.
The spruce gum
was so close to chewing amber
as though in our mouths we held the eyes of Coyote
and how many other children had fathers
that placed on their innocent, anxious tongue
the blood of tree?

From Billboard in the Clouds by Suzanne Rancourt.
Copyright © 2004 by Suzanne Rancourt.
Published by Curbstone Press.
Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Dist.
Reprinted by permission of Curbstone Press.