Welcome back to another exciting episode of Dad Blogs Exposed! This week I am talking to blogger extraordinaire and funny man, John Kinnear, from the blog Ask Your Dad. Here’s what John had to say about blogging and fatherhood.
CD: Why did you start blogging?
JK: I started blogging at the urging of my wife. I have been writing since before I can remember, but most of it was filed in various shoe boxes and stored in the garage. After I got married and had a kid, my wife urged me to share some of the writing I had done with our friends and family through a blog. It grew from there.
CD: What can people expect from your blog? Do you have a specific goal or do you write whatever you feel?
JK: I hope that people can always expect a laugh. I try and stay funny whenever possible. My kids make that pretty easy. I don’t really have an agenda per se. I do have a rule that I try and follow. I try not to give advice. I just talk about what has and hasn’t worked for me, and if people can laugh at it while finding pieces here and there that help them through their own parenting journey, then I think that is awesome.
CD: What has been your biggest challenge as a father?
JK: Two things. Putting my phone away. Letting go of fear.
CD: What one piece of advice can you give to a new Dad?
JK: Decide what kind of dad you want to be before your kid arrives, and then work every day to fail less. I fall short of being the dad I want to be every single day, but my kids don’t see that. They don’t see the ideal dad that I see in my head. They see me. They see me trying. And that matters more than what I see.
CD: Do you have any long term goals for your site?
JK: Not really. I have long term goals for my writing, but not necessarily my site. I’d like to write a book or five. Not necessarily short form or memoir like I am doing now, but something with a bigger story to it. I haven’t found that story yet, but I am toying with one that revolves around teenage Frankensteins that fall in love and then get to go to a magical wizard school where they are selected to fight other classic movie monsters in an arena death match. You know, something simple that will relate to a larger audience.
CD: What is your social media weapon of choice and why?
JK: I enjoy Facebook Pages a lot. I’m on Twitter and I dabble on Google+, but most of the conversation outside of my blog takes place on the Ask Your Dad Facebook Page.
CD: How has blogging affected your life?
JK: Ha. Someone actually recognized me the other day. This really pretty lady and ran up, gave me a hug, and thanked me for a post I wrote. That will probably never happen again, but I felt pretty good about it as soon as I was able to get my wife to stop punching her in the face. Kidding… Stevie, my wife, thought it was just as cool as I did. Speaking of my wife, I think that is the other strange, and a little unfortunate way that blogging has affected my life. I get way to much credit and she doesn’t get enough. (My opinion, not hers.) The truth is, out of the two of us, Stevie is the parenting rock star. I’m an active and engaged dad, but she is a freaking jedi-ninja-parent. If I am a practitioner of good parenting, then she is the alter at which I worship. But even with her level 99 mom skills, at the end of the day, we both just try and fail less.
I would like to thank John for his time and hope you will take some time to check out the Ask Your Dad Blog. You can also find John on Twitter and Facebook. Later!
