Monday, February 06, 2006

Who's Your Rice Daddy?

If you look at the intro posts or "about me" profiles on most dadblogs, 4 out of 5 of them say something about starting up because all the momcentric parenting sites, while full of good stuff, just didn't speak to their experiences as "New Age Dads" in the 21st century.

When I started tooling around the blogosphere looking for commiserating voices offering cautionary tales or early adopter reviews of the latest dad-friendly diaper bag, I noticed something. A couple of them, in introducing themselves or their kids, casually mentioned that they were Asian American. You know, I'm 35, I'm a writer, I'm Asian, I like hip hop.... Just another descriptor. But comparing them to the growing number of dadblogs, these stood out. 'Cause, you know, I don't think I ever found one that said, "I'm a SAHD, I homeschool my twins, I live in Poughkeepsie, and oh, BTW, I'm white." Heh.

Which brings me, and you, to the here and the now. In short, to Rice Daddies.

We're a group of dads of the Asian persuasion, most of us only 2 years or less into the parenting game. We're bicoastal and multiethnic, Chinese- and Japanese- and Filipino- and Korean- and biracial- Americans. We're writers and lawyers and businessmen and teachers (oh my!), stay-at-home and work-at-home and wish-we-could-work-at-home dads. We're dads who happen to be Asian, and Asians who happen to be dads. And we mention both, matter-of-factly, because they both matter.

Which is not to say that this is gonna be all serious all the time, or all political, or all race-centric. Of course, we're not promising that when we try to be funny, that'll work all the time either. (Except for MetroDad. We give you a money-back guarantee that he will always be piss-your-pants funny.) But really, this is just a place where we can muddle through our own experiences of what it means to be raising the next generation of Asian American young'ns in the technicolor 21st century.

Shout-outs to the O.G. Yellow Daddyblogger, MetroDad, for the inspiration, and to big daddy Poppa Large for the technical and organizational whoopass (and yes, they are the dadbloggers to whom I alluded earlier).

And so, to all you yellow baby daddies and yellow baby daddies' yellow (and brown and black and red and white and off-white) baby mamas, without further ado...

Welcome to the Rice Daddy Revolution.

(Heh. Alliteration. Cool.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So many posts and no one told me about this new venture. I feel resentful and petulant. Just kidding...I am so excited about the rice daddy revolution.

daddy in a strange land said...

Don't worry Nina, you're not late to the party, we've just been doing a slow launch, is all. But welcome! How'd you find us? Hope you and Charlie become regulars. And thanks for joining the revolution. ;)

Anonymous said...

This is SO COOL! Rice Daddies rock. I can't ever imagine my dad blogging on something called Rice Daddies, but he was the coolest one of them all (RIP daddy). I'm glad you guys are out there doing this; you are so outnumbered. I'm subscribing!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful intro.

I'm not a mummy, or a daddy. But I care about the next generation of Asian Australians and Americans and I like your style, so I think you've found a regular reader way over down under.