Let me introduce my fellow Dialectical Daddies:
Gopal is a friend and colleague in the Bay Area media justice movement; we both serve on the Board of Media Alliance. He's also a sharp political observer and a stay-at-home dad in a communal home.
Chris is also a friend in so-called "real life." At one time he was - this is unbelievable to me now - the only dad my age that I knew in San Francisco. Chris is also a teacher, activist, rocker, and baker of cupcakes for his 3-year-old Cole.
Tom is also a teacher and activist who publishes the 'zine Rad Dad, whose perspective I value.
Chip is an experienced blogger and the father of teenagers. Though he's the only daddy I don't personally know, in his blog I found a progressive who fearlessly tracks his experience against his values and politics - a kindred spirit and a true Dialectical Daddy!
What is a Dialectical Daddy? It's the social dad, the dad as citizen of the world. It's a dad who loves his kids enough to work for a more just and sustainable society, a place where all children can grow up free, fed, and cared for. A Dialectical Daddy faces contradictions but never stops trying to resolve them. A Dialectical Daddy knows that if women are free, he'll also be free. He never stops trying to live the life he's imagined, consistent with his values and hopes. A Dialectical Daddy tries to be conscious of the impact of his decisions on the world and on the future in which his children will live.
That, anyway, with an awkward degree of grandiose hand-waving, is the ideal Daddy Dialectic tries to promote. Welcome dads!
2 comments:
Thanks Jeremy! A small correction: though my son would love to be a teenager, we still have about a year left before he joins his sister in the realm of teenagerness.
Guys,
I haven't been by for a while, and how wonderful to find that such good people have become a team!
Miriam
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