Timid Daddy meets Scary Mommy

I'm a fan of mommy blogs and all sorts of parenting forums and websites. I follow Parenting Magazine on Twitter. I read Working Mother magazine as soon as it comes, even before my wife can get her hands on it. I'll read a daddy blog or two, but let's face it, there are way more mommy bloggers out there, and they do offer a lot of advice, stories and unique perspectives. 

One of my favorites since I discovered her about a year ago is Scary Mommy, also known as Jill Smokler. For the uninitiated, www.scarymommy.com is a vibrant community of parents brought together by the common theme of parenting doesn't have to be perfect. Smokler takes a no-nonsense, honest and head-on view of parenting. 

One recent blog posts for Smokler include "10 People Who Make Parenting Harder", featuring the rich tooth fairy, the obnoxious sports parent and the mothers who dress their daughters like whores. 

Another is "Fifty Shades of Seriously?" where she talks about reluctantly reading Fifty Shades of Grey and describing it as mommy porn. 

Yes, just from those two snippets you can see why this is my favorite mommy blogger. 

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Scary Mommy to talk about how it all started, the new book she has out, and to get a bit of a dad perspective of her world. Here's how it all went down.


Me: My wife always pokes a little fun at me for following you on Facebook, Twitter and reading your blogs and confessions. I know I'm not the only dad follower you have. But how much of the Scary Mommy nation is comprised of guys? 

Scary Mommy: You are far from the only dad who follows me, I assure you. There are actually a bunch who are pretty dedicated on the boards! It's not what I set out to do, but I love that you dads are reading along!! 

Me: When did you start Scary Mommy? 

SM: I really started Scary Mommy simply as a baby book of sorts for my kids, nothing more. I was always terrible at keeping track of first steps, foods etc. and thought writing down little stories and experiences would be much more fun. For me, and for them, someday. 

Me: I know it quickly transformed into the bigger and better thing that it is today but was the goal from the outset? 

SM: Not originally. I had no idea of the potential when I started the site, but quickly became aware that it could appeal to more people than just my family and friends. I was quickly hooked. 

Me: You might be what many mommy bloggers aspire to be. Speaking of that, you seem to be the type to hate a term like “mommy blogger”, do I have that right? Just seems too cutesy for you. 

SM: I really don't mind the phrase all that much and find all of the fuss around it to be pretty silly. That said, I really consider Scary Mommy to be more of a parenting community than a mommy blog these days. 

Me: Are you a SAHM who blogs? Or are you a full-time professional who happens to work at home and on a flexible schedule that works for you and your kids? 

SM: I consider myself a full-time working mom. For me, working at home, for myself, on my own schedule is the best of all worlds. 

Me: What would you say to other mommy bloggers who are hoping to follow a similar path and create a much larger thing than just cute stories about their kids on the web? 

SM: Work hard at it. I very quickly began looking at the blog as a job, despite not having much of an income from it. But, I think taking it seriously was very important. Success doesn't come easily or overnight, unfortunately. But, it can come, if you work hard enough for it. 

Me: You really go head-on with all your topics, discussions and opinions, just not holding anything back. And sometimes that gets people a little fired up. Is this just your natural personality coming through? Or is it a little bit of a character for the “brand”? 

SM: For good or bad, it's me. That's my favorite part of the site -- I've built it by being myself and don't ever feel the pressure to be anything I'm not. That would be exhausting.

Me: I know the overall idea of what you do is that parenting doesn't have to be perfect and you can't be perfect, so hey, let's celebrate our struggles and commiserate about them. Do I have that right? And why celebrate it? 

SM: As a dad? Yes, you have that right! And, it's not necessarily about celebrating the struggles, but rather coming clean with the reality of it all. Parenthood is wonderful and beautiful and miraculous, for sure. It's also the hardest thing in the world. 

Me: I know many professional, hard working, have-it-all-together and take-life-by-the-horns kind of women who would argue that their life is perfect, their kids are perfect and they're keeping it that way. What would you say to those moms? [please read this as dripping with sarcasm] 

SM: I would ask them what drugs they're on. Then, I would ask them to kindly share. 

Me: What would you say to the husbands of an up-and-coming Scary Mommy or even just words of wisdom to help dads survive their own version of Scary Mommy at home? 

SM: To the husbands of an up-and-coming Scary Mommies: Rub your wife's feet and get her ice cream. That's it. Current dads, same thing. And, change a diaper every now and then. 

Me: Your book is out and you've been touring around pimping that. How long did it take you to do the book? 

SM: The book took almost exactly nine months to complete, from writing the proposal, to shopping it around, to writing, editing etc. It really was like carrying and delivering another child. 

Me: And now you've been all over national television, write ups in print all over the country and a lot of major attention, where will you take Scary Mommy next? What's the plan? 

SM: Good question and I'm not sure of the answer. At the moment, I'm just getting used to being home again. I do think I have another book in me, somewhere. Just need to find the time to write it!


Scary Mommy isn't just just a place for funny parenting stories filled with all the poop and vulgarity your heart desires, it's also a community of parents sharing their stories. And Smokler is also a great story of taking something small that people like, filling a need or a void in the marketplace and turning it into something special. 

So check out the Scary Mommy nation over at www.scarymommy.com and you can thank me later. 

Confessions of a Scary Mommy, Smoklers first book, is a collection of original essays that take an irreverent look at the underbelly of parenting – things most moms would never admit, but feel every day. You can read more about it on her site here or go directly to Amazon to check it out. 

Do You Need A Pintervention?

Pinterest is addicting…we know this. How do we know this?  Well, I know at least three people that I follow on Pinterest have “pinned” 472 things to their boards over the past two days. Yes, that’s a real number. No, I can’t share who those people are for fear that they’ll lose their jobs. 


Pinterest is a virtual “pinboard” where you stick, organize and share all ideas you might find on the web.  It’s kind of like a visual bookmark sharing website. As with all social media platforms, there’s some good and some crap. Recipes, craft projects for your kids and gardening are my three primary uses. 


Just the categories will indicate to the uninitiated that Pinterest screams to women (recipes, baby stuff, fashion and wedding stuff…good lord the wedding stuff). And that’s fine. Just about every woman I know is on it in some form or another. I only know of three other guys on it…and they don’t really use it, I think they’re just keeping an eye on what their wives are up to. Various reports show the percentage of women on the site in the 80 percent to 85 percent range.  


Bloggers are finding it useful to share content and drive traffic to their site. Some are seeing it as their biggest referral source. 


One of the biggest issues is copyright and intellectual property infringement, and there’s quite an argument that goes on behind that. It all depends on how you pin something. If you pin it and it links back to the original owner of the content, great. If you pin it with all the instructions say to a recipe, and it doesn’t link back to the original page, no credit is given and it can be considered “stolen” material.  It’s all meant to be sharing so of course no one is trying to hurt anyone, but some have strong opinions on that matter.  


Here’s a very interesting piece about a photographer who is also a lawyer, removed her Pinterest account until she fully understands the potential dangers.  


As with all social media outlets, the ugly side of it pops out eventually. There’s copyright violations, it’s a major time suck for those who get really involved, it could either help or hurt originality, there’s virtually no privacy settings and there’s reports of Pinterest embedding codes into pins as part of their revenue generation. I’m not saying all of these are bad, but they can be. Time will tell if Pinterest will react and adjust accordingly, just as the other social networks have done.  


Clearly Pinterest has an audience, and one that is growing very rapidly. It was listed in Time Magazine’s “50 Best Websites of 2011”. As of January’s numbers, they had close to 12 million unique visitors.  


Pinterest definitely has the potential to be used for small businesses and brands.  Have some great images out there and people can pin, re-pin, like, comment and go nuts. It’s hard to say how Pinterest will play out in terms of marketing but they’ll find a way. There’s always a way. In other words ladies, they will find a way to get more money out of you, it's just a matter of time. Lowe's already has a Pinterest account/page and I think they’re headed in the right direction.  


I’m not one of the self-proclaimed Pinterest addicts. I browse around there when I have nothing else to do, like for a specific 10 minute or so period of every day, and that’s about it.  And I don’t really see how I can get addicted. Quite frankly, I was using Evernote web clipper and “pinning” things I’m interested in for a while now. Difference is, Evernote is just for me so I can recall things later. But Pinterest is an entire social event. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve already made four recipes I’ve found on Pinterest and plan to make some kids crafts I’ve found on there. But it’s just not screaming to me like it is many others.  Then again, they say that’s how it starts…


Do you pin? Are you a Pinterest addict? Do you need a Pintervention? Maybe you have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest? I’d like to hear about it. And go ahead, pin this post...you know you want to. 

Naked Wrestling

You might assume by the title of this post that this is going to be a very exciting read. Well, I hope it is, but it won't be for the reasons that you're thinking. 

Our twin boys are just a little older than 3 years old. During the past month or so, they've really shown a strong desire to increase their naked time. As with most people, naked time used to just be for tubby and getting dressed. But now it's more frequent. 

Two days ago, one of them said "Let's get naked and show the fishies!" At least there is a purpose, I suppose. 

One unfortunate part of the naked shenanigans is they get pretty rambunctious at the same time. My wife is always VERY concerned about injury to "delicate" areas. But general injuries do occur too. 

The other day, they had a head-on collision and Lukas' eye swelled up and was black and blue in minutes. You would think no one really knew about this incident but then my wife received a text message from another mother at day care about Lukas telling her that he got his black eye from naked wrestling. Big mouth. Well, I guess it could be worse. He could have said his daddy gave him the black eye and then who knows where we'd be right now!  

From all of my very detailed research on the subject (mostly mommy blogs online), this seems to be very normal behavior, so I guess that's a good thing. Luckily, they know their limits and know that it's just in the house—so far they haven't tried to have naked time in the middle of Target or anything like that. 

KidsHealth.org says it's not only normal, but as parents, we should not react as though it's a bad thing. That way, they know that curiosity of their body is normal. 

But this same Internet research also shows me that the parenting world is slightly divided out there about whether or not it's OK for their toddlers to be naked.

But really, as with many traits I see in children, this is another one I wish I had. I mean really, tell me you wouldn't like to just hang on the couch naked and watch TV. Oh I know, you could do that anytime, right?  Well go ahead...and I will live vicariously through you the because I don't have that opportunity.

Does it just kick in that being naked is a bad thing? Or is that taught by us? Look, I'm not saying I want the boys to be nudists. But there's something to be said for being comfortable in your own skin. At some point in society, we put shame on bodies and of course parents of daughters or women in general could talk all day about body image issues these days.

I'm just hoping this naked twin wrestling doesn't turn into a niche market or shtick for them when they get older. Might be a good money maker in general, but slightly creepy when you're doing it at 25.

Happy naked time everyone.