December 11, 2002

Let me explain why this is so important to me.

"We'd be blog building a bridge between generations." -- Michael O'Connor Clarke


Alright. I had my dance around the living room over blogsprogs, where three blog dads-to-be are blogging their babies into being.

And now I'm back again to talk a little more about why this new blog is so important. Three men, now gathered in a blog to talk about the end of the pregnancy of the women carrying their children, about the birth of their daughters and/or sons, the beginnings of fatherhood (one first timer, two back for more), about how they are experiencing these things, right now, real time, with us. These are fathers giving us a womb-side view as they welcome their children into the world. And then, as they grow, we will see children through the eyes of their fathers.

This was the type of thing I was trying to explain in the NY Times interview. Some might think I've babbled on too long about how I didn't focus on "women," in the interview, but tried hard to talk about how blogging is changing us as human beings. As men and women yes, but as humans first. As fathers and mothers, husbands and wifes, lovers, children, parents--redefining roles, crisscrossing who we've been with who we might be, and becoming more.

This is what blogging is about. This is how men and women are changing and rearranging their core by talking about truths that were once better left at home, under the rug or in the top cupboard above the refrigerator, or in this case, discussed by women in the waiting room of the OBs office, sans husbands. Do you see how important this is, and how even more important it is that blogsprogs flowed naturally out of what these men were already writing, thinking, sharing through weblogging? Now you know why I was dancing. These are my brothers and they are talking from the heart.

RageBoy said to me last week that blogging is redefining human beings (and I think he means right down to our DNA), that our "containers don't fit anymore." Crazy? Let's wait and see.

So it's 2 a.m. and I have to go to sleep now, but what I'm saying is: It's not that these three men are or *aren't* talking tech, and it's not that women are or *aren't* talking knitting. It's about what we're doing together. Here. And how it's changing us out there. It's about what we're knitting together. We're weaving ourselves in and out of roles, in and out of love, in and out of lives, in and out of work, and we're doing it right here, together, men and women, and we're writing and picking up the phone and meeting one another and showing one another it's okay to be human.

Good night. blog on. Dads, take this with a grain of salt--no added pressure here--wouldn't want to make you any more nervous than you already are.

-Aunt Jeneane