A little disclosure

Mummy bloggers do it with integrity. But I'm a daddy. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-har!

No. Be serious for a moment. It's time to tell you something. Something important. Something relevant. (There's a first time for everything.) I've been meaning to do it for some time. You could probably have guessed it. But I'm going to say it just to make sure.

I am entirely responsible for all this drivel; nobody writes this stuff but me. I write what I want, I edit if I can be bothered and I publish without anyone's permission but my own. Like many mummy/daddy bloggers lately, I'm sometimes sent stuff to review or asked to mention something. If I want to, I will. If I don't I won't. And if I do I'll say exactly what I think, you can rest assured of that.

As a man (at least, the last time that I looked) I take an unseemly interest in the charts, league-tables and comparisons that abound at present. (Number 16 at the mo, in case you're wondering!) But as a technological ignoramus (you tell them Violet Posy) I haven't got a clue about that SEO stuff, still less the interest to massage the figures. I seldom look to see how people 'landed' here, which search terms led them to what page, how long they stayed, where they went to once they had finished or what they'd had for dinner. Perhaps I should. Perhaps I would if I was in the least bit professional about it.

But I'm not. In the best sense of the word, I'm an amateur. I do this for pleasure. It's wonderful - for once - not to be beholden to anyone for something; not to have performance targets hanging like a Damoclean sword above your head; and not being enslaved to someone else's deadlines. I'm delighted that what began as a personal record of my career change to full-time fatherhood has evolved into something other people sometimes want to read. I try not analyse the reasons for that too closely. I'm just delighted to be part of a growing blogging community, exchanging anecdotes, sharing the good times as well as bad, offering mutual support and helping overcome the isolation of being at home with young children.

Ultimately, though, there's only one thing that keeps me blogging. There's only one thing that gives meaning to those blogging stats or helps explain the PR pitches. The most rewarding thing about the worldwide surge of interest in parent blogs is this. Forget politics or the economy; shelve that stuff about rising crime and global warming for a moment. There is something more important. It's the most important thing that most of us will ever do. It's the future. It's bringing up our children.

Who wouldn't want to read about that?