At a recent panel at Dad 2.0 I was heard to fret that Dad Bloggers would continue to struggle relative to Mom Bloggers as long as men continued greet each other on the street with "How 'bout them Cowboys" rather that "How are your boys?"

This led the group to descend into sports chatter which made the veins bulge in my neck, evidently. And I did some yelling.

Which led a number of guys in the group to assert that in their neighborhoods, this was already the case.

How does it work in your world? Do guys tend to spend more time talking about traditional male topics like sports, politics, cars and gadgets? Or have they started to evolve? Does fatherhood give them subjects to chat about as well?

Do you see further changes ahead?

I think there has been a steady increase in the amount of time we talk about our kids with our buddies. I still like to jaw about sports as well. But I wonder if it's easier for old guys like us (40's) to tackle the subject of fatherhood than it is for a young buck (20's)

Young fellas, what say ye?

I think it has to do with how you know certain friends. Daddy Brad (and everyone here) knows I'm not gonna shoot the chit about sports. We didn't grow up or go to college together talking/playing about that. We all met BECAUSE of Fatherhood. So it's natural to me to ask you guys about families first.

My skater friends with kids, we ask about families, because we ALWAYS talk about or go skating. So the kid thing is the 'new' thing to talk about. I'm not going to talk to any of my "DadLabs Crew" about skating really... you guys don't know what the hell I'm on about, and I know that. (But I reserve the right to heckle you for your pedestrianism.) But a guy I know through skating, and only know about him that he skates, likes certain gear and certain parks, and I've seen pics of him skating... if I hang out with him, first thing we're gonna talk about? Skating. If throughout hanging out, I learn that he has a kid, THEN we'll talk about them, but it's natural to gravitate towards things you know you have in common.

Daddy Clay, you have lots of "running contacts" now... I'm betting many of them have families... do you ever chat with them about pedestrianism first? Bet you do, particularly if you met them because of running, not DadLabs.

If sports and fandom is part of your life, it's going to be a natural conversation starter and recurring topic. If it's not, it's not.

But to move along with what brought this up, I don't necessarily agree that you need to go "where men go" to reach them about fatherhood. (Advertising on sports, tech and political sites.) Dudes go there for that chit. I'm no online guru, but wouldn't this be easy to test? Place an ad or two... track the traffic from it... are you reaching more Dads? Are they reaching out to our community? I think it's gotta be a good ad too, not just a "check out DadLabs" banner. I'd think more cross-polinating articles would be more effective. (Teaching your kid to play football. Or maybe what makes a good coach, from a kid's POV.) Those articles would be welcome on a sports site... and only really read by DADS there...

But again, I'm just a user. A non-sports enthused user at that.

I'm in the same boat as Nik. The only sports I can talk is Red Wing hockey, not even NHL, really, just Wings. I like basketball but have absolutely no interest in watching the spoiled multi millionaire thugs that make up the NBA, or NFL. Baseball is like watching city workers, (one guy working, the rest standing around watching him).

People say "How 'bout those Seahawks" and all I can think is "That expansion team...Jim Zorn looks ok, I guess...have they won a game yet?)

It really depends on how we know each other.


I guess if you consider the sports were are active in, I'd give a slight edge to talking our "sports" than fatherhood...60-40 maybe.

Chatting about the weather or sports teams seems normal -- a social convention and a way to check for safety before bringing up family. I guess what I'm wondering is where fatherhood is ranking in terms of "mindspace" for lack of a better term. Can parenting ever compete for men's mindspace with sports, politics, tech and cars?

When I meet up with another father that I know, I always make it a point to ask about his kids within the first 5 minutes of the conversation. I mostly do this because everyone loves bragging about their kids, so I like to give them the chance.

On the flip side, my wife once asked me if I could possibly talk about anything besides sports on Facebook. My status updates went from about 3/day to 2/week. I've been living sports since I was about 4 years old, and I've only been a father for 6 years. While it is obvious that fatherhood is much more important than sports, conversations about sports are much more comfortable.

For reference, I'm 32, so I'm not sure what category I reside in the "old" vs. "young" discussion mentioned above.