Thursday, January 23, 2020

Dads Can Write for Parenting Magazines Too!


What do you picture when you think of a parenting and family magazine writer? A woman sitting around in her jammies, laptop in front of her, while kids run underfoot? Or that same writer dropping her kids off at school then going home to write and take care of the house?

It does appear for now that the parenting and family market is dominated by females, but there are plenty of heartfelt and funny and dead-on awesome writers in this niche who also happen to be fathers! Here's why I think dads do great in this market:

Perspective
Dads have such a unique perspective, that's for sure. Something that would send me to the doctor to seek out a Xanax prescription has my husband saying, "The kids are fine!" And they are. Mostly :-)

Grit
Where I feel guilty having the kids help me with chores sometimes (they have so much homework plus activities!), my husband has no problem asking them to pitch in. And they do. Happily. As they have grown into teenagers who volunteer in the community and at church, and gladly help out on our 8 acres, I see he had a point.

Many magazines actively seek out submissions from fathers for just these reasons. They love the stories dads tell about parenting, whether poignant or humorous.

Write-at-home Dads
The stay-at-home dad is becoming more common, and so it would follow that we have the write-at-home dad making his appearance in magazines around the world more often! We also have dads who write in their free time ... late at night, early in the morning, dictating into their phones during a commute, etc.

Check out Patrick Hempfing here. And a fabulous guest blog post by him on my site here.

Here's William R. Bartlett from my own local Kansas City Parent.

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