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Thursday, December 31, 2015

The Top 10 Ask Your Dad Posts of 2015



Well, here we are. The end of another year. This is my fourth year writing Ask Your Dad. I can honestly say that back in 2012 when Stevie encouraged me to quit storing my writing in a shoe box, and instead put it online, I never in a million years would have thought that it would have turned into this. And by this, I mean all of you. I feel like we've built a cool little community here, and that is awesome. Anyway, there's more thank yous at the bottom, but I'll toss one up here too. Thank you! These are the top ten trafficked posts of 2015. 
If you wanted to introduce one of your friends to my blog, this would be a pretty good post to share. Not that I'm hinting that you should share it. I'm just saying that you should share it... if you want to. 
ON WITH THE POSTS!! 


Number ten was written on one of the hardest days of the year for me. My good friend had recently passed away and I was not coping well. On top of that, my son was refusing to sleep through the night and my frustration with all things was being translated into how I handled him not sleeping. This is that story. 


"At 4:45 AM Captain woke up and started crying again, and I wanted to die. Yes, that is overly dramatic but everything is overly dramatic at 4:45 AM. I threw the blanket off me, jumped out of bed and stomped to his room. I’ve learned not to dramatically open his door, because he is generally behind it." Read the rest here


This post clarifying that we don't hit/spank our kids. This one got a mixed reaction. Some people were like "High five!" while others were all "Don't tell me how to parent!" Either way, a mix of the two bumped this into the top ten, so here we are. BTW, we still don't spank.


"What folks don’t seem to understand, perhaps because I haven’t explained it well enough, is that curbing the behavior has always been a secondary or even tertiary goal to Stevie and I. Helping our children become emotionally healthy, teaching them to understand their emotions and be able to cope with them, those have always been our primary goals.."  Read the rest here


Coming in at number 8 is my post about guns. Again, no answers contained herein. We... I... I don't really know what to say about it. A lot of people seemed to like. It came from a place of love and concern. 


"Sometimes I still think about my grandfather’s .22. The police never found it. I worry that whoever took it didn’t love it the way my father did. I worry that they looked at it and saw a weapon to point at other people. Now every time I hear about another shooting on the news, I don’t picture the shooter with whatever semi-automatic rifle they purchased legally at a gun show. I picture them with my WWII-era 10 shot, pump action .22 rifle." Read the rest here


Number 7 was a list of moments where I had no idea WTF I was doing. It could have been a much much longer list.


"1. When my son peed on my foot while I was on the phone with poison control because he ate diaper cream.

2. When my daughter asked about death and somehow walked away with the plot of “All Dogs Go to Heaven.” Read the rest here


Number 6 was about my and Stevie's fears. No answers contained within, but it is one of my favorite posts of the year - mainly because I think it got across what I was trying to say.. which is always a win.


"A few months ago some guy walked in the front door of a home about a mile away from us, grabbed their four-year-old daughter and walked back out the front door. The mom heard something, woke her husband up, who ran outside to find a strange man with his daughter wrapped in his arms. The dad frantically asked for his daughter back. The man handed her to him. Then he ran." Read the rest here


Number 5 on the Top 10 Ask Your Dad Posts of 2015 was a list of super lame super powers, none of which are flying, time travel, or x-ray vision. Boooooo. 


"It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to get hit by gamma rays or get bitten by a radioactive spider. As a kid I dreamed of waking up some day and suddenly being able to lift heavy objects with my mind or shoot laser beams out of my eyes. Not this. Not these powers... Who wants the "super" ability to smell their child's unique poop odor from across the room?" Read the rest here 


Number 4 on the Top 10 Ask Your Dad Posts of 2015 was the time that I got sick of a bunch of people asking me to share the Joey Salads Kidnapping Prank Video. I still don't like this guy. In fact, I hate all prank videos. They are the WORST.


"Here’s what I am going to do. I am going to keep an eye on my kids until they’re old enough to not go chasing puppies into the back of some YouTube Celebrity’s Pedovan. After that, I am going to teach them how to handle situations, not people." Read the rest here


Number 3 is probably my favorite post of the year. It is the story of my lifelong friendship with Ken, one of the best people I know. If you haven't read it, you should. If you have read it, you should read it again. Ken is good people.


“They are boys and they are getting married?” This was framed as a normal 4-year-old question, not the way I would have asked it when I was her age. There was no ewww in her voice. I smiled. 
“Yep. Sometimes boys marry boys. And sometimes girls marry girls.” And sometimes you realize in the middle of saying something that it is the first time you are able to say it. And sometimes you realize that moment is different than all the moments before it. Something big has changed and you got to see it, and this is the first time the change has worked its way into your life in a real way. And it is beautiful.


Number two was definitely Stevie's favorite. I know a blog post has turned out well when my wife calls me after reading it to tell me it made her cry. Happy Stevie tears are the ultimate seal of approval.


"You are pretty because you are alive. You are pretty because you are curious. You are pretty because you take the good parts of the world, pull them in through your ears and eyes and mouth and body, and shout them back out to me in action and voice..." Read the rest here 



This is actually my most read post ever. You can read it here. It reached hundreds of billions of people. It was syndicated eleventy-trillion times by every website in the world. I received multiple awards, and was invited to read it at the Kennedy Center Honors in front of the President of the United States, Barack Obama. It is currently being developed into sitcom for Netflix. My mom even printed it out and hung it on her refrigerator!
OK, none of that is true except for the part about it being my most read post ever. It is. And for that, I am truly grateful to all of you.
This has been a really great year - for me, for my family, and for Ask Your Dad. You are all a big part of that. Thanks for agreeing and disagreeing with me. Thanks for laughing with me AND at me. Thanks for every share, like, comment and email. I read every single one of them.
Most of all, thanks for reading my words. It means more to me than you will ever know.
See you next year!!
- John

P.S.  Don't forget to like the Ask Your Dad Facebook Page. AND... stay tuned for big exciting things coming to Ask Your Dad in 2016. I'll give you a hint... it rhymes with shmodcast ;)



1 comment:

  1. I think Dear Crappy Parent will be really tough to beat... I can't wait to see what you come up with in 2016 :)

    ReplyDelete