Mother Knows Best. Why Mommy Blogs Outnumber Daddy Blogs Two-to-One.

While the Internet is abuzz with white papers, points-of-views, tips and tricks for marketing to mommy blogs, you’ll be hard pressed to find the same on daddy blogs. My rigorous sleuthing (OK, I searched Google…) reveals there are at least twice as many mommy blogs as daddy blogs:
· Google search results for term “Mommy Blogs:” 41.8M
· Google search results for “Daddy Blogs:” 19.7M

I confess that I have zero first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to be a father. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I also have zero first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to be a mother. So, I queried my network that includes hundreds of dads to get their thoughts on why there are so few daddy blogs. It should be noted that for every one response I received from an actual “daddy,” I received two comments about daddy blogs from a “mommy.”

Stereotypes of dad as the breadwinner and mom as the homemaker/caregiver aside, I learned a few things about my father-friends. For dads, personal time does not equal parenting time. Whereas moms—not all, but many—tend to blend their personal and parenting lives so that the two can hardly be distinguished, dads compartmentalize their lives. Here’s what one father-friend said, “If I have free time at work to check on stuff that is of personal interest to me, I’m on CBS.Sportsline, ESPN.com or CNN.com.”

And, dads are, after all, men, which means most suffer from a heavy case of ego-mania. Dads don’t want outside advice on how to raise kids – they can figure it out themselves. Consider what this father told me: “It’s a male thing. We can figure out the solution on our own when it comes to parenting or fatherhood. Building a deck? We’ll ask our Home Depot guy 200 questions…”

Finally, more than a few dads told me if they needed advice on raising their kids, they would ask their own father—not surprising since studies, including one I co-authored for Hill & Knowlton entitled “The Future of Commerce” reveal that offline word-of-mouth still trumps online word-of-mouth as an influencer to behavior.

No surprise that online attitudes mirror offline attitudes. And, consider this, the reason Mommy blogs outnumber Daddy blogs 2-to-1 is likely engrained in our DNA. Take this blog post from Associated Content citing research proving that women are, quite simply put, better communicators than men:*

“The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine takes a fresh spin on a familiar topic: that women are better communicators than men and more specifically, the brain circuitry and hormones that make women so much more attuned -- and some would say beholden to -- the emotions of others are very real.”

There is no shortage of academic and scientific research that further validates this, and similar, points – just Google it.

In the meantime, here are some of the top Daddy blogs recommended by my network:
· http://www.allprodad.com/ – “Advice. Events. Family”

· http://www.blurbomat.com/ – I’m having issue understanding why a friend recommended this as a favorite Daddy Blog since you’ll be hard-pressed finding many posts about child-rearing and the blog itself describes itself as follows: “blurbomat is a personal site dealing with photography, geek rants and politically progressive topics. blurbomat is not for children.” I’m told this is the blog of the hubby to founder of the top-ranked mommy blog Dooce.com. Blurbomat.com has a Technorati Authority of 44 and Rank of 75,995. Dooce.com has a Technorati Authority of Authority: 2,036 and rank of 41. Not that its a competition or anything.

· http://www.dadlabs.com/ – “Taking Back Paternity”

· http://www.digitaldads.com/ – “Advice. For Dads. By Dads.”

· http://www.nealpollack.com/ – “AlternaDad”

More than a few dads did respond saying their favorite “Daddy Blog” was www.ESPN.com, www.SI.com and www.PokerStars.net. I have to give them credit, because I know many mothers who claim http://www.bloomingdales.com/ as their favorite “Mommy Blog.”

What are your favorite Daddy and/or Mommy Blog? Leave me a comment or send me an email – I’d love to check them out!

*This is also the accepted explanation for why there are more women than men in the public relations and communications industries.