Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood

Jeremy Adam Smith · Tomas Moniz

Sep 2011 · PM Press

About this ebook

Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood combines the best pieces from the award-winning zine Rad Dad and from the blog Daddy Dialectic, two kindred publications that have tried to explore parenting as political territory. Both of these projects have pushed the conversation around fathering beyond the safe, apolitical focus most books and websites stick to; they have not been complacent but have worked hard to create a diverse, multi-faceted space in which to grapple with the complexity of fathering.

Today more than ever, fatherhood demands constant improvisation, risk, and struggle. With grace and honesty and strength, Rad Dad’s writers tackle all the issues that other parenting guides are afraid to touch: the brutalities, beauties, and politics of the birth experience, the challenges of parenting on an equal basis with mothers, the tests faced by transgendered and gay fathers, the emotions of sperm donation, and parental confrontations with war, violence, racism, and incarceration. Rad Dad is for every father out in the real world trying to parent in ways that are loving, meaningful, authentic, and ultimately revolutionary.

Contributors Include:

Steve Almond, Jack Amoureux, Mike Araujo, Mark Andersen, Jeff Chang, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jeff Conant, Sky Cosby, Jason Denzin, Cory Doctorow, Craig Elliott, Chip Gagnon, Keith Hennessy, David L. Hoyt, Simon Knapus, Ian MacKaye, Tomas Moniz, Zappa Montag, Raj Patel, Jeremy Adam Smith, Jason Sperber, Burke Stansbury, Shawn Taylor, Tata, Jeff West, and Mark Whiteley.

About the author

Jeremy Adam Smith is the founder of the acclaimed blog Daddy Dialectic, author of The Daddy Shift, and coeditor of Are We Born Racist? His essays, short stories, and articles have appeared in The Nation, Mothering, San Francisco Bay Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, Utne Reader, Wired, and numerous other periodicals and books. He lives in San Francisco.

Tomas Moniz is the founder, editor, and a writer for the award-winning zine Rad Dad. He has helped raise three children and has been making zines since the late nineties. He teaches basic skills classes at Berkeley City College and works with the National Writing Project.