nominated for best zine of 2009!

Utne has nominated rad dad as one of the best zines of 2009; in fact, there is an awards ceremony in Denver this May that I won't be able to attend but anyone there wanna represent, let me know...

check out also the video review in Utne of our latest issue at http://bit.ly/3140hc.

review of our latest issue at the microcosom website

Rad Dad #13

Oh Rad Dad, why are you so freaking good every single issue? Why do I have to read you cover to cover the moment you land in my hands? Because you're full of heart-felt parenting stories from all types of radical dads. This is the 4th anniversary of Rad Dad, so Tomas' introduction is a story full of tiny moments that make up the experience of parenting. There are two articles written by both members of a queer couple, one of whom is transgendered. The write about their gender roles, and how they influence the way they perceive their parenting, and the way others' perceive them. There's also a birthing story, and a short piece reflecting on how to best approach your kids' Obama fever, when you might be a bit dubious yourself.

sf anarchist book fair and rad dad 13

so the san francisco anarchist book fair is once again here, march 14th and 15th; i have a table to peddle the last few issues of rad dad including the brand new issue: rad dad 13!!!!

however, this year it will be only me at the table (unlike last year's parent fest with 4 other radical parents all hanging out at different times, visiting from different places) so i have room. if you have radical parenting material you'd like to share with people, i'd be happy to sell or distribute it for you. i know it's short notice so let me know soon if you're interested

and/or if you're in the bay area for the festival, stop on by and have a sit...

or at least say hello...

until

tomas

to my father

I have been thinking a lot lately about how we say goodbye. How we honor and respect those people and things that are no longer in our lives but, like memories or genes or scars, remain always with us.

Saying goodbye has always been scary to me, linked to issues of abandonment and events happening outside of my control. I was too young to say goodbye to my father when he left us for jail. He was just gone.

I can remember having to saying goodbye to my life in Hawaii at the age of ten moving to California knowing no one, speaking a different slang; it felt like I said goodbye to my entire universe, and I had no choice in the matter.

And then four years later, I had to say goodbye to California when I was forced to return to Hawaii, a changed person, with a new accent and new interests. But saying goodbye when you move pales in comparison to saying goodbye when someone dies.

My father passed away on August 25th. I had the chance to sit with him for the last five days of his life, taking care of him, preparing him for hospice care, dealing with his insurance, his hygiene, his eating. It was like parenting your parent as a newborn. Something familiar yet disconcerting, something I was thankful I had the chance to do yet disturbed by.

When I first got the call to come home, I was terrified because this, of course, was another goodbye that I had no control over. There was no coming back from where he was going. The doctors knew it. He knew it. I knew it. There is a certain relief when faux optimism is replaced with the stark reality of what is coming. But relief and clarity don't make it any easier. On my way to the airport, a friend said to me: when you see him, touch him. Don't be afraid to touch him.

It feels like the best advice I have ever been given.

When I saw him in his barely recognizable state, yellow, bloated, often delirious, I was shocked, standing rigid for a second wondering what to say. But then I walked directly over to him and laid my hands on his arm, his cheek, touched his face, stroked his hair. It was a grounding act, a gesture that could say more to him than any of my words could.

We sat like that for days, often in silence, sometimes talking about my kids or my sisters and brothers; we never really directly said anything about the lives we led, the decisions that have pulled us apart and brought us together, but we touched, we hugged, my hands always on his.

On his last day alive, he was feeling good enough to go to the library to get some books for his stay in the hospice. He wheeled about the library while we stayed with the grandkids in the children's section. An hour later when he found us, he had a librarian with him holding a box of twenty seven books, most of them romantic novels. I now have someone to blame for my obsession with romantic comedies. Twenty seven books for a man who had less than a month to live. My brother laughed and said: Papa, how 'bout like one or two?

My father responded: Chale, mijo, you never know and plus I can't decide. They all look good.

Needless to say, we checked out every fucking book in the box and stacked them by his bed that afternoon.

However, he never got a chance to read any of them because he died that night while I was flying home to gather my children. When I told the story to my daughters, they asked me, in their infinite wisdom, if I knew the titles of the books. I realized I didn't and immediately picked up the phone and called my brother and asked him to write out all the titles. Perhaps one day, I'll read them.

The funeral was going to be in a week. We had a few days before my kids and I were to return to Albuquerque. In the meantime, I thought I'd do some research for a story I was writing. You know, to get my mind off of goodbyes, off of how we pay our respects to our past and to our history. So I went to the library to get this classic book called Subway Art, one of the first books ever published on graffiti; it contained hundreds of pictures taken by this old white dude who had the wherewithal to recognize the incredible art going on in New York city by these fifteen- and sixteen-year-old kids.

They had one copy in all of the Berkeley public library system, and it was in a special reserve section. I asked to see it and the librarian said: You can no longer take it out of the building. You have to stay right here.

I was thinking What's her problem. It's just a fucking book. Yes, I was in a foul mood that week. I said fine and walked to this table and sat down. I opened the book up and I was stunned. I understood why she was so careful.

At first I didn't know what to feel; at first I thought I was offended. Every possible piece of whiteness was covered with notes, with people writing in the book. Every margin and blank area, even some strategic spots in the pictures themselves, like backdrops behind people's faces or the sky above the trains, every possible space was covered with tags and throwies.

It was overwhelming.

People had written simple things like: J loves T, or westsiiiide, or just their names: Hector or Jaime. It was like they had come to pay their respects, to show their love. They were very careful not to cover any classic subway art. They wrote notes to their graffiti idols: Les you live forever, or lady Pink stole my heart. Page after page, I marveled at the intensity. I became filled with such a powerful feeling, like this book held so much, carried so many wishes and prayers, from so many kids who probably never felt this way about a book in their lives. Who had never even been to New York City. But here, in the pages of this book, they took their time to leave a little something behind. Here it was.

Honor.

Respect.

Love.

I thought to myself that this must be one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

I couldn't help it; I just broke down right there in the library. And the best thing was no one did or said anything. Except this one old dude. He got up and brought me some tissue, dropped a box that must have been in the library on a table and walked away. It was the first time I had cried since my father died. I felt myself wanting to cover my face, trying to keep from crying, but I couldn't. I just let myself cry and turned page after page.

When we finally arrived for the funeral, the typical family drama ensued: we had to have both a Catholic and a Christian service, people argued over cremation or burial; I seemed to have offended everyone when I suggested we just divide up his ashes and bury some in the family plot we've had for over a hundred years and spread some in the mountains of northwestern New Mexico.

But none of these rituals was the kind of ritual I wanted to honor my father with or was the way I wanted to say goodbye.

I wanted to write something.

I wanted to put on paper the pain, the pleasure, the complexity of being his son. On the plane ride to see my father before he passed a way, I had taken out a sheet of lined paper. I wrote on the top of it: To My Father. I was ready to write out all the things I wanted to say to him.

For the entire week, I was taking care of him as well as the days before the funeral, I would take it out now and then and start something; then scratch it out. I'd write a word here or there, but ended up crossing them out. More often I'd take it out and look down at the blank sheet, the growing false starts and illegible words and find myself speechless.

Wordless.

At the funeral, they placed the casket in the front of the church so people could come up to see the body. Everyone waited and milled about for a while and then the Padrino asked the children to come up first. I watched as one child then another came up. My father was surrounded by a dozen children all looking in at his body and finally one reached out and touched him. Then another. And another. My kids were lost somewhere in the group. They petted his face, stroked his hair, picked up his stiff hands, some laughing, some crying, some looking blankly at a man most of them barely knew but had heard stories about. Some placed on his body little cards or pictures.

Finally, the adults got up, and I sat there and watched his friends approach him one at a time. Some didn't do anything but walk up and look down, share a moment of silence with him. Many walked up and bent down and whispered their final goodbyes, their final words to him. And many others walked up, and with the hand drawn pictures from the kids, left something: someone tucked a 60's peace patch in his hands, someone a crucifix, someone stuffed a twenty dollar bill in his pocket, someone left a Corona bottle cap, a bullet, a picture of him and a woman on a boat.

In the end, when it was the family's turn, I took out my scratches on the piece of paper, its solemn silence holding all the things I wanted to say but didn't have words for, all the anger and the sadness and the joy; in the end, I folded it up tightly and I tucked it into his suit. It joined the other tokens of remembrance, other parts of his story: the tears from family and friends, the softly spoken memories, the odds and ends people left with him.

In honor.

In remembrance.

With love.

In the end, I simply reached out and placed my hands on his.

And whispered goodbye.

a reading...

Attention!

Lovers of Words & Free Wine & Cheese

Attention!

Poets & Playwrights & Fiction Writers

Attention!

Writers & Readers & Listeners

Announcing:

the triumphant return of

VELVET REVOLUTION

a reading series

Every Tuesday at 5pm

Join us in the fabulously cozy

Casablanca Room

(Creative Arts Building, Rm 158)

Each week there will be 2 featured writers and an open mic.

This is a chance to hear SFSU graduate and undergraduate students read their work.

And an opportunity for you to share your own writing.

BRING SOMETHING TO READ

(All genres welcome)

Our first event is September 30^th

Starring:

Tomas Moniz & Neale Jones

rad dad on the radio (well, internet)

I won't be talking about yoga, but we'll talk about parenting, community, and other fun stuff I'm sure...

Event: Yoga Mama Satsangha with LaSara Firefox
"Interview with Tomas Moniz, of Rad Dad Zine."
What: Listening Party
Host: Revolutionary Moms and Dads.
Start Time: Friday, September 26 at 12:30pm
End Time: Friday, September 26 at 1:00pm
Where: Talkshoe.com

everyday parenting

Rad dad 11 will be out in mid September, so get ready...

A few nights before Father's Day, we had a wonderful "celebrating parents" event at Book Zoo in Oakland, California. It was amazing to see so many kids running around, parents relaxing, and parent allies enjoying the stories the readers shared with the audience. We fantasized about doing a reading and softball game next year…

I have to share something. I feel like such a fake, a phony. Like I'm the last person who should be writing for a zine like rad dad. Let me explain. About a month before Mother's Day, Ariel Gore, editor and founder of Hip Mama, emailed me and asked if I'd be willing to read at their Mother's Day Extravaganza. I was honored; of course, I would. This is what I had been hoping for all along: recognition for rad dad in the radical parenting community and a chance to gain exposure for the zine and for all the amazing writers and stories I have had the chance to work with.

Nothing could stop me. I was now officially super rad dad editor.

And then my son's counselor called. He wasn't going to pass high school, she said, unless we did an intervention, unless we corrected his behavior. Now. Immediately. Tomas, she demanded, you gotta do something.

It seems I hadn't done enough. I had been harboring that fear all along. Had I let him down? Had I hid behind a veneer of trusting his "choices" when in reality I was just in denial, just at a loss for what to do? And instead of sitting with those questions, contemplating ways to approach him, I did the worst possible thing after hearing his counselor's pleas; I got hella angry with my son. Not a good approach, about as successful as parenting by denial. When I confronted him about his progress report, which for every class including PE was listed as F, he looked me straight in the eye and said: Don't worry dad; I got it under control. Like a cartoon, I looked down at the progress report: F, F, F, F, F and back up to him, down, back, down, back over and over again. Who was this kid?

Basically he's been a normal teenager. Yes, we've gone through some difficult teen years, the not coming home, the walking in after school drunk, the hoarding of every glass and bath towel in his room as if he were the only one who needed to drink or shower. But through these years, I've also seen glimpses of what he will become: the way kids look up to him and the way he gives them such respect, the times he connects with his sisters when he doesn't know we are listening in the next room, the way he plays with our pet chickens.

So how do I explain the situation he was in? Can a rad dad raise a high school failure? Not a dropout, mind you, but someone who failed his classes when many of his teachers bent over backwards for him. He was given opportunity after opportunity, second chance after second chance.

But it gets worse; as we get closer to my departure for what I'm thinking is my big coming out party, my day in the sun, his monthly court date arrives for his probation hearing. Oh, did I fail to mention also that he has been on probation for the past two years? Each time I take him to court, which, of course, is peopled with nothing but kids of color and blatantly class targeted, I can't help but get livid at my son as the Judge reads off: his attendance (I didn't know you could miss over 100 days in a semester), his straight Fs, his unfinished hours of community service, his failed drug tests. It just never ends, and I feel so angry that he hasn't dealt with it. Because one day the Judge is gonna do something, I warn him.

Well, just as I'm about to leave, that's what happens. My son is sentenced to Juvenile Hall for the weekend. My weekend. I just couldn't, and still can't, get over the irony; the universe must be trying to tell me something.

You can talk all you want about how you would like to parent, what you think is valuable, what the implications of your parental choices might be, but all that theory, all that shit, flies out the window when you're faced with the power and pain of parenting in the moment. You are on your own when they're hurt. When they're dealing with their disappointment in the world. Or in you. When they step further and further away from you. Moments like these aren't talked about in books or zines; there are no answers found by doing readings in front of other people or participating in Mother's Day Extravaganzas. In fact, all that stuff just seems silly. Instead, what you discover in those moments is your capacity to love unconditionally, to forgive and forget, to be gentle, to put things in perspective. But it's not easy; it's ugly and hard, and it hurts.

I finally decided to skip the event because too much was happening, but my partner convinced and reassured me that I should still go, that it would be alright, that staying was not gonna change what had happened. So come Friday morning before I'm supposed to fly to Portland and my son is supposed to check in to the Alameda County Juvenile facility (after school, of course), we meet up in my living room. I hug my boy goodbye. I tell him I love him, I trust him, I have faith in him even if the world doesn't seem to, even if he doesn't believe in himself, even unfortunately when I too often act like I don't.

I do. This is hard, I say. But you can do this. You can.

He nods his head, says thanks, and saunters off to school like it ain't no thang.

That weekend was a profound awakening in many ways for me (and for him, I believe); hearing his mother describe how they took him away, how she watched him being searched before they shut the doors behind him and also hearing inspiring stories of creating a free school in Portland, gathering with a ton of parents to share a little bit of rad dad with them, sharing my feelings of failure with old and new friends in the middle of the afternoon, considering how to expand rad dad into a larger format, more inclusive magazine, and finally flying home to hear stories of my babies' mama spending Mother's Day contentedly gardening with our daughters and eventually leaving to bring our son home from Juvie.

Parenting is so much more than something we should celebrate on a day or with an event, so much more than feeling good at times or bad. Or like a phony. Or like a failure. It's an adventure, it's unknowable, fluid, never static, ever evolving. It's work. And, it's what matters most. Happy parenting to everyone out there, holdin' it down and keeping it real.

I believe in you. I do.

This is hard at times. But we can do this. We can.

sf zine fest

i'll be tabling with mk chavez, one of my favorite writers, at this years sf zine fest on july 19-20. i'll have the newest issue of rad dad as well as some of the few remaining copies of the last four issues. i'll also have some new fiction out, so if you're into zines, comics or crafts, check us out!

tomas

How to Reclaim Father's Day from Ties and Work

The other night, we had a wonderful “celebrating parents” event at Book Zoo in Oakland, California. It was amazing to see so many kids running around, parents relaxing, and parent allies enjoying the stories the readers shared with the audience. We fantasized about doing a reading and softball game next year…..

One of the things I shared from rad dad 7 was a list of ways fathers (and others) can fight patriarchy. Feel free to add more things and I’ll include them in the next issue of rad dad…Here it is:


Things Fathers (or really anyone) can do to challenge Patriarchy

1. Remind yourself and others that parenting does not equal mothering.
2. Wear your baby in a sling.
3. Take your kids with you everywhere you can—grocery stores, errands, to your place of work, Sunday afternoon celebrations, meetings
4. Believe in other men’s ability to parent. Talk to other men about fathering.
5. Vocalize your support of breastfeeding moms
6. Consider being a stay at home dad.
7. Take any parent infant class you are interested in. Be proactive in your parenting.
8. Talk to your kids about gender, class, and racial privilege. Be proactive in addressing the subtle ways these things are taught to your kids.
9. Start a new dad’s group, one where you take the baby with you.
10. Volunteer to help set up child care in the organizations you are a part of.
11. Ask others, especially non-parents, to help. Be a parent ally!
12. Make a point to ask if there are changing tables in the men’s restrooms everywhere you go.
13. Fight gendered parental roles – make dinner, do the laundry, mop the floors, clean the bathroom, watch the kids.
14. Combat images of bumbling fathers in the media. Talk to your kids as you encounter these stereotypes ala “Daddy Day Care,” “Mr. Mom,” “The Pacifier,” “Big Daddy.”
15. And, of course, write for Rad Dad as well as create your own fathering/parenting projects. And invite others to participate.

Where Hope is Found -- Transgendered Fathering

From the start I knew I was in trouble. I understood that there lurked a Pandora’s box waiting within the pages of rad dad that would ultimately have to be opened releasing, as the myth states, chaos and confusion into the safe easy gender dichotomy that defined men as fathers and women as mothers. But to extend the metaphor, opening that box would also release hope, release the belief that in the end despite the difficulties of walking this parental path, we will make it out alive.

In issue one, I joked about feeling excluded from the mama club at parks and playgrounds. I wrote: Damn my cock! Although I know cocks don’t always make men and men don’t always have cocks, but that’s an essay for another time. But issue after issue, I skirted that essay, avoided it; however, in each consecutive zine, it kept rearing its pretty little head: someone wrote an article exploring the relationship sperm donors have to their biological children. I also considered how my vasectomy changed my perception of myself as being able to “father.” So now what kind of man was I? Does biology make the man or the father? Absolutely not. I know this, but how to write about it, how to explore it; and of course what does challenging gender do to how we define fatherhood; one dad pondered how, as a bisexual father, he should discuss sexuality with his growing pre teen child? But finally a friend flat out told me: I love rad dad but you gotta talk about queer issues, about how fathering is constructed there?

I could hear the box opening, all those questions wanting to get out. Now my friend had volunteered to help me with the cover, and I immediately asked her if I could talk with her abut being a new mama, but finding herself by default in the position as father. Out in public people constantly spoke to her partner, the birth mother, and completely ignored her as she stood right there, clearly the “other” parent. How much of a fathering moment is that? The assumptions people make that if you’re not Mama, you don’t know about your child, his or her routines, his or her diet. Even though she identified as a woman, since she was not the breast-feeding birth mama, she was invisible, she was negligible, she was -- father. We talked about how her experience is similarly replicated across the queer community as queer parents grappled with the public perceptions of their parental roles and, perhaps even more intense, their own perceptions of themselves as parent.

One afternoon a few weeks later, we met with another person who is a transgendered man, and specifically Papa to his near two-year-old daughter. Our conversation that afternoon was a reminder to me, O.G. Papi that I am, what it’s like to be around new parents, little babies, the glowing exuberance, the love, the concern, the hope. We all traded stories about each of us feeling excluded by the connections moms created with the baby. We all shared fears of inadequacy when our child wanted to be soothed by the mom in times of need and not us. We all discussed how we tried to challenge the gender sanctified responsibilities of dads by offering to watch the baby as often as we could allowing mom to stay connected to her life outside of parenting.

It was one of those afternoons that reminded me how amazing having children and, perhaps more importantly, having community to talk about children is. I learned how parenting is so disconnected from gender when it comes down to it. I saw instead how parenting is grounded in love and nurturing and dialog and commitment. I learned that queer couples’ parental intentions force them to contemplate the meaning of parenting so much more deliberately than parents who have a child by “accident.” I learned how gender is institutionally reinforced by making the non-birth parent have to legally adopt his or her child, which requires in home visitations and hella money. A “biological father” doesn’t have to do that. I learned about the word “gaybies.”

But as engaging an afternoon as it was, the reality is that gender happens. Socially and institutionally, gender is enforced, sometimes subtly and sometimes violently. And it will take more than an afternoon’s conversation to change things but it’s a start. And I’m hoping rad dad can also be a part of that conversation. We need to reflect on what we do as parents, on how we support other parents. Working on rad dad, forcing myself to confront issues around my identity, my politics, my parenting has been one of the most difficult tasks I have done. I have fought against it, resented things I discovered, my internalized sexism, my gender privilege; but it has also inspired me, allowed me to love more openly, more honestly. Despite the chaos and confusion analyzing gender might cause in ourselves and our families (and our zines), there is also hope: hope in asking tough questions, hope in challenging each other and our assumptions, hope in the struggle.

So tell me about your hope. Perhaps your hope is found in your community, in those around you. Perhaps it is embodied in the partner you’re committed to and the family you dream of making together. Or perhaps your hope is something else, something smaller, something more immediate, something you wake at three in the morning to rock back to sleep, something you sing songs to; the hope in those moments of love and caring is powerful.

Send in your stories of what it’s like to be a transgendered parent, a queer parent, a queer ally and a parent. This the beginning, the first baby steps on a much longer journey towards redefining fatherhood, parenting even, an attempt at understanding, at support, at ultimately creating communities between all of us parents, parent allies, mamas, papas and all those in between and outside of and a little bit a both.

Baby Daddy

So I’m watching the movie Baby Mama which I have to say was hella funny and horrifying at the same time. I was expecting though the requisite number of jokes about how pathetic fathers are but for the most part they weren’t there. In fact, at the end of the film there is this scene at which all three dads were there: one wearing a baby in a sling, all laughing with their child, nurturing their child. I was momentarily stunned. But, hey, times can change and even Hollywood comedies about parenthood can challenge (however weakly) some stereotypes. But it finally came: one dad does give his 1 yr old daughter a motorized pocket motorcycle. Yes, I laughed out loud.

However, this has been what I’ve been struggling with lately. How to challenge gender prescribed roles of fathering. How popular culture reinforces traditional gender roles about bad dads and their inept parenting abilities. And right about the time, Jennifer Margulis contacted me about reviewing the book The Baby Bonding Book for Dads.

Sure, I said. Anything that connects fathering to nurturing and babies, that equates men with the ability to offer support, to handle a crying baby, to discover themselves through the act of parenting, is something I want to support.

I eagerly agreed and waited for the book to arrive in the mail. When it did, I sat with my two youngest daughters and flipped through it. Of course the baby peeing in the air was wonderful, and we wondered how many times they tried to take that picture. My daughter asked if the man got paid to get peed on. Good question? Yes, unfortunately some of my preteen bonding techniques involve really bad comedies like Baby Mama. And I wonder where my daughter gets her crude sense of humor? Hmmm.

But peeing aside, I like the book. I think any new father would appreciate a book so clearly based in loving your child, in the beauty and power of becoming a father..

I did have three concerns that are really issues I have with many of the parenting resources out there, issues, I’ll be honest, I have with my own project rad dad. My main concern is how the tone of the book seems to assume that the standard or normal fatherhood mentality is one grounded in patriarchally defined gendered roles. Somehow I want to think that today’s dads are beyond thinking that they have no real place in their kids’ lives until they are able to play ball. Do many men still equate cooking dinner for their kids as something too close to domesticity? Would most men really rather plop down in front of the TV, drink in hand, than go out for a hike? Don’t get me wrong; I’ll be the first one to act the fool during a big time Raiders game, but I’m not sure that I’d rather do that than spend quality time with my family and/or community. And I don’t think most men would either.

A smaller issue, but one that is important to me as a reader, is the voice of the narrative. I kinda wished they wrote as a mom and dad? I wanted to see the variations in the voices, to see them work things out on the page, back and forth between each other, as mom, as dad. Instead I felt the book had a slightly detached, impersonal tone to it, as if they were trying to speak to all parents rather than as parents.

I loved the all pictures (not just the peeing one), but as usual I wanted to see more diversity than the three or four pictures out of the thirty or so ones in the book. Too often it seems to me parenting is seen as a white experience when clearly and obviously it is not.

But having said those issues, I loved some of the things they say especially the idea of taking your baby with you everywhere you go. How often do women take their kids to errands, to work, to the store or bank. I love that they encourage fathers to do the same, to be seen publicly as fathers. We need to see that more often.

I love the notion of getting naked with the baby. It is so true that nothing is as wonderful has skin on skin with your newborn.

And the recommendation to carry your baby in a sling. So true.

I can’t say enough about how important it is that the notion of discipline was absent from the book! Thank you.

Finally, the chapter on comforting was wonderful, was so important I wish it was even more prominent. Men can comfort, men can sooth, men can parent, even though yes sometimes they buy dumb presents that are more about them than their kids.

As a twenty one year old dad with a newborn, I would have loved this book. As a thirty seven year old, I’d love a book on how to bond with your seventeen year old child. When’s that one coming out?

i love it when you call me big papa

Reclaim Father's Day

come celebrate transgressive parenting: readings on the pleasures, pains, and politics of parenting (or being parented)

open mic

hosted by tomas
editor / writer of rad dad
and the good folks at book zoo

7:30 pm

parents of all persuasions and genders welcome to attend and read!

Thursday
June 12th

Kid Friendly

BOOK ZOO
6395 Telegraph Ave
at Alcatraz Ave
Oakland California
(510) 654 - BOOK

the official announcement

Radical Parent Writer-Zine-Friends Together at Last:
Joybringer, My Mother Wears Combat Boots, Rad Dad, The Future Generation!

Wednesday, March 19th, 7 pm @ AK Press Warehouse, 674-A 23rd. St Oakland, CA:
Book reading event with China Martens, The Future Generation: A Zine-Book For Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others (Atomic Books Company) and and Jessica Mills, My Mother Wears Combat Boots (AK Press). For more info contact: AK Press at 510.208.1700 or visit www.akpress.org

Thursday, March 20, 6:00 PM @ Modern Times Books, 888 Valencia Street, San Francisco
What does it mean to be a radical parent in these times? Join these anarchist parents and authors of Rahula Janowski , Joybringer; China Martens, The Future Generation; Jessica Mills, My Mother Wears Combat Boots; and Tomas Moniz, rad dad for a reading and a discussion.

Saturday and Sunday March 22-23, @ 13th Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair, County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park, Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Way, SF, http://sfbookfair.wordpress.com/
Check out our zines and books!

Sunday March 23rd, 12:00 – 12:50 @ Anarchist Book Fair:
PANEL DISCUSSION - Anarchist Parents / Building an All Ages Community of Resistance
Anarchism challenges us to create personal and social change but often provides no support for mothers, fathers, and other caretakers of children who try to do so. Let’s learn how to work together in new ways. By valuing the involvement/work of parents and caretakers, we form a more vibrant culture of resistance; and we teach the young the vision we want to see of a more equitable future by including them in our activities now. This will be a discussion between both parents and non-parents, on concrete ways child-free allies can support parents and children in their community. Good for everyone!

Co-presented by:

Rahula Janowski is an anarchist, anti-racist white mama living and raising her child collectively in San Francisco. Her zine Joybringer is about politics, parenting, and the places where they intersect.

China Martens, a single mother of a 20-year-old, is the author of The Future Generation: A Zine-Book For Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends & Others (Atomic Books Company) and the coordinator of Kidz Corner @ the Radical Mid-Atlantic Book fair in Baltimore. (Baltimore, Maryland) myspace.com/chinamartens

Jessica Mills, a partnered mother of two, is the author of My Mother Wears Combat Boots (AK Press 2007) and the monthly MRR column of the same title. (Albuquerque, New Mexico) mymotherwearscombatboots.blogspot.com

Tomas Moniz is living, writing, teaching, loving, fighting, and parenting three awesome children 17, 12, 10 in California’s East Bay. He works on rad dad zine. raddadzine.blogspot.com

book review

i just wanted everyone to know that a good friend's new book just came out and i have it in my greedy little hands and it is wonderful -- i was so inspired by the how to aspects of the book -- how to set up a child-swap collective and even how to set up a freeskool

it's called my mother wears combat boots

i highly recommend it!

who's your daddy?

Hello -- it's been a while since I posted, and since rad dad 8 is taking shape, I thought I’d post something from rad dad 7 as a way to say, "hey come on, I know you all got something to say, so say it -- write for rad dad 8!"

It’s been so difficult to get father's to write birth stories! In fact, I received no birth stories, so I’d love to get someone to write one for this issue out at the end of November.

Also I really like Jeremy's post about his own blog "where we are writing from." It reminded me why I enjoy writing about all this craziness called fathering. This piece is about how fatherhood gets represented in the media, and well I apologize in advance for the tone; it's a bit much but I tried...

Tomas

Some of you may know this about me, but for those of you who don't, let me just spill the beans: I am a media whore! I'll be the first one to own up to my obsession with romantic comedies, with horribly bad TV dramas, with power ballads; in fact, I can identify the various stages or periods of numerous cultural pop icons—there's the Hugh Grant evolution pre or post his blowjob bust, there's the musician turned actor careers of J-Lo, Justin, and a slew of others. There's the progression of TV shows to the big screen…you get the picture.

However, I also consider myself an astute critic, ready to recognize gender stereotypes, to point out class issues, to call out racist tropes; my favorite is Justin Timberlake himself. How the fuck can Justin bring sexy back when it never went anywhere? What a perfect example of white entitlement? But I was kinda shocked the other day when my daughter said something that made me laugh but soon started gnawing at me like one of them zombies in Evil Dead.

"Dad, you should be in a TV show," Ella said innocently, and then of course added, "with your belly and your dog and you always making chili."

"Hey, don't be saying nothing about my mean vegan chili!" I replied.

And we went on to the next subject. However, the next day I was working on an essay about how men can challenge patriarchy, and I was bouncing ideas off my Official-Idea-Bouncer-Offer Andrea, and we came up with the idea of exploring stereotypes about fathers. It clicked; Ella was putting me into the category of so many images she has seen of how this society views fathers. Why had I never seen it before? But wait a second here, I'm no stereotype. Ella knows that…right? Perhaps though I hadn't noticed because even while I adamantly disagree with these images of fathering, I may in fact benefit from them, even play into them? I began to think back to early parenting roles my partner and I fell into. Most of the time we clearly processed who did what and why, what felt fair, and when we felt overwhelmed or overburdened. But it's true; I almost always would watch the kids while she would cook. And then I'd clean the dishes. How often did I mop or do some other big house-cleaning project while she took the kids to the park? Looking back on those first few years, not as often as would like to admit.

And when I was in public with my son, I remember the constant reproaches from usually older grandmotherly women about the way I held my baby, the way he was so damn dirty or the way I dressed him, especially my keen ability to never have socks on my kid's feet. But hey, who can keep track of socks, I argued. With all the advice and suggestions and snide looks I received, I often marvelled at what I was doing, particularly because I didn't have that many male role models to fall back on. Was I really that weird, that unmanly, that lucky to be able to parent my kids and keep them alive or at least warm?

We need to ask ourselves why so many in our society don't trust men to be competent at parenting, to be trusted to handle a newborn without being watched over by the mother or the grandmother. And a good place to start would be to start questioning the images of bumbling fathers we're inundated with. It is the butt of our parenting jokes: men fucking up, dressing kids, trying to feed kids, trying to be both macho and cool, because parenting in our society equals mothering. Not fathering or fathers. And is not cool.

So I decided to do a little investigative research: how are dads represented in the media? It took me only like five seconds to come up with a slew of movies all reinforcing the loving but clearly not primary parent material father: Daddy Daycare, and the new sequel coming out Daddy Day Camp, the Ice Cube movies, the Adam Sandler movies, it just goes on and on. Or there's the action adventure movies in which you threaten a Real Man's family and then you'll see what Real Fathers are like—you know the male protector/patriarch and all.

But it has gotten even worse now as parenting has become a trend with more pop icons having babies because with celebrity comes a market for cool hip parenting stuff. Sure enough, along with designer sippy cups and bibs, there has been a bunch of new books on fathering. And they all seem to have one common premise, which is how to maintain gender privilege, those traditional notions of men and masculinity, and still parent; how to be that cool dad, that hip dad, that (gulp) rad dad.

So I decided to read one and peruse a few others. I chose Alternadad by Neal Pollack because it was in my library. For a taste of some others, I moseyed on into a bookstore and, as I am walking through the aisle, I see the new GQ and pick it up (yes, because it had Jessica Alba on the cover). I kid you not, but I flip it open and come to a spread of nine famous fathers all dressed up with their kids. The headline was something like: How to Still Dress like a Winner When You Have Kids. Because of course kids make you a loser, make you so not stylish, ruin your cool life (assuming of course that the point of life is to be cool). I was shocked and turned to go find the other books when I saw Parents Press' new issue, the only free parenting newspaper in the baby area, and what is one the cover, I kid you not, but the picture of a new daddy book by some pop-punk rock singer and his three kids.

Aghhhhh!

Now there is nothing wrong with being interested in fashion, with telling your story, with connecting punk rock and parenting (in fact that can be a key politicizing event for parents; check out China Martens' new book The Future Generation: The Zine-Book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends and Others) but something seems so disingenuous, so exploitive, so apolitical about these books. As if fathering is simply a trend.

Low and behold, as I move into the kids section they had a little display of other papa books seeing as how Father's Day was coming up (because that's the only time fathers ever speak up about parenting and it's all about being fucking cool anyways). I'll be the first one to tell you never judge a book by a cover, but I actually did in fact judge the store by their display. There were five books in the Celebrate Fathers floor display: Alternadad, Punk Rock Dad: No Rules, Just Real Life by Jim Lindberg, Dadditude: How a Real Man Became a Real Dad by Philip Lerman, and Dinner With Dad: How I Found My Way Back to the Family Table. All by white men. All by very upper middle class white men. All by upper middle class, white men with wives at home. Wow. After I mention this to the children's section coordinator, she was aghast and immediately put out a Bill Cosby book!? Somehow I felt too bummed to do anything else.

So I grabbed the books and set out to skim them as best I could. Now I will admit that most of them brought up interesting points about struggling with discipline, creating honest lines of communication, trying to maintain a healthy relationship with a partner. So I want to acknowledge that their stories are worth sharing, that I did smile at times, despite my best intentions, that I did nod my head in agreement with their struggles, that I did find connection with some of their points. But as I said they were just so similar, so privileged, with no mention of race or recognition of class differences or anything substantive outside of individual family struggles, which of course are extremely important.

However, there is not much to say for the book about making a yearlong commitment to, and I kid you not, come home at least six days a week to help make dinner with his family. See, men, we should make such a huge, committed, life-changing commitment to actually spend time with our families. His conclusion—it really changes your relationship with your family. Do people really buy these books? Ah, but cynicism is never revolutionary I remind myself, so let me take the plunge and actually read a whole fathering book.

After a month of toting it around, it became overdue and I had read only about half of Alternadad and felt like I couldn't finish it. But knew I had to. To his credit he is hella funny, and we connect as I think all parents do on the issues of poop. He relished it like a true veteran and told some very funny stories. However, Alternadad, like the other books, is just another one of those cynical, nauseatingly self-justifying stories of how a once-privileged white male aware of the issues around him chose to forgo all political and systemic critique in the wake of becoming a dad. Pre-parenthood, he always lived in neighborhoods in the edgy parts of town or places where cars had booming bass, which, of course, 'booming bass' is code word for 'young male of color,' but as a father, he's not so sure. When it comes down to it, he'd rather opt for white flight than stay in shitty neighborhoods because he can leave. He has that privilege to pack up and move cross country. Yes, he loves his neighbors, but he just wants things safer, calmer, cleaner. He knows he doesn't belong there. He ends the book with a story of enrolling his son in a hippie/hipster daycare and celebrates moving to Los Angeles because of the last straw in his old neighborhood in Austin: four youths spray painting Vatos Locos in his neighborhood. Ah, people of color again; I hope he knows they are in LA too.

Okay, I know I'm being too mean, too sensitive perhaps. And in the end I realize it actually is very important to have books out there about fathering. But man do we need other stories, other views, other perspectives about fathering that go beyond the stereotypes we see in the media all the time: the bumbling fools, reformed womanizers, and amazed businessmen about how fun being a daddy can be, golly.

So from books to TV to films, I still haven't changed my wicked ways and will probably be the first to see Transformers on my block, but I will also no longer allow the parenting/father stereotype to go by unchecked. Adam Sandler better watch out! Perhaps one day a few other fathers and I can write a script for a movie about ordinary dads from various backgrounds and ethnicities trying to parent in conscientious ways who, en route to a fun camping trip in the woods of Califas, get lost and end up in the vile clutches of the mean patriarch called Walt and are forced to rely on wits, trust, and patience to foil his plot at global domination and destroy his nefarious, dangerous alternate world called Disneyland…hmmm someday.

sf zine fest

i'll have a table at the sf zine fest oct 6 and 7th -- come on a stop by...

tomas

a review of rad dad 7

from microcosm publishing:

Rad Dad #7 is a response to the latest trend: Fatherhood. Or rather, the new spin on fatherhood in America. If you haven't noticed, everywhere you turn there are books, magazines, movies, and news programs, all about being a hip dad. The problem is that they all come from the same perspective. White middle class men who've had to find a balance between their wild, cool ways, and the "un-cool" job of parenting. In this issue, Tomas expresses his views on the subject, and reminds us that parenting isn't just an unwanted obligation. Or at least, it shouldn't be. He reviews some "cool-dad" books, like "Alternadad," and "Punk Rock Dad," written by the singer of Pennywise (which we read here at HQ, and yes, it really is that bad). And of course there are solid contributor pieces about Green Parenting, being Jewish, and the transition from pre-teen into full-fledged teenager.

utne review on their website

Rad Dad "is not cool," according to founder and publisher Tomas. "[I]t's not about being hip, not about trying to be in style... Rad Dad is for radical parenting. The uncomfortable kind." And so the zine's seventh issue picks up where previous ones left off: by interrogating and reevaluating the role of fathers in radical politics. Articles range from "Green Parenting," in which writer Sky looks at the relationship between anarchism and parenting, to "On Being Jewish," in which Bruce contemplates the religious example he wants to set for his child. A contribution from Tomas himself -- "Who's Your Daddy: Fathers in Pop Culture" -- offers a forceful critique of how "cool parenting" has become an apolitical and upper-middle class trend that reinforces "dad" stereotypes. -- Eric Kelsey

gangsta father

the intro from rad dad 7 -- out this week

rad dad is not cool; it’s not about being hip, not about trying to be in style, not a trend. rad dad is for radical parenting. The uncomfortable kind. The difficult kind. Radical as in not complacent, as in conscious and conscientious of our impact on our children, our partners, our environment. Radical as in taking responsibility for the privileges some of us have, whether we want those privileges or not. Radical as in being cognizant of how we challenge patriarchy (or not), how we participate in capitalism, how we depend on unquestioned roles of authority and hierarchy. And then, radical as in having the courage to consider ways of changing these aspects of fathering.

Lately I’ve seen numerous new books or web sites that clearly are trying to profit off of or benefit from or create a market for hip fathering, talking about how men can still remain men (whatever that means) and be a cool dad as well. What so many of these books or sites lack is a social critique, an understanding that for so long fathering has been intimately connected to patriarchy, to violence, to capitalism. Unless we as fathers do something to change that, no amount of coolness, no amount of humor, no amount of hip papa clothes can cover it. So my new mantra: We need radical change, not radical baby accessories.

For me rad dad is about reaching out to community. It’s not a place to provide excuses for some of the fucked up ways fathering is manifested by some men in our society nor about absolving ourselves of our complicity in the ugly history of Traditional Fathering. We gotta own up to it. And that’s why I know I need other radical parents, both mamas and papas, to help me see how I am caught up in this history. Especially when I’m unaware of it. I need them to show me how myths of fathering are perpetuated in the media or to help me see when fathering is being used as a marketing ploy or is being packaged for consumer convenience.

rad dad for me is recognizing how I need help. I can’t do it alone because I already know I’m a sucker; I’m a fool. I laugh like hell during Shrek and his silliness, and my kids love him, so he’s gotta be a good model for fathering, right? And I’ll admit I’m the first one at the bar getting all stupid when the Warriors were in the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong. We as people can and should have our own interests outside of parenting, enjoy the company of other adults in places that perhaps aren’t super kid friendly. But we are straight up wrong if we think that the word father means to be cool, to be part time, or that it’s temporal, ending when we are not with our kids, or that it’s limited to the realm of the house.

I want the word father to mean: warrior, to be synonymous with dedicated; I want it to be analogous to activist, environmentalist, feminist, gangsta, anarchist. I want people to step back when we announce we’re fathers and that we’re here and we ain’t leaving until some things change.

Starting with ourselves.

rad dad is as much about radical parenting as it is about fighting patriarchy in all aspects of our society. I believe actually that to reclaim fathering, it will be contingent upon men to work diligently for equal access and rights for women in the world outside parenting. We can’t expect to be equal partners in parenting and not have women be equal partners in the rest of society. To reclaim fathering we will need to reconsider intimately what it means to be successful and how capitalist notions of success are tied to the construction of male identity. To reclaim fathering we will need to question the social stereotypes of fathering that for so long have been used to justify gender specific parental roles.

Now I also wanna recognize that how we individually manifest our parenting and our relationships is up to us. There is nothing inherently wrong with a man providing the main income for a family and a woman being the primary caretaker. But it needs to be transparent, needs to be a choice and not the default. Fathers need to actively consider what might be the underlying reasons for their decisions about how they father and what they give priority to.

And, most importantly, fathers will need to actively, vocally, publicly support and speak up for other fathers.

So let me give a shout out to the amazing fathers and mothers and other parental allies that I had the pleasure to meet and depend on as I ventured out on the Kerbloom/rad dad speaking tour of the Pacific Northwest. It was so inspiring to realize that there are people I can call up and say, I need a place to stay or can you help me out or come to our event, and they are there lending you a pillow, offering what they can, bringing their kids and neighbors to see you read. So that is what rad dad is about, what Kerbloom is about, what creating radical community is all about. There are so many people doing so many different, cool things that every time I feel slightly exhausted or overwhelmed, I just need to look around me or think of those that have helped me, and feel reinspired, rejuvenated. You all rock.

we're zine of the month....

May zine of the month at Broken Pencil

rad dad

by tomas moniz, zine, $3 plus postage, tom_moniz@riseup.net 1636 Fairview St., Berkley, CA, USA 94703

Thoughtful, well-written articles on "radical" fathering, tackling an array of issues, from colick to children's questions of identity. While the authors bring their diverse politics to the table, they make a sincere effort to connect those politics to the dynamic reality of raising a child... you're not getting a tract about how things would ideally be in a utopian future, but how things ARE in this moment, honestly.

An article by tomas is a highlight--he writes about his daughter and her negative thoughts about being a mixed-race person of colour, and poses questions to himself about how he can encourage her to value all aspects of her identity yet respect her autonomy to make choices about her identity that may differ from his. A supportive read for all the parents out there meshing parenthood with their politics, and a little window on the wild world of raising another person, for those of us on the outside looking in.

By Sarah Pinder