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Writer's pictureScott Behson

(insert number) Lessons About Fatherhood I Learned from (insert tv show/movie)

As you can imagine, I read a lot of parenting blogs and websites. If you visit enough of these sites, you will quickly come across posts like “X Things I Learned About Parenthood from Y,” with Y usually being a popular tv show or movie.

You can learn a lot from fictional dads!

There’s no surprise why these are popular: they are fun to read, fun to write, are universal and accessible for a wide audience, and VERY clickable. When a movie becomes a phenomenon, that rising tide lifts all posts- witness the thousands of Frozen-related blog posts last summer- I bet the readership numbers were also really high. Also, because people will be making Google searches for Frozen or Star Trek or the Goonies or even Leprechaun 3 probably forever (especially when the sequels and remakes come out), these posts tend to have a long tail. (Heck, the awesome Jeffrey Brown has made a career of this)


In a closed facebook group of Dad Bloggers, some of my friends shared their recent (and very good) pop culture fatherhood posts. in particular, Carter Gaddis’ Star Wars themed post and John Kinnear’s Doctor Who post were big hits. I really liked them too, and noted I had written a Lord of the Rings themed post a while back and that I bet almost all of us have written something in this format.

Then I got the sillies, and started riffing on what the worst pop culture fatherhood posts would look like. I offered the following:

  1. All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Great Dad!: 237 Fatherhood Lessons from The Shining

  2. Why I Never Bathe My Kids or Feed Them After Midnight: Two Crucial Parenting Lessons from “Gremlins”

  3. 27 Things I Learned About Fatherhood From “Human Centipede 2”

  4. How “Bad Santa” Taught Me To Be a Better Dad

  5. The One Weird Parenting Trick Meesa Learned from Jar Jar Binks

Others also riffed, suggesting the following:

  1. 69 Parenting Lessons I Learned from Masters of Sex (Jeff Bogle)

  2. 24601 Fatherhood Lessons From Jean Valjean (Carter Gaddis/Aaron Gouveia)

While it is easy to poke fun at these types of posts, I must admit that most of what my fellow Dad Bloggers have written using this format has been really solid. Here’s a quick roundup of some my friends have shared with me, so you can get your pop-culture fix (and maybe learn a thing or two). Enjoy:

  1. Larry D. Bernstein: SpongeBob

  2. Chris Giroux: Big Trouble in Little China

  3. Mark Hoffberg: Star Trek

  4. Alan Kercinik: Breaking Bad

  5. Sam Christensen: Indiana Jones

  6. Henry Elliss: Game of Thrones

  7. Jack Steiner: Star Trek

  8. Dan Poore: Doctor Who

Enjoy the weekend! Next week, FWF celebrates it’s second Blogaversary!!!

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