I take it all back. I've argued twice now (here and here) that the At-Home Dad Convention has little to do with fatherhood and everything to do with fellowship. And while I still believe in the fellowship part of it, the third go-round for me has exposed something I'd overlooked in the past: the guys here are really good at parenting, and they make me want to try harder to be an even better parent.

Fathers who aren't volunteering in the classroom are rare. Everyone is up on the latest parenting strategies. Sessions supposedly run by "experts" quickly evolve into roundtable discussions -- if you're a dedicated enough at-home dad to make it out to the event, you yourself are about as much an expert as session leaders. The fact that so many of the guys here are so involved made the professionalism easy to miss the first couple of times around. But now that I've seen a lot more parents over the years, I have more than enough experience to make the judgment: these guys are indeed committed.

It's not entirely clear whether I'll get the chance to post again this afternoon -- I'm prepping for my presentation and don't want to miss the bus out afterwards, so this might be it until the evening. (I'll post the PowerPoint slides next week. They ended up being a bit sloppy, so I'll clean 'em up, remove any copyright problems and upload 'em before the holiday.)

Thanks to all who're tuning in.