The Chalkboard Dad is the Mentally Sexiest Dad in America!

Awoke this morning to an email from the one and only Joe Schatz from Dad-Blogs.

Dad-Blogs has been running a great contest called The Mentally Sexiest Dad Competition. I loved the idea and thought 'what the hell?' and I decided to enter.

I wrote my entry, enlisted the help of the cutest little girl on the planet for the photo, and submitted.

Many other creative and worthy dads also entered. Their posts were thoughtful, creative, and dare I say it, mentally sexy. I am shocked that mine was selected winner, shocked but grateful. Any chance I have to help shatter the popular image of dads being nothing more than cigar smoking, beer swilling, poker playing buffoons whose only real talents in life are watching sports, ogling women, cracking jokes, and being totally incapable of caring for their wives or their children on their own without tons of help, who only lift an incapable finger to help around the house when they have "done something wrong", is a chance I will gladly take.

We laugh at the Peter Griffins, the Homer Simpsons, and the Al Bundys of the world because, and let's be honest here, they ARE funny. Their antics and one liners are well written. And in the context of a television show, produced solely for entertainment's sake, I laugh along with everyone else. But when these caricatures of horrible husbands and fathers find their way to my TV as commercials and in horrible CNN "news" pieces, aimed at me as a husband and father, it ceases to be funny.

The qualifications for being mentally sexy, in my mind, really boil down to simply being a good husband and father. To putting my wife's needs and my child's needs ahead of my own. Not because I HAVE to. Because I want to. I have the utmost respect for all the dads who entered. And there are many more great examples out there of true husbands and excellent fathers that I have been privileged to meet through the wonder of social media via this blog, Facebook and Twitter.

So thanks to Joe and Dad-Blogs for choosing me. As I understand it, the contest will now enter the global arena and I will go up against other guys from other countries for the title of World's Mentally Sexiest Dad. I look forward not only to the challenge, but for the opportunity to meet, connect, and network with other shining examples of what a husband and father can be when we stop listening to the media's image of us and start listening to our hearts.