For about eight years, Rad Dad was a zine edited by local writer Tomas Moniz that published stories about radical methods of parenting. The initial goal was to start a discussion surrounding fatherhood that discarded oppressive, out-of-touch guidelines of role-modelship and took into account the pressures on actual twenty-first century dads and youth. After a while, the submission-based zine opened up to publishing work from people of all genders and family roles who had something to share regarding parenting in general. Moniz also gradually upgraded his publication of the zine— as in he stopped hand-stapling every issue himself. But, in December of last year, he made the choice to retire the the publication after its 25th issue. He decided that either Rad Dad would end, or it would grow into a full-fledged magazine. Via Indiegogo, he was able to make the latter a reality and in January of 2014, the first issue was released.Â
[jump]
The third and last Rad Dad Magazine issue of 2014 is set to be released in November, but Moniz and his collaborators have been looking toward 2015. They launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the next year of publishing. Contributions work like subscriptions, with added goodies for extra donations. But with the goal of reaching $25,000, Rad Dad has a long way to go before the campaign ends on Oct. 31. Parents don’t often get rad things devoted to them, or get offered a space to express the contemporary realities of raising a kid. Let’s hope we don’t have to see Rad Dad the magazine go before it has a chance to grow up a bit.Â
