Not a bro Dad

[Anonymous]

I <3 this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Southern California (Orange County area) and there's definitely a type of Bro Dad here. Basically, they dress like high school surfer boys but they are in their late 30s and have two kids.

Typical SoCal Bro Dad:
-Drives a lifted 4x4 pick-up truck with a Monster Energy sticker on the back window, blasting Sublime or System of a Down
-Always sporting a Hurley baseball cap with a flat rim
-A plaid Billabong button up shirt and dark colored pants are what he wears to "dress up" for holiday cards
-Vans sneakers
-Owns a few pairs of Dickies shorts
-"Vacations" consist of going to Glamis for off-roading, camping at Pismo Beach, or heading to Big Bear to snowboard on 6 inches of man-made snow in the freestyle park
-Constantly bitches about "how crowded SoCal has become" and un-ironically throws out a bit of casual racism by blaming "the Mexicans"

I've yet to find similar Bro Dads anywhere else in the U.S. It's a bizarre combination of privilege, Peter Pan syndrome, being culturally stuck in the late 1990s.

Fascinating. What do these people do for a living? What are their wives and houses like?

Lots of them work in small and mid-sized family-owned businesses, especially in the construction trades. They hire lots of "the Mexicans" to do the hard labor while they/their fathers count the money. A lot of them f#cked around for a few years after high school, went to CC or CalState school part-time and got a "business" degree, and are taking over the reins of the modestly lucrative companies built by their dads.

Forget Hollywood or Silicon Beach, real estate is truly the lifeblood of Southern California. Everyone has someone in their family who is a licensed contractor, house flipper, mortgage originator, RE agent, landlord, or plumbing/electrician working on new developments.

Otherwise, a lot of the "bro dads" work for action sports companies - surf wear, outdoor gear, etc. A lot of the famous surf companies have their headquarters in Orange County. Basically working on lifestyle brands.

These descriptions are so well done. Thanks PP (or PPs).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was the person who mentioned friendly and kind.

I missed the bullet point on the racism, but never heard that from the guys I was around. Also, it was a mostly white group, but never exclusively white, unlike so much of East Coast crowds.

Ah, okay.

Now if only there was an equally reasonable explanation for why another poster felt the need to chime in defense of all the kind racists* out there

*I'm pretty sure "kind racists" is a textbook example of an oxymoron.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Southern California (Orange County area) and there's definitely a type of Bro Dad here. Basically, they dress like high school surfer boys but they are in their late 30s and have two kids.

Typical SoCal Bro Dad:
-Drives a lifted 4x4 pick-up truck with a Monster Energy sticker on the back window, blasting Sublime or System of a Down
-Always sporting a Hurley baseball cap with a flat rim
-A plaid Billabong button up shirt and dark colored pants are what he wears to "dress up" for holiday cards
-Vans sneakers
-Owns a few pairs of Dickies shorts
-"Vacations" consist of going to Glamis for off-roading, camping at Pismo Beach, or heading to Big Bear to snowboard on 6 inches of man-made snow in the freestyle park
-Constantly bitches about "how crowded SoCal has become" and un-ironically throws out a bit of casual racism by blaming "the Mexicans"

I've yet to find similar Bro Dads anywhere else in the U.S. It's a bizarre combination of privilege, Peter Pan syndrome, being culturally stuck in the late 1990s.

Fascinating. What do these people do for a living? What are their wives and houses like?

Lots of them work in small and mid-sized family-owned businesses, especially in the construction trades. They hire lots of "the Mexicans" to do the hard labor while they/their fathers count the money. A lot of them f#cked around for a few years after high school, went to CC or CalState school part-time and got a "business" degree, and are taking over the reins of the modestly lucrative companies built by their dads.

Forget Hollywood or Silicon Beach, real estate is truly the lifeblood of Southern California. Everyone has someone in their family who is a licensed contractor, house flipper, mortgage originator, RE agent, landlord, or plumbing/electrician working on new developments.

Otherwise, a lot of the "bro dads" work for action sports companies - surf wear, outdoor gear, etc. A lot of the famous surf companies have their headquarters in Orange County. Basically working on lifestyle brands.

These descriptions are so well done. Thanks PP (or PPs).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So now the dads are going to start stereotyping, judging, and tearing each other apart? It'd bad enough when moms do it. Lay off already. You do you. Raise your kids the best way you know how. Stop spending so much time thinking about how everyone else is doing it. There's a million ways to be a good parent and raise decent kids.

+100!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see why the typical overweight (or sunken-chested) DC dad would be bothered by someone like this.

Especially those who are 5’7”, overweight, and quote from The Economist.

[Anonymous]

Bro Dads sound so much more fun to be around than the "Intellectual yet Idiots" I encounter in my daily life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do bro dads tend to be fake? Like they're always in a good mood? If so, I know exactly what you're talking about. So tiring. Some people just try too hard and it's exhausting being around them.

Yes. A bro dad I know is constantly "up." I have two boys who are not athletic, and this dad has three very athletic boys. Whenever he sees us, he'll slap my boys on the back and say a version of, "HEY BUDDY!!! PLAYING FOOTBALL YET?? NO?? WHY NOT??? BEST GAME OUT THERE!!" This happens every.single.time we see him. And he's on transmit only, not at all interested in what we actually have to say in response as to what the boys are involved in (hint: not sports). He's such a douche and so completely clueless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are “bro dads” the dads man children, dads of lax bros, or dads that still think and act as if they were in college?

I think they're usually dads of athletes, usually lax or football. Often, these bro dads weren't especially popular in their youth and are now living vicariously through their bro sons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm from Southern California (Orange County area) and there's definitely a type of Bro Dad here. Basically, they dress like high school surfer boys but they are in their late 30s and have two kids.

Typical SoCal Bro Dad:
-Drives a lifted 4x4 pick-up truck with a Monster Energy sticker on the back window, blasting Sublime or System of a Down
-Always sporting a Hurley baseball cap with a flat rim
-A plaid Billabong button up shirt and dark colored pants are what he wears to "dress up" for holiday cards
-Vans sneakers
-Owns a few pairs of Dickies shorts
-"Vacations" consist of going to Glamis for off-roading, camping at Pismo Beach, or heading to Big Bear to snowboard on 6 inches of man-made snow in the freestyle park
-Constantly bitches about "how crowded SoCal has become" and un-ironically throws out a bit of casual racism by blaming "the Mexicans"

I've yet to find similar Bro Dads anywhere else in the U.S. It's a bizarre combination of privilege, Peter Pan syndrome, being culturally stuck in the late 1990s.

Fascinating. What do these people do for a living? What are their wives and houses like?

Married their high school girlfriend or post-HS equivalent. A typical trajectory is to get accidentally pregnant in her early 20s, they co-parent for a couple years, and dad eventually marries her. Then add a couple more kids. Mom usually SAH and becomes an extreme couponer - it's a social media point of pride.

Houses in SoCal are usually stucco, post-WW2 ramblers. Lots of HGTV-inspired, "on trend" interior designs. They are really into barn doors right now.

This may be true in SoCal, but not here on the east coast. Here, bro dads are in finance, banking, investments, etc. and they have gorgeous wives. They are typically very wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the Dc version? I don’t know anyone like this. At all.

I just posted about the east coast version, and it's not at all like the west coast. Bro dads here are the wealthy, obnoxious, loud dads of athletic, Landon-type boys. Not necessarily private school, but usually. They have beautiful wives, beautiful homes, take multiple fabulous vacations per year, own large dogs, and absolutely love that their sons are also bros. In fact, they're proud of that fact. They let their kids have parties at the house, and provide the alcohol, sometimes even drinking with the kids. They buy their sons Jeeps when they turn 16. They're often portly, and may not have been athletic themselves back in the day, but they sure like to pretend they were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the Dc version? I don’t know anyone like this. At all.

Honestly, it doesn't exist. It's a SoCal white people, upper middle-class thing where they are living off the modest blue collar (yet successful) investments of the prior generation. It's bizarre. They definitely don't have the social graces or intellectual curiosity of the well educated East Coast trust fund tribe. There isn't that kind of huge, multi-generational wealth in SoCal until only very recently.

Someone above mentioned Utah being similar to the OC Bro Dads. Orange County is actually the 2nd largest concentration of Mormons outside Utah. Some, but not all, of the bro dads I know are Mormon (or lapsed). My guess is that the Bro Dad cultural styles were picked up by Mormons visiting SoCal and brought back to Utah. This makes sense as Utah has become a huge adventure sports destination, so many of the brands also translate well for the Utah lifestyle.

Good God sounds absolutely dreadful. No wonder America is going to hell.

[Anonymous]

My take on the DMV equivalent are commercial real estate guys who went to mediocre state schools and studied business. Their wives are former event planners or were in marketing but always aspired to be SAHMs. They drive jeeps and watch too much football and spend their summers at the bottle and cork in Dewey beach. Savvy enough to have done well financially but not book smart or intellectually curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My take on the DMV equivalent are commercial real estate guys who went to mediocre state schools and studied business. Their wives are former event planners or were in marketing but always aspired to be SAHMs. They drive jeeps and watch too much football and spend their summers at the bottle and cork in Dewey beach. Savvy enough to have done well financially but not book smart or intellectually curious.

Your take is weird and wrong.

[Anonymous]

I heard a dad call his son "little dude" on the beach with their surf boards in southern California. That had every element of the Bro dad for me.