While about 10% of new moms get depression, a 2005 study showed that 4% of dads had significant symptoms as well. Richard Friedman writes in the New York Times that a drop in testosterone associated with a partner's pregnancy may cause depression. But life changes may be a factor as well. Friedman writes of a male patient who lamented, "We go out a lot with friends to dinner and theater. Now I guess that's all going to end." And the biggest risk factor for male postpartum depression is having a depressed partner — dads whose partners are depressed are two and a half times more likely to suffer themselves. Friedman points out,

Unlike women, men are not generally brought up to express their emotions or ask for help. This can be especially problematic for new fathers, since the prospect of parenthood carries all kinds of insecurities: What kind of father will I be? Can I support my family? Is this the end of my freedom?

Not only are men not encouraged to share their emotions — they're widely considered not to have as many emotions where children are concerned. Commenter Zorba on the Times' Well blog writes,

I am so relieved to see this. This connects with my long-held suspicion (that no one will validate) that MOST MEN DO NOT WANT CHILDREN. As a woman, I hear women complain all the time about how men don't get how difficult it is to be pregnant, have a baby, be a mother but these are the same women who were giving their husbands ultimatums when the men didn't want to get pregnant and even (more often than you'd think) lying and leaving off birth control to have a baby regardless of their husband's feelings. This makes me sad because I would like to think that fatherhood is something men really want but most of the men I hear about are bamboozled into it. Do men even want kinds? Is that why they get depressed?

But Zorba could just as easily say that women don't want kids, because they suffer from postpartum depression more often than men. Unfortunately, several male commenters chime in to reinforce the old stereotype that men who have kids are just giving in to their wives. Says Calmd,

Based on the comments of the women, why do women want kids anyway? After our first, my wife wanted more. I said no way. Our child is 12 but my wife still resents wish not to have more kids.

Sounds awesome. But not as awesome as this, by Penumbranian:

Children change everything irreversibly. They cost time, energy, money and space. The spatial and temporal boundaries shift, your spouse pays less attention to you, even totally ignores you. Does she still love you? Did she choose you to have children only? My wife was yelling at me: "My biological clock is ticking! With you or without you I'm going to have children!" Perhaps I had children with her only to please her, to be kept by her, not to be dumped by her.
Yes, your freedom will be lost. I know a couple who did not go to see a movie for five years after they had a child. This is widely considered normal.
If a father should talk about these and related concerns, like I did, he may be labelled as "immature" or worse, like I was.

What both of these comments underscore is the need to talk about children before you get married. When one partner wants them much more than the other, resentment and depression can easily result. Despite the words of Calmd and Penumbranian, it's not always the woman who wants kids more. However, women do bear a greater physical, and often a greater social burden in pregnancy and child-rearing. Writes D.J.,

Hmm, the men don't give birth, don't carry a child for nine months, don't have hormonal or weight fluctuations, swollen ankles, stretch marks, sleepless nights when there is no comfortable position in bed, heartburn, morning sickness, but they want to suffer from post-partum depression. Then, they usually aren't the ones nursing, or have a body trying to return to it's pre-pregnancy status. They typically aren't the ones getting up in the middle of the night to feed or calm the baby, run the rest of the household if there are other children and still have a smidgen of time for themselves. My husband was a helpful as the next one, but given everything that a man doesn't go through, it sounds like whining to me.

It's true that men don't have to go through the physical changes of pregnancy. And it's true that expectations of moms are still higher than expectations of dads. But that doesn't mean men aren't emotionally invested. A commenter who identifies himself as "a medical student and father" writes,

Fathers don't want to suffer from postpartum depression- No one wants to suffer from depression! Depression is not a ‘badge of honor' for all the hardships they have been through- depression is a terrible and crippling (sometimes fatal) disease. Its true that there is likely a different hormonal aspect to the depression but the fact of the matter is we, the scientific community, do not know what causes depression or what combination of hundreds or thousands of bio-psycho-social factors lead to a depressive episode. Whether you label it postpartum depression for women or after pregnancy depression for men, its depression.

The important point is that doctors, like everyone else should be aware of who is at risk and try to understand, treat and hopefully relieve suffering.

Doctors do need to be aware of male postpartum depression — and perhaps we all need to be more inclusive when it comes to a father's role. Many men are still trained to view involved parenting as somehow feminine, and they need to resist this training. At the same time, though, if we as a society want men to share equally in the mundane parts of parenting, the "getting up in the middle of the night to feed or calm the baby," we need to acknowledge that they share in the emotional parts as well. Male postpartum depression may feel like "whining" when women still bear the brunt of child-rearing responsibility, but treating this depression can also be a step towards accepting men's emotional investment in the family and channeling this investment into actual time spent with kids. Children may affect men more than they're currently encouraged to admit — and recognizing this would be good for everyone.

Postpartum Depression Strikes Fathers, Too [NYT]
When New Fathers Get Depressed [NYT Well Blog]

The MSNBC headline really says it all: "It's a boy? Disappointment plagues some moms." Of course, "gender disappointment" exists (as we know) in both forms. But for mothers who've been dreaming of girly bonding - or those, like my grandmother, who have four boys - the boy regret is apparently more common. As one mother quoted in the piece puts it, "There's not going to be any pink dresses. There's not going to be any scrapbooking. That's not going to happen."

Therapists quoted in the piece recommend that those who are super hung up on one sex find out in advance so as to deal with the disappointment. And now there's a resource: Altered Dreams: Living with Gender Disappointment, written by one mom whose sons will, hopefully, never check Amazon. I mean, surely at some point "gender disappointment" turns into "having a baby boy," right? This isn't the 19th century, where a father can't look at a girl without seeing the heir she should have been. And the moms quoted in the piece are sure to affirm that they love their sons, even if one of them "sometimes looks at her son and wonders, just for a moment, what he would look like as a girl." Well, if she's really curious, she can do what one of my friend's mothers did: dress him in dresses and bonnets because, dammit, she wasn't going to be cheated out of the pink.

It's A Boy? Disappointment Plagues Some Moms [MSNBC]

The Times's Laurie Tarkan describes a new study showing that low-income families benefited when fathers took parenting classes. She writes that "fathers not only spent more time with their children than the controls did but were also more active in the daily tasks of child-rearing. They became more emotionally involved with their children, and the children were much less aggressive, hyperactive, depressed or socially withdrawn than children of fathers in the control group." However, the effect was greatest when moms attended classes alongside dads, implying (unsurprisingly) that parents who communicate and support each other are best for kids. But dads may have trouble getting the support they need.

Tarkan writes that, "as much as mothers want their partners to be involved with their children, experts say they often unintentionally discourage men from doing so. Because mothering is their realm, some women micromanage fathers and expect them to do things their way." The assertion is a little annoying, reminiscent as it is of a similar narrative about chores: women just don't let men do the laundry, the thinking goes, because it has to be done their way. Similarly stereotypical are the words of Dr. Kyle Pruett, co-author of the book Partnership Parenting. He says, "dads tend to discipline differently, use humor more and use play differently. Fathers want to show kids what's going on outside their mother's arms, to get their kids ready for the outside world." Pruett adds that dads "tend to encourage risk-taking and problem-solving" — but these are pretty sweeping generalizations. I know my dad didn't "encourage risk-taking," unless you call not driving on the freeway until you're eighteen years old a risk. And slotting parents into sitcom-ready roles (Mom the protector, Dad the one who lets you get dirty) only multiplies the obstacles they have to face in working together.

But there are some ways that larger social expectations harm both moms and dads. Tarkan quotes psych professor Philip A. Cowan, who says,

The walls in family resource centers are pink, there are women's magazines in the waiting room, the mother's name is on the files, and the home visitor asks for the mother if the father answers the door. It's like fathers are not there.

By treating moms like the primary parent, research centers and other social services just make it more difficult for dads to get involved — and maybe even perpetuate the notion that only Mom knows the right way to do things. Rather than accusing individual mothers of considering motherhood their "realm," we should be tackling the widespread cultural perception that women naturally know about child-rearing and men are just bumbling babysitters who show up every now and then to teach baseball skills. Cowan says parents need to stop criticizing each other so much — "Instead, they should be saying, ‘How can each of us be the kind of parent that we are?'"— but parenting experts have some large-scale recommendations that may be even more effective. Tarkan writes,

[P]ictures of families on the walls of clinics and public agencies should have fathers in them. All correspondence should be addressed to both mother and father. Staff members should be welcoming to men. Steps like these promote early and lasting involvement by fathers.

These may seem like small changes, but they would start sending the message that parenting is a cooperative process, not Mom's job and Dad's hobby. It's a message that moms, dads, and kids all desperately need.

Fathers Gain Respect From Experts (And Mothers) [NYT]
Paying More Attention To Fathers [NYT Well Blog]

The study looked at 12,500 five-year-olds, and controlled for factors like socioeconomic status and mothers' education. Researchers found that children of working mothers were more likely to drink soda and eat "crisps and sweets" between meals, and less likely to snack on fruits and vegetables, than their peers with stay-at-home moms. Kids whose mothers worked were also more likely to be driven to school, rather than walking or biking, and more likely to spend two or more hours a day watching TV or using the computer. The effect on kids' eating and exercise habits was less when mothers worked part-time than when they work full-time, but still significant, and in fact, the average employed mom in the study worked only 21 hours a week. According to the Guardian, "flexible working had an impact, but [...] no strong effect on the health of the children."

Study author Catherine Law says, "Our results do not imply that mothers should not work. Rather they highlight the need for policies and programmes to help support parents." But coverage of the study in the British media is sending a more alarmist message. The BBC calls the kids' soda-drinking and TV-watching "health behaviours likely to promote excess weight gain," and cites an earlier study on the same population that found children of working mothers (and, interestingly, children of wealthy parents) have higher obesity risk. The Guardian helpfully illustrates the study with a picture of a pudgy kid eating chips in front of the TV. And the Daily Fail sums up the study thus:

[R]esearchers insist the results 'do not imply that mothers should not work'.

But they say there is a definite link between paid employment and a lifestyle that leaves children more at risk from obesity and disease.

Translation: better stay in the kitchen baking wholesome treats (like the mom in the Daily Mail's accompanying picture), or your kids will get fat and sick. Of course, there's little actual mention of the children's health in the coverage of the study — we don't know if kids of working moms are at higher risk for diabetes, if they have more trouble running a mile, et cetera. We do know that flexible work hours supposedly influenced kids' "unhealthy behaviors" but not their overall health, which is confusing but may indicate that the behaviors of the poor abandoned latchkey kids are less dire than they're made out to be. But if kids' health really does suffer when moms work outside the home, the solution isn't to heap more guilt on moms, who often don't have much choice. Instead, as Law says, parents and kids need better support and facilities to make healthy food and exercise more accessible. The BBC mentions Britain's Change4Life program, which provides education about nutrition and exercise, and sounds like a good start.

The study brings up another question, though. Amid all the headlines like "Working Mums 'Harm Child's Progress'" and "Working Mums' 'Child Weight Risk'" (BBC articles linked from the study coverage), where are those other parents? You know, dads? BBC commenter Naomi says,

I'm cross on so many levels, but mainly a personal one! I work, my husband doesn't, he is our daughter's main carer. He walks her to school, he looks after her after school stuff and cooks her meals every day. She has restricted TV time and is not allowed sweets. Why do people insist on saying 'mother' when they often mean 'parent'. It's wrong on other levels too of course, but for me it's the stupidity of assuming a mum should stay at home and a dad should work - are we still in the 50s?

From the Daily Mail photo, it looks like we are.

Image via Daily Mail.

Working Mothers' Children Unfit [BBC]
Working Mothers Have Unhealthiest Children, Study Finds [Guardian]
Working Mums Beware: Why Children Of Stay-At-Home Mothers Have Healthier Lifestyles [Daily Mail]

Simon Von Booys's piece in the Times of London runs the gamut from heart-wrenching — his wife died suddenly, possibly of Marfan syndrome, when their daughter Madeleine was just three — to the mundane — he messes up breakfast, just like in Kramer vs. Kramer. I was ready to write off his essay as good-hearted but nothing America's millions of single moms don't already know. But Von Booys doesn't discount the experiences of mothers — they're the ones he turns to for advice "on the subway, in the supermarket, at the park." And while he sells dads short a bit (on the advice of women, he says, "I buy own-brand cereal and put it in the box with cartoon characters on it. How could a man ever have thought that up?"), he sounds like he's doing pretty well.

Von Booys tells the story of his daughter pointing out "someone for you to marry" — a model in a fashion magazine, whom she thought looked like Snow White. He writes,

I now hide all fashion magazines, not because I'm against Disney-inspired couture, but because I'm worried that Madeleine will think those models are what she is supposed to look like as a woman. What I mean to say is: I think differently now about everything.

This is poignant real-life evidence for the theory that having daughters may help men develop more feminist beliefs, as well as proof that dads as well as moms can help girls build good self-esteem. It's important for a little girl to see women who love themselves and don't insult their own bodies, but it's equally important for her to know that not all men think she's supposed to look like a model. I'm always a little grossed out by the (heteronormative) idea that a girl's relationship with her dad is a model for later romantic relationships. But it's true that a girl who grows up knowing her dad not only disagrees with bad messages about women's bodies, but actively wants to protect her from them, is probably predisposed towards healthy relationships with men, romantic or not.

The night after his wife died, Von Booys and his daughter watched Sleeping Beauty. He writes,

She missed the part where the Prince brings Sleeping Beauty back to life with a kiss, and everything returns to normal. I wondered whether she fell asleep on purpose.

Whether or not it was intentional, maybe it was good. As Von Booys surely knows, no man can protect a woman from all harm — and fathers who overprotect their "princesses" are doing them a disservice. But men can be women's allies in a difficult world, especially if dads lead by example.

The Trials Of Being A Single Father [TimesOnline]

Related: Mothers And Daughters And Weight, Oh My
Can An Eating Disorder Be Blamed On A Parent?

From his campaign-trail call to fathers "to realize that responsibility does not end at conception ... that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child - it's the courage to raise one," Obama has made fatherhood a priority. The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership has launched a "national fatherhood tour, " as told by NPR, led by 27-year-old Joshua DuBois, and consisting of town hall meetings around the country that will address fatherhood, parenting, and policy. Says DuBois, "[Obama] grew up without a dad in his own home, but he also saw the impact of father absence when he was working in Chicago...So he started this national conversation about responsible fatherhood."

The speech that had the 1,500 women "a big weepy mess" at the BlogHer conference was by Mike Adamick, a writer and stay-at-home dad whose devotion to his young daughter is a running theme in his essays. In this talk, he expressed his fear that his daughter should inherit his shyness and social awkwardness, and the pain he felt when he saw her struggling with other children.

This is a lovely story, and a good illustration of the special bond that can exist between father and child. I was reminded, too, of Ta-Nehisi Coates' widely-read 2002 piece on being a SAHD, which as he points out is a far more loaded issue in the black community - and this was when Obama's sanction of the estate was but a gleam in Democrats' eyes. As Coates wrote wryly, "I am sure that even for this meager deed of fatherhood I am performing, I deserve a lot more than credit," even as he hopes it becomes quotidian ("Not only would the children be better off, but their fathers might actually discover what I already know: that fatherhood is fun, and that it really is the noble calling that I had envisioned, despite the crappy diapers.")

Coates writes that some of his moments of greatest satisfaction come from the silent approval of older African-American women he sees on the street - glad to see him assuming his role. Adamnick - or Aaron Traister, who also wrote a terrific piece about being a SAHD recently - has it easier: fewer people are going to question his choice, at least publicly, despite the continuing stigmas of perceived emasculation. But for them, too, the approval of women is clearly critical to maintaining their self-respect. I'm not talking in the sexual sense, and I don't mean that fathers should be given more credit for doing the same work mothers do routinely. But they need the same credit, the approving looks and, yes, the happy tears (because for many of the same reasons, they're not likely to get them from other men - and not just because a new study, as gleefully reported by the Daily Mail, finds that the average woman cries constantly.) I hope, for this reason amongst others that plenty of women are involved in the Fatherhood initiative - giving the support and approval that may seem obvious but that, frankly, I think we're better at.

White House Launches Fatherhood Initiative [NPR]
Confessions Of A Black Mr. Mom [Washington Monthly]
Dude, Man Up And Start Acting Like A Mom [Salon]
Video Mortified The Radio Star [Mike Adamick]
Crying Shame: Women Spend One Year And Four Months Of Their Lives In Tears [Daily Mail]

My parents had everything ready for my arrival: blue clothes, blue blankets, a male name, and, I'm sure, as far as my father was concerned, dreams of basketball games and little league games and fishing trips or whatever it is that fathers typically do with their sons. But their second daughter was born instead, and two years later, their third, leaving my father as a sort of bizarro Mike Brady, with three very lovely girls.

I write about my dad a lot, mostly because my dad is hilarious, and is pretty much a real-life version of Clark Griswold (if Clark Griswold had a Star Wars obsession). We have bonded over music and we communicate primarily through jokes from movies, and my dad is one of the few people in the world who can consistently make me laugh.

My dad often got razzed about having three girls: what a nightmare, what drama, what stress! But my father seemed to shrug it off because, as he claims, he didn't really see the big deal. My sisters and I did everything my male cousins did: we were all on a million teams, played a billion sports (and captained a few varsity ones, thankyouverymuch), spent our summer days outdoors in the woods, etc. But we also liked dolls, we also liked playing house, we also liked building forts and throwing tea parties with very glamorous stuffed animals. My dad never looked at it as "oh, I have daughters, woe is me." "Or, oh, I have tomboys, so that makes it okay." My dad, I think, just looked at us as his kids, and he got a kick out of our adventures, regardless of what gender norms they embraced. Looking back, I see how important this was: my father never made us feel embarrassed to be girls, and he never made us feel like we shouldn't be "acting like boys." My dad just wanted us to be happy, to be ourselves.

So Happy Father's Day, dad. May the force be with you, and thanks for always being there for us.

And now let's rock out to one of my dad's favorite singers:

Feel free to leave a note about your father, or the father-figure in your life, in the comments.

Earlier: What Was The Album That Made You Love Music?
When Your Dad Speaks To You Through Random Movie Quotes

While I'm not remotely qualified to opine on the difficulty faced by African-American women who wish to date men of equal educational and career attainment (though, please, opine in the comments if you are), Desmond-Harris' and Swerdlick's advice rings as true for most of my friends as it does for theirs. Having lived in three major East Coast cities (Boston, New York and D.C.) as an adult — and with girlfriends in Philly, Chicago, San Diego and San Francisco — there is a near universal-lament: "Dating here sucks. There are no guys."

This is, demographically-speaking, demonstrably not true. What it inevitably means is that my friends — like Desmond-Harris's and Swerdlick's — have found the men they have met wanting. Desmond-Harris who, like me, is an inveterate match-maker, lists some of the reasons she's heard.

His toes were ashy.
He seems like he'd be a really cool friend, but I don't know, those lips. . .
He was wearing a bubble coat, and seriously, it was not that cold.
We had a good conversation, but I like a man to be more aggressive.
That was our second and last date. He used the word "authentic" like 14 times.
How many times do I have to tell you I'm looking for someone TALL and HOT? Keywords being tall and hot.
He drank a hot chocolate instead of coffee. What is he? A 6'4''12-year-old? (I'm putting myself out there-this was my own reaction to an otherwise pleasant date just a few years ago.)

And she's not done yet.

Yeah, he was tall, but his head seemed a little small for his body.
It was loud in there, so I'm not sure. Did I detect a stutter?
Boy, was he sweating!
He seems like someone who would like Star Trek.
I don't care if he can't see. He should have left those glasses at the office.
He was dancing (or worse, trying) way too hard.

And these are just the guys self-selected to be bright, ambitious, well-educated and young professionals. Desmond-Harris's point is that sometimes everyone lets superficial things get in the way of getting to know someone enough to even decide if there's attraction or chemistry — choosing instead to focus on some perfect archetype (like Barack Obama) that one can slot into one's perfect fantasies without having to deal with the messy parts of a real relationship.

Swerdlick, in a defensive fashion, agrees.

But if any of you are holding out for a future U.N. high commissioner who's also won an Olympic bronze in tennis, makes sushi at home and DJs at his own club on weekends, you really need to get a grip.

I said it sounded defensive. He also recommends women stop obsessing on how much guys spend on them; try to recognize the hottie under the sweatpants or goofy ears; check their own egos about how attractive their partners should be; and (since it is about African-American relationships), try dating outside their race. Defensiveness and stereotypes aside, it's not terrible advice. For instance how many times have we read or heard that the man should pay for the first date? It's not just an outdated stereotype about earning power and responsibility for the date, it was originally based on assessing a man's ability to support you, and, for some people, it still is.

As a setter-upper, I've heard it all from my girlfriends: too "ethnic" (don't get me started); too tall; too short; too fat; too skinny; has a beard; too nice; not aggressive enough; and on and on and on. Which isn't to say women shouldn't be picky — but the things one should be picky about include how he treats you (and others around him); whether you share similar values; whether you want similar things. It's rare to find out any of those things, or determine if there's real attraction outside of hot-or-not if you never talk to someone. And while it's easy to figure that some dude asking for your number while staring at your chest doesn't probably want to get to actually know you, maybe the goofy-eared guy drinking hot chocolate while sweating nervously does — but you'll never know if you don't try.

I have to admit that my father — and my parents' ongoing relationship (34 years of marriage, 36 years together) — is a strong factor in my dating philosophy. My parents were set up on a blind date and my mom's first impression was: Too Short (my dad's 5'4", and my mom's 5'6"). He was also portly, hads a strange sense of humor (yeah, I take after him), worked with his hands and had been divorced. They stayed just friends. A year later, my mom was out with her 6'2", suave, urbane, handsome boyfriend and all their friends (my dad included) when her boyfriend got a little drunk — and more than a little aggressive with my mom. And of all the people there, my dad marched right up to him and told him that if he wanted to fight, he should start with someone his own size. My mom ended things with the tall-and-supposedly-perfect guy and started dating the guy that cared about her, shared her values and wanted what she wanted, even if he was going to come up to her nose when she wore heels. And... it worked out well for them, even if my dad is the shortest person in family portraits these days.

What Single Women Can Learn From Michelle [The Root]
What Single Women Can't Learn From Michelle [The Root]

[Image via The Official White House Photostream]

While last week we learned about the travails of potty-training, now we learn the pitfalls in store for those who've mastered the bathroom: consuming obsession. The little boy's obsession with urinals becomes a tyranny that makes any foray out of the house protracted and urinal-centric, and because it cuts down on urinal time, the child refuses to let his mother take him to the bathroom.

"I have to pee."I wanted to say, "No, you don't have to pee; you just want to see the urinal, and you know what, it's the same urinal as the one at the last gas station. I'm not stopping, Boo. I am not stopping." And I would have said this, but my wife thinks our son is a god, and so if he said he had to pee then we had to honor the signals his body was giving him...I knew I couldn't win with her, so I told myself it was OK, this fixation of his.

I don't know about a god, but the kid is, like, a urinal savant! At the fancy Parker Meridien Hotel, the little boy says, "Probably they do have urinals. Probably the urinals have pink deodorizing disks inside of white baskets over the drain. Probably they have a low urinal for kids and a high one for grown-ups." Oh, and he also loves Stereolab.

After a while, the little boy gets over the urinal stage and moves onto Beethoven's piano sonatas. The parents are relieved, and still confused. The essay i, obviously, s a paeon to the mysterious fixations of childhood, and a good evocation - albeit a perhaps unintended nod to the strains such things place on the parental relationship and the push-pull of discipline versus self-expression. We've all known kids with odd fixations: pipes, shards of glass (no! dangerous!), meerkats, fine tailoring. This author is clearly very proud of his little boy, and rightly so: he seems smart and interesting and fun to hang out with, and one can pardon a bit of parental boastfulness (because I'm sure this whole first grade Beethoven thing doesn't make the other parents feel inadequate!) At the end of the day, despite his confusion, a urinal fixation makes total sense - they're fascinating! And completely disgusting and sort of primitive and weird! And, something the author doesn't address, they're just for boys, part of a secret male world that women cannot penetrate.

Off-topic: When I was very little, I had a tiny plastic dollhouse urinal. I don't know why. Big Leon, the albino baby doll with the functioning penis [What? -Ed.], was far too big to use it. Freddy and Drano, the little plastic brothers who came with the flea market motorboat, were the right scale, but had wet-suits permanently molded to their bodies, nullifying the need for evacuation. One day, I decided to pee in that tiny urinal, the only chance I'd ever have to use one. The results were predictably disastrous, and the end result was, my mom, apparently not considering me a goddess, threw it away. As a result, they've always retained a certain fascination; the author is wise to give into his child's vagaries.

Life Of The Potty [Salon]

Related: Once Upon A Potty

First there's "I'm A Better Dad Part-Time," by Richard Seely , who claims that from the moment his daughter was born, she and her mother were forming a bond "and I was, to some degree, excluding myself." As she grew older, Seely's daughter would go into "theatrics" in the absence of her mother. Seely writes:

I lost patience with this behaviour, and ultimately with many of her imperfections.

I became more and more of an ogre. I would snap at her. Tell her "no" sometimes for no other reason than to distinguish myself from her mother. If she got an A on a report card, I'd ask why it wasn't an A-plus. Unconsciously, I would intimidate her. Once - I can't even remember what she had done - all I had to do was look at her and my expression sent her running to her room, afraid of me. I never hit her, and have never contemplated any form of physical response toward her or anyone else, but what mattered was that I made her afraid of me.

And so, when he and his wife got divorced, he was fine with the mother getting custody of the child. He says of his daughter:

Because I don't see her every day, I have much more tolerance for the behaviours that used to frustrate me. I offer comfort instead of scorn if she misses her mother when she's away on a business trip. I celebrate the time we spend together, be it an hour or two after school or a weeklong camping trip in the summer.

I'm happier and more secure in my role as a parent than I ever was before.

But: Does any of this seem like a cop-out? Of course it's easier to be "tolerant" and happy when you've only got to deal with a kid part time; instead of being awakened in the night by fevers or managing tantrums, you're only there for ice cream and games and camping. Fun! But is that parenting, or is that just "hanging out" with a child, like an Aunt, Uncle or family friend would do?

The guy referenced in Strollerderby's post A Dad's Point of View: Am I Selfish? Or Just a Jerk? at least seems self-concious enough to realize he's selfish. Bruce Sallan writes about a ski trip taken with his wife and 12-year-old son. Blogger Keri summarizes his story thusly:

Son got a bad nosebleed. Dad tended to him, called the hospital, found out what to do, and sat with the boy until the blood stopped, almost 30 minutes later. Dad wanted to take turns with Step-mom going skiing, so that one would be with the kid and one on the slopes at all times. Step-mom volunteered to stay with the boy the whole time. After 45 minutes on the mountain, nosebleed recommences, Step-mom calls Dad, and Dad returns to Son. Son wants to go home.

Did the dad take the kid home? No. Sallan explains: "I gave him a relatively stern talk on being a man, learning to deal with some pain, as there will be some pain in life... I explained that running away would only teach him how not to deal with life's crises… We give in to our children's whims and complaints too easily. Sometimes, we as parents need to take care of our needs... [Step-mom] chose to be over-the-board careful and I chose to be, what some might say, selfish..." Beyond the fact that teaching your kid to "toughen up" is soooo 1950s and reinforces some nasty stereotypes about what it means to be a man, don't both of these stories make you wonder why these dads feel no shame about being so selfish? And don't you wonder what the mothers think of such behavior?

I'm A Better Dad Part-Time [Globe And Mail]
A Dad's Point of View: Am I Selfish? Or Just a Jerk? [Strollerderby]
Related: A DAD'S POINT OF VIEW: Am I A Selfish Parent? [HuntingtonNews.net]

It should be said that this is merely a corollary to a light-hearted article by author Tom Hodgkinson railing against the tyranny of expensive "outings" and promoting the joys of staying at home with kids. Or, as he puts it,

One happy day, I sat in the armchair reading my William Morris biography while Henry played on the floor with his toy tractors, Delilah cut up bits of paper, and Arthur read The Beano. Later I found myself making a pair of sunglasses out of a cereal packet with Delilah.

Indeed. His friend "James" takes another approach:

Fertile neglect is the name of that policy: leaving the boy to his own devices so I can pursue mine and he can develop those solitary skills that will serve him in future airports, waiting rooms and prisons. It came about simply because I found actual down-at-his-level waving-tiny-figurines PLAYING to be, for some reason, soul-destroying-the arbitrary and despotic movements of the child-mind and all that. Bonus side effect: when you do consent, in moments of magnanimity, to lower yourself to their play-level they are incredibly grateful.

This is, one presumes, humorous. I hope. Because it's quite bad enough to not get to spend time with one's dad - because of work, divorce, responsibilities, any number of realities. To have him there - but unwilling to spend time with you - must be great for a small child's self-esteem! Poor guy, one can hardly expect him to enjoy playing with his own children - it's not like one can obtain joy from watching a child's pleasure! No, only those arrested types who enjoy playing with toddler toys can actually bear this sort of thing. And he's absolutely right; God forbid your child take your attention for granted! One can only imagine how effective his mind games are with women!

I get it: dads want to get in on the trend of exploding domesticity myths. Raising kids isn't all sunshine and Full House-style learning and growing. But for some reason it's different when it comes from a father; we don't yet, as a society, take their involvement enough for granted for this to be funny. A dad emotionally neglecting his kids? Not comedic. Maybe it's a double-standard, fellas - and that, we've heard, is rough.

The Idle Parent [Slate]

Jessica Handler tells Newsweek that she's decided not to have kids because she has a 67% chance of passing on a rare blood disorder — and because children remind her of the sister she lost to that disease. It's a heart-wrenching article not just because of Handler's loss — another sister died in childhood of leukemia — but because she feels stigmatized by a decision that was obviously very difficult to make. She writes, "Our culture presumes that a grown woman's true responsibility is motherhood. We're obsessed with babies, even as we expect career success, hot sex and designer style. [...] While few can pull off parenthood with the glamour of Hollywood stars, the underlying message is hard to ignore: if you're not having a baby and enjoying it, something's wrong with you." It's sad that motherhood has become so fetishized that having kids is about proving your completeness as a person — not about raising complete, happy people.

Writing in a similar vein, Anna Quindlen takes aim at the notion that parenting is "easy." She reports the results of several studies showing that parents who receive training in such skills as discipline and positive reinforcement have healthier, better-adjusted kids. Quindlen argues that good child-rearing is a learned skill, not an instinct, and that our ignorance of this as a culture has warped our ideas of parenthood. She writes,

The prevailing ethos about being a parent is that it's mostly intuitive and uniformly joyful, even though the news, and our own lives, are full of those who found it so conspicuously otherwise that they made an utter mess of actual human beings. This mythology has two effects. One is that parents who don't feel happy or competent are made to feel like freaks-and to just keep quiet about the fact. The other is that this makes everyone believe not only that anyone can be a parent, but also that everyone ought to do it, even those who seem by character or inclination to be ill equipped.

Of course, even the "ill equipped" can learn — but the idea that having kids is a necessary part of a fulfilled life may be persuading people to breed before they're ready. And some people — because of personal tragedy or genetics, like Handler, or because of their desire for independence or the fact that they just don't want kids all that much — may never be ready at all.

But we know what you're all thinking — how does this affect men? Nirpal Dhaliwal of the Times of London has the answer. Men want kids too, he says, but they're often ashamed to say so. So far, so good — the desire to be a dad is nothing to be ashamed of (though Dhaliwal's term "throbbing balls" might not be the best way to describe it), and it's certainly worthwhile to bust the stereotype that women all want babies while men just want to drink beer, slap high-fives, and look at women's butts. It's when Dhaliwal describes how he discovered his desire to procreate that things get a little annoying:

I realised how bereft I am of children while spending the second half of last year in India - a country that is teeming with them. I'd watch young Indian families sitting on railway platforms, the fathers beaming as they cradled their perfectly formed, serenely quiet babies. Seeing people who earn a pittance, whose daily lives are a grinding struggle, take such genuine, uncomplicated delight in their children made me appreciate what a real and uniquely powerful experience parenthood is. It made me want to be a father.

Obviously he didn't run into this guy. But seriously, if your idea of offspring is a bunch of "perfectly formed, serenely quiet babies," you may be in for a shock. Babies get sick — sometimes, as in Handler's family — they get very, very sick. And they are rarely "serenely quiet." Actually, this brings us to a quibble with Quindlen's piece. Most of us know motherhood isn't easy — we have all of pop culture's frazzled moms to tell us that, at the very least, it involves a lot of laundry and yelling. But fatherhood, to the non-father, can sometimes seem kind of simple.

Take a look at the ads for the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse — from these, it looks like "taking time to be a dad" means playing with your kid. And while getting out the Super Soaker is important, a lot of being a parent isn't strictly fun. But because many fathers are still absent from their kids' lives, the bar for dads is still set lower than for moms. Motherhood is frequently described as a full-time job, but you can "take time [presumably out of your busy life] to be a dad." We don't want to rag on dads too much, or to challenge Dhaliwal's basic point that men can have parenting urges too, but let's be honest about what parenting entails. Along with the fun comes a lot of worry, conflict, and heartache, and in a just world (with some exceptions) these would fall equally on the shoulders of moms and dads.

I Won't Roll the Biological Dice [Newsweek]
A Teachable Moment [Newsweek]
The men who are desperate for kids [TimesOnline]

WCCO in Minneapolis aired video of winner Pat Ebertz dancing in a blond wig and gold jumpsuit on the news. After seeing him explain in the full video that he's willing to make a complete fool of himself for his daughter, we can't help but find his performance a little touching, albeit disturbing. [CBS News]

The Onion piece describes a well-intentioned father who attempts to impress his kids with his knowledge of random movie quotes and, of course, ends up failing miserably. "At dinner he started waving his wine glass and yelling, 'irreconcilable!' over and over again in this sort of Elmer Fudd voice. That's not even the right speech impediment," the fictional daughter, Erica complains.

My family communicates in joke form: we are not a super affectionate people, and growing up, we expressed our love for one another by making fun of each other or going back and forth with random movie quotes or impressions of people we'd seen on television. For a long time, I believed that this was the norm for most families, until I had my first boyfriend, who insisted upon hugging me at all times and couldn't quite understand why I'd rather just give him a high-five and moonwalk away like a total idiot in the hopes of making him smile. The relationship did not last long. Either did the moonwalking, as my friends staged an intervention and tried to explain the difference between "amusing" and "annoying."

Still: it's amazing to me how, to this day, the bulk of my family conversations are still peppered with ridiculous pop-culture references and stupid jokes. Even in the darkest times, my family has relied on a line or two to lighten the tension: when I was hospitalized for anorexia five years ago, I'd call my parents and give them updates on my progress. "My heart rate is low, my weight is steady, and the nurse has finally stopped yelling "Are you constipated?" to the entire floor in the morning," I'd say, "So I got that going for me, which is nice." My father, as scared shitless as he was, would always laugh.

I know that some families have sit downs and long talks and express their feelings in that way, but we've always shown interest in one another by picking up on each other's pop-culture loves: my mother suffered through modern rock radio when I was in high school, even though she didn't care for it, if we were traveling in the car together. At night, I'd hear her humming Nirvana's "Lithium" as she put the dishes away, which made me laugh, and, at 15, made me feel like my mom was connecting to me in some way, even if she didn't realize it.

My father and I have a similar relationship; we bond over music and stupid movies and seem to understand each other based on the lines of fictional characters. There is something quietly reassuring in having the ability to make another family member laugh: in a way, you're able to get out the things you can't say by repeating the same damn quotes you've used a million times before.

Unlike the father in the Onion piece, however, my dad rarely misses a quote; in fact, his pop-culture memory is a little too good at times. I took him to see Fellowship of the Ring when it first came out, and every time an Orc came after Samwise Gamgee, my father would lean in and whisper, "Why are they attacking Rudy? He just wants to play for the Irish." Which, of course, would send me into a fit of laughter and the patrons around us into a fit of shushes and dirty looks. But nothing is going to stop my dad and I from throwing stupid references back and forth. For that's just the way my family chooses to communicate. Anything else would just be irreconcilable inconceivable!

Area Dad Botches Princess Bride Quote [The Onion]

Alfie and girlfriend Chantelle Stedman's families have already been paid tens of thousands of dollars to sell their story to the British tabloids. Ten film companies are reportedly bidding to make a movie about them, and one former News of the World editor estimates that the families stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in the coming years by selling photos of milestones in Maisie's life, like her first birthday or first day at school. Of course, these offers are dependent on the paternity test, which social services has agreed to pay for, proving that Alfie is the baby's father. For now, all the media attention has caused Alfie's school to report that he is often truant. His mother Nicola Patten will appear in court next week to explain why Alfie didn't attend school regularly during a five-month period last year. [The Washington Post, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail]

A piece on CNN talks about the phenomenon of women who are drawn to husbands like their fathers. By way of illustration, we're given a number of marriages, both successful and unsuccessful, in which similarities between a woman's husband and her father range from those as commonplace as a shared love of politics, to unsettling things like uncanny physical resemblances or abusive temperaments. There are, of course, a lot of obvious reasons people do this: the piece cites the "comfort of familiarity" as well as the natural desire to replicate those qualities you loved and admired in a parent. Other times, the motivation is more complicated, namely in those cases where someone subconsciously wishes to "make amends" for a troubled childhood. Says one expert whom the article quotes,

This is most common if you felt rejected or abandoned by a parent and still haven't worked through it...Your psyche wants to go back to the scene of the crime, so to speak, and resolve that parental relationship in a marriage.

Needless to say, it rarely works out.

It's funny this article should appear just now, because the other day a friend and I were talking about the fact that, while we both have close and loving relationships with fathers we admire, neither of us has ever dated a man anything like him. We came up with a theory of our own: maybe, when you're super-close to a dad, in some sense you don't feel a need to replicate him, because you choose to believe he'll always be there. Like, that niche is filled: no one else need apply. Childish and unrealistic, maybe, but it seems plausible. I talk to my dad several times per week; why would I need another version of that dynamic? - might be how the thinking goes. It should probably be noted that neither of us is remotely qualified to be advancing any behavioral theories whatsoever.

What's inarguable is that for people of any sex, relationships with parents are huge, and probably enough analysis can unearth a huge number of complex theories about anyone. It's a difficult balance to recognize enough about these relationships and motivations to correct persistently self-destructive behaviors and be mindful of repeated tendencies, yet be able to take your relationships at face value and move on. After all, being overly aware of the extent to which your parents influence your romantic life is pretty creepy, too - unless both the men in your life have Keith Hernandez moustaches, love of curling, aversion to crawfish, obsession with 18th Century French poetry, Moby Grape and similar verbal ticks, you're probably okay.

Why You're Likely To Marry Your Parent [CNN]

There are two kinds of families in this country: football families, and everybody else. Football families begin traditions early; my best friend growing up was in full face-paint at the age of 5, cheering on her beloved New England Patriots with her mother and father, who were diehard fans. They bonded over football games, crocks of baked beans and cocktail weenies, and spent their weekends at local games, bundled up in 800 layers in order to fight off the nasty New England winter weather. Football was love to them, and they still, to this day, celebrate the big game together, regardless of who is playing.

My family, on the other hand, is a baseball family. My father grew up in Western Massachusetts and has had a lifelong devotion to the Boston Red Sox and to baseball in general, something he shared with my sisters and I when we were young. He used to drive me up to Fenway Park in the days when the Red Sox sucked so bad that you could buy good tickets about 10 minutes before the game started, and we'd spend the whole day eating peanuts and popcorn and screaming for Ellis Burks and at Wade Boggs. On our way to Boston, we'd pass under the Newton Sheraton Hotel, which had a giant "S" hung on the side. "You see," my father would say, "even Superman wants to live near Fenway Park."

(I later broke his heart by becoming a Seattle Mariners fan when I was 12, but karma has repaid me by ensuring that the Mariners are the suckiest bunch of sucks who ever sucked, so it's all worked out now.)

I will admit to being a bit jealous of football families on Super Bowl Sunday: there is a type of excitement that can't be faked, and for whatever reason, I just can't get into football. I have tried so bloody hard over the years to get into the Super Bowl; I was in college in Boston when the Patriots won, and you'd think that kind of energy would do it, but I was still pretty meh on the whole thing. You can't pick the sports you love, I guess. I can appreciate a Super Bowl win, but it's not something that means the world to me, like it does for my football-loving friends.

It used to be that even non-football lovers could watch the Super Bowl for the commercials alone; but YouTube and a consistent downhill slide in decent commercials over the past few years has made even that aspect of the game pretty lame, and as for the half-time show, if I wanted to watch a middle-aged man dance around awkwardly in a stupid outfit, I'd just ask my dad to perform his "watch me do a triple axel, Hortense" carpet-figure-skating routine in his pajamas that he breaks out during every Winter Olympics.

So tomorrow, when the Super Bowl Sunday parties roll around, those of you who love the game will have another memory to add to your banks, and some of you will either have the best day ever or the worst day ever, depending on if your team pulls through or not. For the rest of us, there's always the commercials, the Super Bowl Sunday spread, and the knowledge that Opening Day is just around the corner.