It’s Father’s Day again — that is, Anonymous Father’s Day, a time to become aware of what the children of donor dads think of their absent, unknown progenitors. Read more…
There is an increasing amount of fatherhood research going on, which is a good thing. A father’s place in the family has been undervalued in recent decades while single motherhood was socially accepted and supported. Children need their fathers. Read more…
If you asked a normal father why he stayed around after his child was born he might be a bit offended, and then he might say that it was because he loved his child and its mother (his wife) and because, anyway, he is responsible, along with his wife, for the children they bring into the world. He might also point out that he committed himself to the family when he married his wife. In other words, he would give a moral explanation.
Much is being made this week, however, of a study that shows testosterone declines markedly in men who become fathers, giving them a push in the direction of committed parenthood. It’s, like, suddenly we can know that fathers are meant to be with their children because biology proves it. Oh well, anything that reinforces the message is welcome. Read more…
ScienceDaily (Aug. 31, 2011) — Fathers who actively engage in raising their children can help make their offspring smarter and better behaved, according to new research from Concordia University.
Published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, the long-term study examined how fathers can positively influence the development of their kids through hands-on parenting. Read more…
An urban high school teacher in Connecticut talks about unwed motherhood, fatherlessness, and how it affects the kids in his classroom.
…Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch… Read more…
The importance of fathers in their children’s lives has been underscored by Canadian research. Hands-on parenting by the dad tends to make kids smarter and better behaved, the study published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science found.
Lead researcher Erin Pougnet says: Read more…
At what point are people going to realize that this hedonistic anything goes mentality is destroying society?
by Zac Alstin
He’s 34 years old, has 15 children, 13 lovers and no job. What Jamie Cumming’s serial polygamy tells us about the state of the family in Britain. Read more…
by Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D
First published at NationalReview.com on June 16, 2006.
Father’s Day is a day for honoring fathers. But I would like to take a step back and honor men as husbands. In our enlightened, liberated era, we have a tendency to overlook men as husbands, since the father is so often not the husband of the mother. But without some kind of connection between the man and the woman, there is quite literally, no child. I’d like to make the case that the most important thing fathers can do for their children is to love their mother. And likewise, among the many things mothers do for their children, one of the most important is that mothers love their children’s father.
As with so many things, our family learned this from our experience with disturbed children. We encountered a gifted therapist named Nancy Thomas who taught us that attachment disordered children need a strong mother figure to whom they can attach. These children don’t really believe that anyone can take care of them, that the universe is fundamentally a hostile place, and that they must take care of themselves. If the child perceives any weakness in the mother, the child cannot entrust himself to her. Read more…
Sue Schellenbarger at the Wall Street Journal has put together a great article on the importance of dad-style parenting.
As an estimated 70.1 million fathers prepare to celebrate Father’s Day in the U.S., recent research shows that their distinct style of parenting is particularly worth recognition: The way dads tend to interact has long-term benefits for kids, independent of those linked to good mothering. Read more…
We aim to support a culture of marriage, here on Catholic Radio of San Diego. The fallout from divorce creates some of the deepest wounds that people experience in their lifetimes. In this edition of “From the Front Lines of the Culture Wars,” we’re going to look at the divorce experience up close and
personal, from the man’s point of view. Join Dr. J this Monday, June 6, as she interviews Dr. Warren Farrell, author of numerous books including Father and Child Reunion. Listen to Dr. J and Dr. Warren Farrell as they discuss these crucial questions:
• Are all absent fathers really “deadbeat dads”?
• What are some of the forces making it difficult for fathers to continue being involved in their children’s lives? Read more…
Michael Reagan, adopted son of President Ronald Reagan, says,
The recent headlines about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s infidelities and the son he fathered out of wedlock have stirred many old memories and emotions…
I keep hearing chattering heads on TV referring to the boy as Schwarzenegger’s “illegitimate” son. It makes my blood boil. Listen, there’s no such thing as an illegitimate child. There are only illegitimate parents. Read more…
There’s a new movie on the way, from the makers of Fireproof. And what Fireproof did for marriage, Courageous promises to do for fatherhood.
“Courageous,” which is expected to be released in 2011, is about four police officers in Albany, Ga., who while giving their best to their job are not putting in the same effort to being a father. Tragedy strikes one of the officers’ family that causes the others to unite around him and vow to be more committed fathers. Read more…
By Laura Donovan
Women have risen economically, professionally and academically since the 70s, but these accomplishments don’t substitute for a father’s love.
Dr. Peggy Drexler, an assistant professor of psychology at Cornell University’s Weill Medical College, has just released her new book, “Our Fathers, Ourselves,” which attests that father-daughter relationships remain a crucial part of development for girls.
Of the 75 women Dr. Drexler interviewed, the research psychologist wrote, “No matter how successful they were or how much they had achieved, and no matter how content they were in their own marriages and the families they had formed, they still wanted and in some cases hungered for their fathers’ love and approval.” Read more…
Kind of a fun, funny article. I’m with the author on this one.
One hates to be cynical, but I often cringe when I see an article that begins with the words: “Psychologists have found…” Usually, they have found something that wasn’t lost. Or else they find something that works for some people, but not for others, or for some people some of the time, but not at other times. That’s not a discovery; that’s the breadth and scope of human experience.
“Men should concentrate on playing with their children and leave the care to women” the London Telegraph heading announces. Read more…
Some of our commenters seem to be surprised that the Ruth Institute is “transitioning away from its anti-gay advocacy…. Why is there an article about abortion here?” Actually, if you look over the life of this blog, you will see a lot of discussion about abortion, contraception and artificial reproductive technology. You will also see discussions of divorce, cohabitation, out of wedlock childbearing, abstinence education, adultery, the demographic winter, what makes for a happy marriage, welfare policy and much else. The common thread is marriage: the significance of marriage to society and to children, and all the social, legal and cultural practices that affect marriage. You will see very little about homosexuality per se.
No offense to you all, but we’re just not all that interested in you all.
I wrote two books, one in 2001 (Love and Economics) and one is 2005 (Smart Sex: Finding Lifelong Love in a Hookup World) (both available at the Ruth Store.) Neither of those books say a single word about same sex marriage or homosexuality. I wrote a chapter for a book called The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, And Morals
We (Maggie, David, and others more so than me) just about had people convinced that kids needed their dads, Read more…
Clever title, no?
Some places might be tiring of it but in Spain the gender revolution rolls on. The socialist government’s latest move is to legislate against the priority traditionally given to the father’s surname in birth registers. Read more…
One consequence that is sure to follow from marriage redefinition is that courts will be yet more empowered to assign parental rights and responsibilities.
How wonderful that would be!
If we just allow biology to determine parental rights, what a disaster! In disputed cases, we would send wet, messy biological samples to labs! There, those samples will be analyzed by scientists. Scientists who probably never took a humanities course in their lives! How can we let people who don’t know the first thing about postmodern critical theory make decisions like that? How would social justice be served?
And that’s not just in same sex cases, either.
Andrew Stuttaford discusses an article in which this frightening idea is aired: Read more…
Still more to come on this front, but ITAF’s closing lecture is featured in this week’s newsletter, so it’s up out of order.
Dr J delivers the closing lecture (also entitled “It Takes a Family to Raise a Village”) at Ruth Institute’s summer student conference. She traces the roles of marriage in society and gives examples of how the devaluation of marriage has hurt women and children (particularly among the poor and those in Marxist states).
MSNBC had this article on the lowering age of sexual maturity among girls. This article tracks an overall decline in the age of breast development. It reminded me of a series of papers I’ve read about the declining age of first menstruation. This MSNBC article doesn’t report on this, and the factors may be somewhat different. However, I have been following the decline in age at first menses because one of its strong correlates is the presence of an unrelated male in the household. By contrast, girls living with their biological fathers tend to have their first periods at a later age. There is a lively debate over the reasons for this correlation. But the correlation seems to be well-documented. Read more…
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