In celebration of Father's Day, please welcome guest blogger Geoffrey Greif, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and a nationally recognized expert on fathers, single parents, male friendships, and issues related to divorce and fatherhood.

He offers five tips for being a better father:

1. Children need structure. Think consistency, reliability, and meeting expectations. Children need to know what time dinner will be, what time bedtime will be, and what the rules are for homework. We can be flexible occasionally. But stick to it.

2. The way we treat women and our daughters teaches them what they can expect from men, and it teaches sons how to treat women. Treating the mother of our child with respect, no matter our differences, is a way of treating our child with respect.

3. Being a good parent is not the same as being a disciplinarian. It does not mean putting on a tough face inside the house when a tough face is needed outside the house. We can teach our children to be warm and loving to others. That is part of what it means to be a man.

4. Even as we teach the value of long-term goals like education, be sure to focus on one day at a time. Make each day meaningful when we are with our children.

5. We fathers must be role models in taking care of ourselves and making healthy choices. One way to do this is to find good friends. People with friends live longer, healthier, happier lives. In research for my book, Buddy System: Men and their Male Friendships, I found that being a friend means being understanding, loyal, dependable, and trustworthy. These are also good attributes for fathers.

What are your tips for being a better father?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Dads
        

Guest Dad Joe Burris on helping his daughter, a soon-to-be high school student, navigate the road ahead:

Recently my 13-year-old daughter Nyaniso and I were dining in a restaurant when she announced what our family has known since she graduated junior high school last month:
 
“I’m going to high school next year!”
 
We began talking about it, and then it occurred to me that we really hadn’t talked about it.  In an instant I began pondering what lay ahead, and soon it began to feel as if the whole thing had snuck up on me.
 
I thought about how, if all goes well, fairly soon my firstborn child will be learning to drive (gasp!), dressing for the prom, tossing a high school graduation cap skyward, picking a college, packing her bags and – whoa – leaving the nest.

Continue reading "Growing up" »

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Categories: Dads, Father's Day Tuesday
        

Being a stay-at-home parent is hard. What is like for the breadwinner who's also the mom?

CBS' The Early Show co-host Erica Hill talks about feeling guilty, letting go of control and adjusting to what's becoming an increasingly more common arrangement.

Of course, I didn't fully factor in the inevitable pangs of guilt and the frustration. The guilt wasn't new. I think every parent (especially moms) places an unnecessary amount of guilt on themselves when it comes to raising children: not home enough, not present enough while home, too distracted by the BlackBerry, not really interested in reading "Goodnight Moon" for the 347th time, not up for schlepping to the playground, too short-tempered... the list goes on and on.

Continue reading "Working mom as breadwinner" »

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Categories: Dads, Guilty-Mom polls, Marriage, Parenting in general, Work-life balance, Workplace
        

Guest Dad Joe Burris writes about his daughters' fascination with calling him "MY daddy."

Sometimes, my 4-year-old daughter Onalenna will leap into my lap, wrap her arms around my neck and exclaim in a loud voice, “MY daddy!”

She and 13-year-old sister Nyaniso have long made “daddy” my most favorite word in the English language. But the phrase, “MY daddy” is the most intriguing.

Both began uttering it sometime around three-years old, with little pattern or constancy (Nyaniso stopped saying it sometime after kindergarten). “MY daddy” can come at almost any time, in most any situation. The first word is always pronounced louder than the second.

And my girls seem to have gotten just as much out of saying it as I have hearing it.

It’s difficult to say specifically what “MY daddy” is about. Often it appears to be territorial, as if they know not every kid has a daddy around and they don't want anyone claiming theirs. But it’s also seems to offer a sense of security in saying it. Sometimes it’s uttered in joy, others times it appears to be a response to discomfort or fear. And then there are moments when it appears to have no meaning behind it; it's merely something to say.           

Continue reading "MY daddy" »

Posted by Hanah Cho at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Dads, Father's Day Tuesday
        

The Atlantic article "Are Fathers Necessary?" argues dads are not essential to raising children. (Thanks to the fabulous New York Times' Motherlode blog for alerting me to the story.)

Using data on the role of gender in child rearing collected by Judith Stacey, a professor of sociology at New York University, and Timothy Biblar, a demographer from the University of Southern California, writer Pamela Paul argues:

... single moms tend to be more involved, set more rules, communicate better, and feel closer to their children than single dads. They have less difficulty monitoring their children’s whereabouts, friendships, and school progress. Their children do better on standardized tests and have higher grades, and teenagers of single moms are actually less likely to engage in delinquent behavior or substance abuse than those of single dads. Go, Murphy Brown.

Continue reading "Do we need dads?" »

Posted by Hanah Cho at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: Dads
        

We've been having a great discussion here about dads who are struggling with work-life issues.

Baltimore stay-at-home dad and guest blogger Will Morton offers his advice to other at-home dads:

When I quit my job to become an at-home dad, I had no earthly clue what I was getting into. Six years later, I’ve found it equal parts terrifying, aggravating, rewarding and fun.

My friend Vince just gave notice that he’s quitting his job to do just the same. Here are some things I wish someone had told me back in 2004.

Continue reading "Advice for stay-at-home dads" »

Posted by Hanah Cho at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Dads, Father's Day Tuesday