Guest Dad Joe Burris is back with an observation about how men talk about their families.
Is it true that they'll gush about their daughters rather than their wives?
Here's his post...
Continue reading "Father's Day Tuesday: Your daughter or your wife?" »
...for the Monday Consult. Since it's Father's Day Tuesday, I'm partial to questions for or about dads. The earlier the ask, the greater the chance that your parenting question will be the one answered in this space next Monday.
Now that the Consult is in the paper (in our new You & Your Health section) as well as on the blog, your questions and answers should get more exposure. Ask away.
I'm on vacation, so I gave myself permission not to browbeat entice a Guest Dad into putting together a post for today.
Instead, it's open mike day for any father to speak his mind (or for moms to speak their minds) about fatherhood issues. Ask a question of your fellow readers, relate an anecdote, compose a haiku.
Frequent Guest Dad Joe Burris is back with an observation on trying to keep up with his kids' catch phrases. As he learned, perhaps not something you want to try at home.
Here's his post...
An interesting new study in the Journal of Marriage and Family uses a term I hadn't heard before: the social father. This is a man who is married to or cohabiting with a child's mother, but isn't the child's biological father.
According to this recap at physorg.com, the study, led by a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, examined the parenting patterns of four groups of fathers according to whether or not they were related to the children they lived with. The recap says that the study found married "social" fathers "exhibited equivalent or higher quality parenting behavior than married and cohabiting biological fathers."
That's good news for lots of children who aren't living with their biological dads. What do you think of these findings?
Today's Guest Dad is expectant father and Sun reporter Gus Sentementes, whose first child is due in October.
Gus has recognized already that once the baby is born, entertainment will shift homeward. So, as long as baby gifts are being given, why not a Nintendo Wii, he asks? Here's his post...
(Photo of Gus Sentementes holding ultrasound picture courtesy of Gus Sentementes)
Continue reading "Father's Day Tuesday: Expecting dad wants... a Wii" »
Our Guest Dad today is book blogger Dave Rosenthal, who shares his favorite bedtime reads for children:
"Over on Read Street, we've been discussing children's books -- the good, the bad, the macabre. I think reading, at bedtime, at the breakfast table or otherwise, is one of the greatest gifts you can give a child. There's a tremendous sense of closeness and sharing in those moments, as you sit perched on the edge of a bed or huddle together in an armchair.
When our children were small, we wore out Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, numerous pop-up books and anything by Dr. Seuss. My daughter was drawn to classic tales such as Madeline; my son preferred illustrated compendiums and could identify the markings of various airlines before he could read (he was especially partial to American).
Because of the memories attached to these books, most have survived moves and house cleanings. In fact, I was shouted down a year or so ago, when I tried to sell a few at a yard sale ...
Continue reading "Father's Day Tuesday: Reading reminiscences" »
Frequent Father's Day Tuesday contributor Joe Burris is back as Guest Dad. This time, he's observing how family car trips have changed since he was a child.
Here's his post:
Today's Guest Dad is Steve Sullivan, assistant managing editor for multimedia at The Sun, with a tale of how he solves problems among his kids while his wife's on the road.
"Let me preface this post by saying that my wife, Marcy, and I have three wonderful, smart kids who regardless of what they say and do really love each other. Most of the time. I think.
A few weeks ago Marcy was on a week-long business trip and I was in charge of our brood, which consists of our 17-year-old son Courtland and his two sisters, Flannery, 13, and Moira, 10. When I arrived home from work, I was pleased to find the girls peacefully sitting in the family room doing their homework, while big brother was doing same upstairs. I asked how their days went and was answered with a nonchalant "good" from all.
Soon there was a call from mom, checking in from the road. She talked to the girls, then the phone was passed to me. We traded a few updates on our day, then Marcy slipped in, "Did Flannery mention that Mo threatened her with a knife?"
"Uh, no"....
Our Guest Dad today is Frank Roylance, known to many of you already as our weather blogger extraordinaire.
Frank's daughter is getting married this week to a great guy. So why does her father feel like crying?
Here's his post...
In lieu of a Guest Dad today, I wanted to bring you news of an interesting study of why some dads and moms go ballistic on the sidelines of their children's games.
Kinesiology Ph.D student Jay Goldstein of the University of Maryland School of Public Health surveyed 340 parents of youth players 8-16 before and after their children's soccer games in suburban Washington. More than half of the parents, 53 percent, reported getting angry, to some degree, during the game.
Goldstein, along with Maryland kinesiology professor Seppo E. Iso-Ahola, found that "sideline rage" was triggered by the same factors as road rage. If you're easily angered while driving, you're probably quicker to scream at the ref over a close call.
Goldstein is offering tips for keeping yourself in line when your child plays. I particularly like the last one:
Do you have any tips to add?
(Photo by Sun photographer Andre Chung)
Happy Father's Day! Here's a little something to make all of you hard-working fathers and mothers smile:
More Father's Day fun:
--If you're interested in what heavyweight champ, grillmeister and dad-of-10 George Foreman has to say about his fatherhood journeys and other life struggles, you can read an excerpt of his new book.
--And if taking my poll about jobs wasn't enough interaction for you, check out our quiz on celebrity fathers. I was pretty proud of my 90-percent score.
(2005 photo of George Foreman by Mel Evans/Associated Press)
Daddies have guilt just like moms, right? So it only seems fair to have a Guilty-Dad poll during Father's Day week. I came up with the idea for this one after reading results of a survey of 1,000 moms on parenting.com, who were asked what they'd change about their spouses.
Half of them reportedly said they'd change his job over his looks, bedroom performance, or parenting style.
I thought that was interesting, and wanted to know more. Were the jobs taking too much time away from the family? Or was it because the husbands didn't make enough? Or they complained too much about their bosses?
So I'm turning to you. I'm structuring this as two polls, so that moms and dads can answer. You have until Saturday morning at 10 a.m. to cast your votes.
Since we had a tip sheet with what mothers really wanted for Mother's Day, it seems that Father's Day gifts might be a good subject for this week's tip sheet -- IF we can get enough dads to participate. Remember this is your bully pulpit; you can be gloriously anonymous or pseudonym-ous; and, if you're stumped on what to suggest for your own gift, you can get ideas from others.
Women, please post tips for gifts that have gone over well for you before. This is also a self-interested tip sheet. Memo to husband: Tell me what you want before I buy you another shirt!
Michele asked about local father-son look-alike contests. So far, I've found her one at White Marsh Mall scheduled for this Friday at 6:30 p.m. (Follow the link to register ahead of time.)
Anyone know of others?
And Michele, you get a two-fer -- an answer to your question, plus the prize for being our 700th commenter! (And you regulars thought I had forgotten, because it took a little while to get here.) I'll post later with some choices for your fabulous prize, so stay tuned.
Our frequent Guest Dad Joe Burris recalls a favorite unexpected Father's Day gift -- a rose.
Here's his post:
"Roses make a great Father's Day gift. They're lightweight, require no assembly, smell better than Old Spice, and, given the right presentation, pierce even the toughest outer shell to touch the heart.
"I've given roses to my wife for Valentine's Day, anniversaries, birthdays and, along with my mother, Mother's Days. Yet it scarcely occurred to me how meaningful such a gift was until I attended a Father's Day celebration at a church in Cambridge, Mass., five years ago...."
Here come the free food offers for Father's Day. At TGI Friday's, moms got free mini desserts for Mother's Day; dads get free beer-battered onion rings.
Hmm.
Anyway, you'll need to show a coupon to take advantage of the offer.
Also, TCBY is offering a free small cup or cone of its frozen yogurt to Dads on Father's Day this Sunday, same as they did for mothers on Mother's Day.
Do you know of any other free food offers for fathers? Please post them below.
Is your son or daughter at senior week, leaving you in abject fear? Andrew Ratner, our Guest Dad for Father's Day Tuesday, can relate. (He's Today editor at the Sun, and also writes a column on blogs.) Here's his post:
When I informed my colleagues about what I was going through this week, they reacted with a mix of sympathy and apprehension. My daughter is at "senior week" in Ocean City.
One co-worker said his son returned a few years ago with a mohawk hairdo, and though that colleague has a wry sense of humor, I don't think he was kidding.
Of all the "customs" I've adopted since moving to Maryland nearly 25 years ago -- rooting for the Orioles', eating crabs, visiting Hampden's holiday light show -- "senior week" is one I can't quite fathom. You get about a day to savor the pride and joy of seeing your child graduate from high school, only to be gripped with concern about how they'll make it through the following week downy oshun, like some kind of reverse parent boot camp.
Not having graduated from high school here, I went on Web sites like YouTube and flickr trying to "learn" what I could beforehand about the tradition, but perhaps thankfully, there wasn't all that much to be seen. Parents who've been through it describe it as through something to "survive."
There's always the option of forbidding your child from going, but if they're going away to college in a few months, that approach won't work for long.
I guess senior week -- or "June week" as it's sometimes called -- is like countless other tests of parenthood, only with the risk factor turned up several notches. Ultimately, you have to hope you gave your child the tools they'll need to cope in the world they're about to enter, even if it includes booze, boys and eight lanes of highway coursing through the middle.
Ladies and gentleman, please welcome today's Guest Dad: Hulk Hogan! OK, he's not exactly our guest, at least not in the flesh. But I wanted to pass along the advice the wrestling star reportedly gave Laila Ali, his pregnant co-host on American Gladiators.
According to E! Online, Ali says Hogan told her, in essence: "Just teach them the right things, lead them the right way and then you have to give them the space to do their own thing.”
Unfortunately, Hogan's 17-year-old son was just sentenced to eight months in jail for his role in an accident that left a good friend critically injured. And his 20-year-old daughter was in an accident over the weekend (she wasn't hurt, and reports indicate she wasn't at fault.)
Things must have seemed a lot easier when they were babies.
What do you think of Hogan's advice?
I'm happy to have David Gerstman, the local blogger better known as Soccer Dad, as our Guest Dad today. When he's not blogging, he's helping to raise six kids (17, 15, 14, 9, 6 and 20 months.) Today, he's got a nice post on the way kids develop language.
"One of the joys of parenting comes from observing how children learn to communicate," he writes. "Of course, when they're infants they cry and a parent has to sort out what different cries mean. It's a skill and there's no way to teach it. But eventually a parent learns when a child is hungry, uncomfortable or just plain tired.
"When children start speaking, they're generalists. Words often have more than one meaning." ...
Continue reading "Father's Day Tuesday: Soccer Dad on first words" »
Today, occasional Guest Dad Joe Burris tells us what he likes in a child's toy.
The chief requirement: It doesn't talk back.
(Click below to read and react to his post.)
Continue reading "Father's Day Tuesday: In praise of quiet toys" »
