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Strollerderby
Ties, Shmies. Here’s what Dad really wants for Father’s Day: To feel like he’s still on the upswing. To feel like he’s not a dork. To feel like he might be kinda sorta slightly cool.
Parenthood has long been equated with the end of one’s hip years. Something about the fact that you have to be responsible and socially acceptable, maybe. A few outliers manage to make the child into an attractive accessory. But by and large, the association runs deep.
Parents are by definition, less hip than non-parents. It’s a rule of the universe, evidence of our obsolescence as the next generation takes over the helm. Right? Maybe not. There’s at least one guy out there who’s out to prove that Dads may be what hipsters are all about.
World's Most Embarrassing Dad waves to the school bus
What’s more embarrassing than having your parents wave to your school bus when you’re in high school? Having your dad do it in costume.
A Utah dad has just completed a year of waving to his son’s school bus in a crazy costume every day. He’s dressed up as everything from a generic football player to Batgirl. His son, Rain, says the Little Mermaid costume was the worst.
What would possess a man to do such a thing? The school bus route changed this year, so it goes past their house now. The first day, he and his wife went out to wave to their son as the bus went by. Rain complained to his mom that this was embarrassing. As dad put it, “After that, it was game on.”
Who knows about boys better than dad?
As young girls grow older and enter adolescence, fathers often begin to feel a little left out. Suddenly, daddy’s little girl isn’t so little anymore. She’s likely to be less interested in toys and games and more interested in bodies, boys and other big girl stuff.
But while many dads are happy to step aside and let mom take over during this important stage of a young girl’s life, a recent study from New York University suggests that it might be better if they didn’t. Continue reading »
Together during daylight hours
If you’re a man and you decide to leave a big public job and you say you’re leaving because you want “to spend more time” with your family, it’s pretty much dismissed as a joke. But you don’t even have to be a retiring (male) senator to feel the sting of disapproval for deciding to spend time away from the office. If a woman takes a leave to be with her kids, everyone gets it. If a man does, well, how manly is that?
Parental Leave for Dads
The European Union Court of Justice has ruled that working fathers in have the same right to breastfeeding leave as do moms — even if the mother of the child is not employed outside the home.
The Telegraph reports that men in Spain used to be able to take “breastfeeding leave” only if their wives were fully employed.
Apparently “breastfeeding leave” permits an employee to leave work up to twice a day for a total of an hour or to shorten their workday by a half an hour for the first nine months of the baby’s life.
The court called the law “an unjustified discrimination on grounds of sex” and said that fathers should be granted breastfeeding leave in the same instances as women were. Continue reading »
Should dads kiss their daughters on the lips?
When my girl was little, she enjoyed my parental displays of affection. She would giggle with delight when I smothered her with kisses all over her head, her hands, her tummy and her little lips. Like many families do, we said hello, goodbye, good morning and goodnight with kisses. But unlike some, our kisses were often applied directly to the lips.
I think giving a child a peck on the mouth is a perfectly natural way to express love. But based on a letter received by advice columnist Margot Howard, not everyone agrees. An anonymous woman, who signed her letter “Want My Husband’s Lips for Myself,” finds her husband’s habit of kissing his 5-year-old daughter on the mouth to be “a sexual gesture and very inappropriate.” Continue reading »
Do you ogle in front of your kids?
Do men like to look at attractive women? Of course they do. And most of us would agree that there is no harm in that. But what about when dad is checking out a woman who isn’t mom right in front of his impressionable young daughter. Just what impression is he giving her?
Mike Adamick wonders about that very thing in a post at Jezebel. A stay-at-home dad, he spends a lot of time in the car with his 4-year-old daughter. During their travels, he says he can’t help but turn his head and stare when he comes across a beautiful woman. But after realizing that his father-in-law never ogles women, he’s questioning the wisdom of carrying on like that in front of his daughter. Continue reading »
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