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Strollerderby
Really, Google? A tie?
Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there! If you’re reading this on Monday (because who wants to spend their holiday online?), you may not have seen that Google featured one of their famous “doodles” in honor of Father’s Day, with a clean, simple design inspired by one of the lamest Father’s Day gifts ever: the necktie.
No offense if you got your husband or father a tie this year, but let’s talk about some more unique Father’s Day gifts. Did you send your Dad skydiving? Take him on a fishing vacation? Clean his garage? I thought we could make this an open thread where each of you gets to brag about how creative and awesome you are when it comes to gift-giving. What have you gotten Dad that absolutely blew him away? Which of your gifts tanked? Continue reading »
I know you mean well, but...
It’s Father’s Day today, a happy day for those of you out there who can celebrate your wonderful fathers and husbands. Unfortunately, I can’t do either of those things because I lost my Dad in 2008 and I left my husband in 2009. (I’m still looking for a Sugar Daddy in 2011. Ba-dump-bump!) But seriously, folks…
Father’s Day can be kind of a strange day for single mothers, us overworked, often underpaid women who care for kids, some with co-parents and some without. I get a lot of well-meaning comments from friends about my single-with-child status, but they don’t always come off as well as they’re intended to. So I thought I’d continue in the “5 Things NOT to say” tradition established by my earlier post about how to talk to the parent of a preemie – riffing off this great list of 10 Things Never to Say to a Mom by Ellen Seidman – and give you five things you should avoid saying to a single lady with a baby: Continue reading »
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.
My parents divorced when I was 5-years-old. At 8, my big brother took it the hardest. It affected him the most, obviously. My other two brothers were just babies and had no idea what was going on.
After the divorce our mom, who was previously a stay-at-home-mom, got a full-time job at a center for the developmentally challenged, and dad skipped town. Consequently, we didn’t see him much. We did see a lot of TV though and I think, in a way, it saved us. We had no idea what a dad was supposed to be like. Our dad was the voice on the phone that constantly grilled us about that “latest A-hole your mother is dating”.
Cliff Huxtable would never do that. Cliff was patient and kind, calm and understanding. He could fix anything, in 30 minutes, no less! He didn’t even leave the house to go to work, for crying out loud. He just went to his office downstairs and occasionally delivered babies.
These sitcoms were comforting to a couple of kids who spent a lot of their childhood home alone. And I suspect dads like Steven Keaton from Family Ties and Cliff Huxtable taught my brother a lot more about being a dad than our dad ever did.
So, exactly who do Americans consider the top TV dads of all-time? In order of the votes they received, last to first, these are the results of the latest Harris Poll of more than 2,000 adults asked which TV dad they most wanted to be theirs. Do you agree with their picks? Who’s missing? Who would you drop?
CLICK TO SEE THE TOP 15 TV DADS
Now if you are like most, this week you will try to find something perfect for that dad in your life be it your own dad or the father of your children in a goal to give that perfect Father’s Day Gift. And while there are oodles of appropriate things to buy him that would fit into his interests, hobbies or lifestyle, there are only certain things you shouldn’t buy him (or any dad for that matter).
Here are five gifts NOT to get that dad for Father’s Day: Continue reading »
No more Father's Day gifts from me!
The first Father’s Day after my ex and I split I got him a card. Our daughter was only 3 then, so it wasn’t from her – it was from me. A gesture of goodwill. A note to say, “Hey, let’s be friends.” It was a really nice card, the kind you pay seven bucks for at Papyrus. I’d made a thoughtful choice, too. The card featured a BBQ theme, because I know how much my ex enjoys the power that comes along with weilding large, hot, sharp metal prongs.
I gave my ex the card when he picked our daughter up the Friday before Father’s Day. He didn’t open it, which seemed fair, since he wanted to open it on the holiday itself. When my ex returned our child from their Father’s Day weekend together, I said, “What’d you think of the card?” He told me he lost it. And least he had the decency not to fake it, but thank God there wasn’t a gift card inside. I found the unopened greeting a week later inside my daughter’s backpack. And I haven’t given my ex a Father’s Day gift since. Continue reading »
My two girls, 9 and 5, can throw pretty good punches. Good aim, great follow through. And hard. They punch really hard. This isn’t the product of after school karate classes (mine are not over-scheduled kids), rather it’s thanks to their dad. He’s got a whole thing he does, “come on … show me what you’ve got.” And they do.
Somehow they’ve learned to aim their aggressions at this 200-lb guy and not, you know, each other (or me!). In fact, they’ve learned a lot more. Research is showing that roughhousing — which often, but not exclusively, happens with dads — builds self-confidence and teaches them how to use their bodies.
In fact, relationships with fathers, a newish area of research, are proving to be important in other ways. Continue reading »
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