Dove Real Beauty Sketches & Always #LikeAGirl #Parenting #SelfImage #SelfConfidence

Thanks Charlotte, for showing me these. They're inspirational, as the father of twin young girls on the precipice of puberty and adolescence.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches

Always #LikeAGirl

What is Radical Parenting?

Came across this article: Extreme Parenting: What Radical Parents Do Better Than You... and it got me to thinking about how I define myself as a radical father, and what's so radical about the way that I parent? So here are some thoughts, enjoy them:

I thought it was a little dumbed down... but I guess that's the point. At least its giving gender-neutral parenting a bit of limelight, even if its getting boxed as 'radical' when its more widespread than most folks would imagine.

To me, radical parenting means parenting for your child with their perspective in mind, with the knowledge and toolbox of an adult at hand to draw lessons from in a shared experiential mutually educational relationship. It means humbling and educating oneself in order to educate and raise a creature capable of changing our world for the better. In order to do this one must invariably challenge the given norms of our day and age, from rampant capitalist consumerism, to coercive schooling, cultural imperialism, and general apathy and ignorance.

Developing the ability to teach yourself these lessons in order to impart them to your child while juggling work and responsibilities and family and life and flying by the seat of your pants is the hard part.

thanks for the pic Microcosm!
I thought it was befitting

I attempt to hold these intentions in my heart and mind while juxtaposing them with the hurdles of generational poverty, corruption, crime, gender bias, domestic violence, and an increasingly authoritarian, militarized society and government in bed with huge corporate conglomerates waging wars on drugs and terror and effectively wiping out the bio-diveristy and general well-being of our planet at a rapid pace. Then I try not to scream, or you primal-screamers can scream at this part, and swallow my pride and fear and forge and forage ahead, into this future, hand in hand with our children.

And here I still have the pipe-dream of raising non-violent, anti-authoritarian little tree-hugging people without an evil bone in their bodies... when the sad truth of the matter is that I should probably ramp up their radical sustainable eco-activist herbal Ewok monkeywrenching training camp time so that they're ready to go out and kick the shit out of capitalism with a smartphone and a laser rifle by age twelve... (you got that Technoccult?)

I better get a move on.

Here's the Radical Parenting Reading List from wiki's infoshop. Check with the folks at Last Word Books, Olympia's awesome radical independent bookstore, they've probably got some of 'em in stock.

Radical Fatherhood in the 21st Century

     I wanted to take a moment to congratulate my friend, editor, and fellow Rad Dad Tomas for all his hard work over the past several years on Rad Dad out of Berkeley. Rad Dad won Utne's 'Zine of the Year in 2010, Best of the Bay in 2011, and came to print as a book this year as well.

     I'm proud to have written for half a dozen issues of the 'zine. Keep up the good work Tomas!     

And this is a nice little project I just found recently:

Re-post from From the blog Cuntastic.org:

Just wanted to give a shout out to a fabulous rad-parent-zinester across the oceans over in Fiji, Lara at Tricycle Zine Distro!  We’re thrilled that CUNTastic is now being distro’d by Tricycle, along with other titles that are the backbone of any radical parenting library.

Here’s some info about her 3 new exciting projects:

Tricycle Zine Distro was created to distribute and inspire the writing of radical parent/ing* zines and other zines/resources useful to parents, caregivers and allies. 

Building Blocs Zine: parenting, movement and little folk is a compilation zine of radical parenting* challenges, experiences and reflections.  The zine is open to contributions from parents, caregivers, children and allies .The theme for the inaugural issue is “Firsts.”

Raising Rebellion is a zine I started writing when I was pregnant. I wrote the first issue to share with my unborn fetus, family, friends and friendly folk. My plan is to keep writing as life with Ruby unfolds.

*Radical Parenting is an imperfect term and is meant here as inclusive and diverse – an exploration of parenting styles that value respect, trust, autonomy, diversity, non-oppression, learning, love and revolution.

For more info, or to submit a piece for the upcoming issue of Building Blocs, or if you have a zine or resource you’d like to distro through Tricycle, email Lara atutopia@riseup.net.

Rad Dad Book Release!

Congrats to Tomas and the whole crew of us writers behind Rad Dad for several awards in the past couple years and for the recent release of Rad Dad, the book! I'm excited to see what we can muster next! Long live Rad Dad, Daddy Dialectic, Pirate Papa, 'Zines and Parent-Bloggers! ~

From the PM Press website:

"Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood combines the best pieces from the award-winning zineRad Dad and from the blog Daddy Dialectic, two kindred publications that have tried to explore parenting as political territory. Both of these projects have pushed the conversation around fathering beyond the safe, apolitical focus most books and websites stick to; they have not been complacent but have worked hard to create a diverse, multi-faceted space in which to grapple with the complexity of fathering.

Today more than ever, fatherhood demands constant improvisation, risk, and struggle. With grace and honesty and strength, Rad Dad’s writers tackle all the issues that other parenting guides are afraid to touch: the brutalities, beauties, and politics of the birth experience, the challenges of parenting on an equal basis with mothers, the tests faced by transgendered and gay fathers, the emotions of sperm donation, and parental confrontations with war, violence, racism, and incarceration. Rad Dad is for every father out in the real world trying to parent in ways that are loving, meaningful, authentic, and ultimately revolutionary.

Contributors Include:

Steve Almond, Jack Amoureux, Mike Araujo, Mark Andersen, Jeff Chang, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jeff Conant, Sky Cosby, Jason Denzin, Cory Doctorow, Craig Elliott, Chip Gagnon, Keith Hennessy, David L. Hoyt, Simon Knapus, Ian MacKaye, Tomas Moniz, Zappa Montag, Raj Patel, Jeremy Adam Smith, Jason Sperber, Burke Stansbury, Shawn Taylor, Tata, Jeff West, and Mark Whiteley."

Rad Dad in the New York TImes!

Nice work Tomas! I'll see you at the Olympia reading!

By Jeremy Adam Smith
New York Times
July 6th, 2011

Jeremy Adam Smith is the author of The Daddy Shift, co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood and a founder of the blog Daddy Dialectic.

Greater gender equality in school and on the job has led to greater equality in housework and childrearing. Today in America, fathers now spend more time with their children and on housework than at any time since researchers started collecting comparable data. I call it “the daddy shift”—the gradual movement away from a definition of fatherhood as pure breadwinning to one that encompasses a capacity of caregiving.

Fathers need to encourage each other to take advantage of leave policies and participate in family life.

Rising inequality and economic instability has meant that families can’t afford specialists anymore. And so they’re moving from a family model that stresses efficiency to one that tries to build resilience in the face of economic shocks. In the ideal resilient family, both women and men are capable of working for pay and working at home.

But families often fall short of this ideal, partially because of lingering structural and interpersonal sexism, and partially because men lack support for their new caregiving roles at both home and work. Studies consistently show that 80 percent to 90 percent of mothers still expect fathers to serve as primary breadwinners (and very few will consider supporting a stay-at-home dad). At work, only 7 percent of American men have access to paid parental leave, among other structural limitations.

How can the daddy shift continue? The to-do list is long. It includes an education campaign to help men of all social classes understand what workplace and public policies can help them be the fathers they want to be—and legal campaigns that will defend their jobs against backward attitudes at work. Men whose mindsets are still shaped by the sole-breadwinner ideal need explicit permission and encouragement from both their female partners and their bosses to take advantage of leave policies and participate in family life.

We also need to shift the language we use to discuss work-family issues in a more inclusive direction, so that it includes fathers as well as mothers. That language should stress resilience and meaning to men instead of the language of equality that has mobilized women. In the end, it's up to guys to tell the stories of our lives and speak up for what we want. No one will do it for us.

Praise from a Fellow Father

Thanks for the props Erik, sorry I didn't find this months ago when you wrote it!

Glad you are well for the most part. Get to see your beautiful kids every now and then at school or downtown. Look forward to touching base again sometime. In the meantime, I will share the love. It feels good to be able to inspire others. Makes me feel like writing...
_________________________________
From RadicalShift:
Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Thanks Sky! (http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/)
I ran across this blog, belonging to a friend of **********'s, and got the idea that maybe I owed it to myself to write a little something here.

I have been through much in the past 3 years. I went from more-than-flirting with polyamory and being intoxicated, ruining my marriage, betraying my wife and children, nearly devastating another person who is one of the most important people in the universe to me, to going sober, jumping headlong into another relationship, filing for divorce, fighting for custody and losing, changing careers, hurting my back, rebuilding most of the muscles in my body, getting a state job, going back to school, and now getting my own place, the first on my own since august 97' when i met *******.
I think that's about it.

There is more inside that capsule of a re-living but the details hurt this person, or that one, or me to go reliving.
******* and I are getting along famously, I finally am trusting her with our children and being thankful for our marriage. I have been reflecting on something interesting since I had a particular conversation with my kids.
Long-story kept long:
##### painted a beautiful picture and gave it to ******** and I for our engagement in early January 1998 that said on the back "may your souls be forever intertwined" or something close to that. I decided after storing it all this time that I needed to double check that ******* didn't want it and then give it back to %%%%% and ##### as a belated marriage gift. I had it in the car on the way over to their house, and (one of my kids) read it and commented that they really weren't intertwined forever after-all. I started into a really nice explaination (to her and to myself) about how once two people decide to get married, and/or start a family, vacation together, pay bills late together, own a house, get forclosed on it etc, that wether they like it or not, for better or for worse, they are definitely intertwined. Also what occured to me in that Teaching Opportunity, as my father might call it, was that to reject a person that close to oneself, was to reject part of oneself, and that really hit me hard.
That wasn't the turning point for trying to accept ******* and Respect her, but it gave me a nitris-oxide boost down the path of MAKING it work by hook or by crook. We will raise these kids, We said we would, We will do a good job, We will be grown-ups about our differences, We will be flexible for each other, We don't have to be jerks to make sure we don't fall back into that aweful patttern, the past is the past, and damnit, we are family.
The sobriety part has been.. I can't say easy, but i will say it has been a no-brainer up until now.
recently I have been feeling tempted to slip into a buzz here or there, and so far I have been strong with the force. I quit using everything except caffeine on 7-11-06, and haven't so much as dabbled since. I think that helped me get through the last few years and has cleared up a lot of things for me. I think it would be foolish to go any other way.
I am looking at myself as causal in my life, and using my break for independance to push myself to be a better dad, boy, man, student, worker, and anything else I am.
Over the last few years in my relationship I have been less mindful than I wish, and had become a financial and emotional depentant. I foolishly let my ideas about parenting and who it is ok for me to be to get derailed by another persons ideas and I am determined to find myself.
Another issue on the table for me is a thing I think common to many disasterous family breakups; I threw the baby out with the bathwater on a lot of cultural influences.. friends, family, customs, celebrations, philosophies, anything that felt ******* was out and I adopted a whole new set of what it was to be me. A distinct break that made my life definitely different from *******'s. The problem with that is that it forced everyone in the family to live two distinct lives. It took away traditions that bound us together in memories and experiences and took thekids out of their element when with me. Suddenly what it meant to be with dad was a rejection of everything it was to be with mom. This has hurt everyone. I am sorry to have done it. I also understand I am not alone in it, and the job at hand is to carefully cull through all of it and decide what is a keeper and what is thrown back to the cultural river. There are people I love and care about that I literally haven't talked to since the start of our family drama.
I desire a break from being a chamelion to another person, long enough to see my own colors and decide who I am post divorce- who has emerged out there other side.
I am up to the challenge of forgiving myself and ******* for this huge misunderstanding and give her credit for being who I fell in love with. And I'm up to the challenge of not compromising my choice to be seperate either. She has a right to be herself wether I agree with how she does it or not. My job is to be here for the kids and rebuild who I am for me, and for them, and re-create the family value/culture to suit who we all are on the other side of the huge chaos we created.
I am up for the challenge.
And it is hard.
Let's hear it for more pirate papas.
Thanks Sky. Keep the faith.

posted by radicalshift @ 3:37 AM

Parenting as a Green Anarchist

I consider myself to be a pirate in some contemporary sense of the word. This is the lens through which I try to view our world. I am a nice pirate, where others rape and pillage I salvage and sow; where others sack and burn I liberate and grow. I pirate software, vegetables, herbs, bulk food aisles at corporate grocery stores, garbage, books, clothes, thrift stores, free boxes. I find homes for books lost on these high seas of a culture that, for the most part, doesn't read. I steal from the rich and give to the poor whenever possible. I try to be free in the fullest sense of the word and dream always of furthering that freedom.

I live with my twin three year old daughters on an old 250 acre farm outside of Shelton, Washington at the inner-most tip of Puget Sound. I try to live as a Green Rebel and a Pirate in this commodified world of disposable consumables. Does this mean I live a zero-sum harmonious existence with my local ecosystem, feeding wild animals by hand and growing or scavenging all my food while refusing to pay taxes and stockpiling an enormous underground arms cache of sustainably gathered weapons of creation? Well... not yet.

So I try instead to let these simple ideas bleed into my everyday interactions with nature and with the individuals around me. I try to be anti-authoritarian with my children for the most part, but every parent raises their voice or demands some sort of obedience from their kids, because that is the world we live in, try as we might to escape it. But I have become acutely aware of what a collaborative process parenting is and, as surely as I am raising two beautiful, intelligent, gentle girls in this crazy world, they are raising and molding a new kind of parent in me. And these new kinds of people we are helping each other foster and create and assemble from old bones will be the same people faced with solving the growing problems of tomorrow and bridging our polarized communities with what common ground we have: our children and our desire for them to be healthy and survive.

I vaguely recall mulling over possible titles for my fatherhood blog before settling on Pirate Papa: An Anarcho-Green Journal of D.(o) I.(t) Y.(ourself) Parenting. The ones I remember are: Running with Scissors , Don't Tell Mommy, and Hip-Pop. When I use words like 'Anarcho-Green' I am attempting to bend accepted norms by sheer use of language, I am attempting to lure in folks who are curious about these ideologies (even while I am obviously alienating whole other groups), I am attempting to extract everything I deem to be of value to contemporary parenting from both movements and synergize it into a harmonious, sustainable whole systems anti-corporate naturally organic approach to parenting and child-rearing in this day and age.

I relate 'Anarchism' to parenting in several very simple ways: I firmly believe that large-scale industrial capitalism is inherently bad for babies; I think all children are inherently anarchists and that these qualities need to be nurtured and respected rather than repressed; I advocate a refusal to follow accepted norms (without massive research) as applied to my children's diet, medicine, entertainment, education, etc.; I think that families are best served and children best reared by as much economic and political freedom as possible. I believe in creative problem solving, involving children in political activism, and being as anti-corporate, anti-capitalist and anti-standard as possible. I believe we need localized communities operating on a face-to-face basis in equilibrium with each other and their surroundings without official hierarchies and centralized establishments to arbitrate and rule our lives. We have learned from this system of coercion, capitalism, domination and patriarchy that it does not work, does not jive with the natural human spirit or bodily rhythms. Now it’s time to try something else.

I relate 'Green' to parenting thusly: I see today's generic diet and monocropped culture as definitely deadly to the kids and mothers and fathers of the future (that's all of us); I see lowering the ecological footprint of today's typical American family as a fundamental first step to saving tomorrow's children, as well as maximizing our own limited time here on the planet; I believe that, as a species, we require a healthy chunk of re-wilding in order to return to some sustainable balance with nature as well as with our own collective psyche; I believe that a resurgence to THE LOCAL for food and medical needs for our families and elderly and children will best sustain our communities and revitalize our economies with the inherently unique culture granted them by place.

If we don’t want a world full of standardized testing and rulers and competition then we need children who can live outside the box and be the most unique individuals they can be. If that is what they want to do. And I think it will be. If we want a world without bars on its windows then, more than ever, will we need children who are free.

Further Reading:

http://www.grizzlybird.net/greenparenting.html

http://motheranarchy.blogspot.com/

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/01/too-cool-for-kids-how-anarchist-bigotry.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-methods-of-child-rearing-do.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/02/revolutionary-parenting.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/01/taking-children-seriously-and-anarchy.html

http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/2007/05/taking-children-seriously-future-of.html

This essay was first published by Tomas in Rad Dad #7, July/August 2007.

Utne Reviews Rad Dad!

Evidently they like us radical papas over at Utne. They reviewed the first (and hitherto only) Pirate Papa 'zine awhile back.

Rad Dad "is not cool," according to founder and publisher Tomas. "[I]t's not about being hip, not about trying to be in style... Rad Dad is for radical parenting. The uncomfortable kind." And so the zine's seventh issue picks up where previous ones left off: by interrogating and reevaluating the role of fathers in radical politics. Articles range from "Green Parenting," in which writer Sky looks at the relationship between anarchism and parenting, to "On Being Jewish," in which Bruce contemplates the religious example he wants to set for his child. A contribution from Tomas himself -- "Who's Your Daddy: Fathers in Pop Culture" -- offers a forceful critique of how "cool parenting" has become an apolitical and upper-middle class trend that reinforces "dad" stereotypes. -- Eric Kelsey

Here's another link to a review of Tomas' Rad Dad from Mamazine.

Drop Tomas a line at Rad Dad and pick up a copy of issue # 7.

Stretch Marks for Dads: What fatherhood does to the body and the brain

By Emily Anthes

Thanks to Rebel Dad for linking to this one!

Last weekend, Tufts University hosted a scientific conference on the "parental brain." Or at least the maternal brain, which was the subject of eight symposia, while fathers and their brains were the focus of just one. Once, this imbalance would have seemed inevitable, since there didn't seem to be much to say about how becoming a father affects men physically. But now, evidence is accumulating that pregnancy and parenthood leave their marks on men's bodies. Women are not the only ones who are built for parenting, and recognizing that is good for fathers and the rest of us, too.

Historically, when men did more than donate sperm to a pregnancy—by suffering physical ailments along with their wives—they got called crazy. The condition labeled "sympathetic pregnancy," or couvade syndrome (from the French word couver, or "to incubate"), describes expectant fathers who are stricken with some combination of weight gain, nausea, food cravings, backaches, insomnia, and other delights familiar to pregnant women everywhere. Until recently, couvade was relegated to the overwrought TV medical drama as a "psychosomatic" curiosity, with a list of potential causes that would please any Freudian (identification with the fetus, pregnancy envy, pseudo-sibling rivalry).

But in the last handful of years, scientists have shown that normal, healthy, non-pregnancy-envying men often undergo real bodily changes when they're expecting children. READ MORE...

times change as often as diapers

So I've spent less time with my grls in the past week and a half than ever before in their lives and I realized that I have to get used to this... because they won't always be two and a half, because they're growing up before my very eyes, because they have friends and family above and beyond the sheltered care I've given them on this first leg of their journey in the world.

It's an interesting melange of ecstatic joy at my own slowly rediscovered freedom, painful lonliness at losing little bits of myself selflessly gifted to these gorgeous creatures I call my daughters, realizing at the same time that they are not mine, or anyone else's for that matter. They belong to themselves and I can never change that, only grow and guide and change alongside them.

Almost gone are those days I've grown so accustomed to, lounging around most of the week at the farmhouse pretending the rest of the world doesn't exist. What comes next? Little roving packs of young children, activities with friends, maybe school, daycare, whole weeks with grandpa and grandma and not me. I imagine the next several rungs of the ladder all the way up to begging for the car keys, worrying about sex and whether it can ever be 'safe', sneaking out at night, college, careers, lovers of their own, families, grandkids, legacies, all those brthdays tumbled into one another. What would it be like, having the same birthday as your closest friend and sister year after long or short year?

Breakfast beckons. I shove this tangle of emotions back down inside before it bubbles over completely, that metaphorical bucket of crabs we always kick around like old stories or rusty cans...

Who's Your Daddy? - Best Daddy and Papa Blogs of 2006

Knew about a lot of these but a few were new to me.

Getting ready to go to Walla Walla for four days with my girls and Hannah, been full to brimming with gardening and personal emotional realignment, a little surgery from the inside out. Being in a relationship again so soon, even a good one, strains me at times. I find myself scared without knowing why, a smell I can place but not locate. I trudge through the monotony of chores and bills, checks and balancing acts, searching the small stuff for some substance to shore up my sore heart and patch me through 'til tomorrow.

My hard-copy zine of Pirate Papa got reviewed in Green Anarchy's magazine. Not a very good review, but Zerzan gave me a good word after Felonious Skunk wound his way through a long-winded, self-deprecating piece of boredom. I took offense at first but then I just felt sorry for him. He's a new father and doesn't think fathers are interesting? Watch out buddy. You're in for a ride. Any publicity is good publicity in my opinion and if you don't like my work then don't waste your time reading it.

Even if I didn't like his review I suppose I've taken a few tips from it and changed the attitude of Pirate Papa a bit, less journaling and more journalism as of late. Then again, maybe that's just due to the fact that my time has been swallowed whole by spring and the world and the beauty encapsulated within a toddler's blossoming eyes and big, big mouth.

A few links I've turned up in my internet travels:

Dads & Daughters - WE ARE the only organization dedicated to maximizing the power and potential of father-daughter relationships. We support fathers and stepfathers no matter where they are. We work hard to make a better life for every girl.

WE BELIEVE that all dads and daughters benefit when fathers and stepfathers actively and deeply engage in the lives of their daughters and help transform the pervasive cultural messages that devalue girls and women.

Divorced Dads Matter - Practical Information and Support for Divorced and Divorcing Dads

Good Parenting Resolutions

Family Pride is the national non-profit organization committed to securing family equality for all loving families, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer parents, guardians and allies. Our work consists of strategically linked initiatives—broad in scope, but simple in vision—love, justice, family, equality. We make change. We share information. We build community. We are visible.

Papa - Wikipedia Entry

Papa can refer to:

* affectionate for father in Latin and various Romance languages
o hence, Pope in various languages
o also, Papar (Culdees), Irish monks
o many languages (often unrelated) have words with labial consonants and open vowels as their word for "father" and "mother"; /papa/ is just one example. A discussion of this phenomenon can be found in the article Mama and papa.
o some people also refer to their grandfathers as "papa".
* P in the NATO phonetic alphabet
* Papa class submarine
* pāpa in Sanskrit, the concept of sin in Hinduism
* Potato in Spanish, in some dialects slang for "food"

people:

* Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), nickname
* Nick "Papa" Kho, former professional pick-up artist and part owner in the pick-up and seduction company Real Social Dynamics
* Papa Bouba Diop (born 1978), a football (soccer) player from Senegal.
* Rav Papa (?-375), a Babylonian Amora from the Talmud

in mythology:

* Rangi and Papa, the primordial parents according to Māori mythology

in geography:

* Pápa, a town in Hungary
* Papa Stour

in arts and popular culture:

* Papa (drama), a South Korean drama
* Papa Lazarou, a fictional character from The League of Gentlemen.
* Papa (song), from the popular BBC film/Tv Film Gideon's Daughter.

acronyms:

* Professional and Amateur Pinball Association

It’s Two Coochies to the Wall...

...all day long with that boundless energy which can only be captured, exponentially magnified and fired directly at your central nervous system by parenting twin toddlers (or multiple toddlers of any kind). Mood no longer has anything to do with it. In fact, when they’re sick or miserable or pouting, they’re easier to care for. On the other paw, when they’re bouncing off the goddamn walls and more chipper than my chainsaw it seems like my energies are sapped even faster. I equate it with working room service at ______ hotel for someone like Anna Nicole Smith. If the light isn’t too bright in the bathroom for the fourth time that evening then the salmon wasn’t cooked just right or the napkins don’t match or she doesn’t want the napkins to match. In between housework and computerwork and bookwork I run little errands for my children all over the house, at their beck and call while constantly and gently demanding use of the word please, the phrases “thank you” and “you’re welcome” and the signs for all.

Their vocabulary and articulatory skills progress in amazing leaps and bounds, stop dead for a few days and then explode again, roman candles reflected in the mudpuddles and pools of apple juice beneath the kitchen table. I come to consider each day a dance of different activities, best choreographed by exhausted parents moments before each step must be made. This is the part where we collectively sigh and think to ourselves how we all feel that way sometimes but thank goodness we have a few things going for us, some semblance of a plan and a basic grasp on the art of the long view. Right?

The number of times a day I am brought to the brink of tears by some beautiful twist of Lyli’s little pink tongue or by some gracious act (often a rarity) by Scarleht on behalf of her temporarily beloved twin sister steadily increases with each passing week. Back and forth their mercurial moods rage on a pendulum anything but pacified. And I sit, seaside, watching their tides roll in. And it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever born and birthed witness to.

PIPPIN - Investing in Fathers UK Project

Why doesn't big brother launch something like this? Could it be that they're afraid of the societal changes that will occur if men start unbecoming or god-forbid, stay home with the kids and do all the housework? Why the walls would just come tumbling down! Leave it to the Brits to one-up us once again on common sense.

The aim of the PIPPIN (Parents in Partnership Parent Infant Network) ‘Investing in Fathers’ project (a three year project funded by the Home Office Family Support Unit) was to create the right environment for supporting young fathers. We want to achieve this by really listening to young fathers.

PIPPIN is a national charity whose main aim is to maintain and improve the emotional health of families through one of the most critical stages in their lives - the period surrounding the birth of a new baby.

Few fathers attend conventional parent craft classes, and those that do frequently feel out of place.

PIPPIN programmes welcome fathers as a vital element in the new family, and those that attend are helped to feel very much at home.

To date our courses have been designed to support couples; to help both parents understand and communicate better with their baby and between themselves.

Ensuring that fathers become more confident, more involved, less isolated and excluded, `Investing in Fathers` adds an important new dimension to Pippin's work.

`Investing in Fathers` is a project funded in 1999 by the Family Policy Unit for three years, and to be active in seven counties within that time.

The aim of `Investing in Fathers` was to find out what it is really like to be a young father (under 25 years) who is not living with his partner or baby, once we have found that out we need to find the best way of supporting young fathers through the pregnancy, birth and the first few months of fatherhood.

Preliminary findings from the 'Investing in Fathers`project are available on request by calling our office on 01727 899099 or by email from colleen@pippin.org.uk
________________________

All too often young fathers, simply because of their age fade away into the background. They tend to be an `invisible` group, receiving little encouragement or acknowledgement by others.

Society often sees young fathers in a negative light; they feel undervalued, disregarded, excluded.

Not surprisingly, they often react by withdrawing, losing self-esteem and confidence and as we have mentioned already, this is a similar reaction other fathers have within this transition into fatherhood.

It may be more extreme than other fathers, and many young fathers play the uncaring, uncommitted role, which society seem to cast them in.

`Investing in Fathers` also recognises there are many men, young men included who become ` serial fathers`, that is men who have short relationships where the girl/women becomes pregnant, the relationship ends, he moves on to the next relationship. These men need support from a different source.

There is another type of young father however, who we recognise wants to be there for his partner and baby, who wants to be a father for the `longer term` to `stay the distance`, yet he cannot for whatever reason live with them.

Our research suggests that:

• Many young fathers want to become involved with their children right from the start, rather than waiting until the child is older.
• Many young fathers are denied access to their baby for reasons such as personal relationships with partners and families.
• Many young men find the transition to fatherhood confusing, they lack clear information and support from family and professionals, and this increases their sense of alienation from their baby.

Many young fathers are teenagers and continue to deal with the effects of the process of becoming a man, a natural process that is confusing in itself.

At this time the body is flooded with the hormone testosterone causing many changes, preparing for the change from boyhood into manhood, which includes his feelings about many things, especially about sexuality and relationships.

There is a national and international drive to support and recognise fathers of all ages, they play a major part in the future generation, you and your children's generation.

mama's job stress, a live-at-home papa, a cold beer and daily life

steph is stressed out by her job and the fact that she only sees our girls for a couple hours a night. as soon as she walks through the door they turn from angels into little whirlwinds and all the patience and process and progress I have helped them foster these past 18 months goes out the window. it's hard for me too even though I try not to show it. Even though they've been cooperative with me all day long it's tricky, part of me gets instantly fed up with both them and stephanie for their lack of patience and understanding with each other. i know it comes down to a simple time thing and the mere fact that i have spent a much more significant amount of time with them shines through in the relationship we have. and so, after taking care of them for 10 to 12 hours straight i usually opt to postpone my break a little longer and help steph slog through the rocky evening.

my days are long, 16 to 20 hours on average. lyli and scarleht usually read anywhere from 5 to 40 books a day, so sometimes my eyes are swimming by 2 pm. we've been trying to make the switch from one long nap to two medium length naps and have been fairly successful with only a couple slip-ups. it's strange being a live-at-home papa in a society that totally supresses and rejects fatherhood but i also like the fact that I am having aunique experience and value the time I am investing with my children. sometimes it feels like i am a single father being magically assisted economically by friends and family and businesses. selling books online is an excellent way to work out of your home by the way and a topic for an entire essay on how more radical fathers could get away with living and working at home. alas, the unnecessary separation of labor from love in this world is devastating across the spectrum.

i do have fun but i also get absolutely worked. from chasing twins to washing dishes & floors to splitting wood to the chainsaw and stroller and other random chores coupled with carrying multiple 50 pound boxes of books every day from here to there and back again... by the time 11 pm rolls around I enjoy settling in to a movie and a little book-looking-up. steph usually falls asleep with the girls and sleeps until morning. i guess she just requires more sleep than me. i've always been able to sacrifice that for productivity or personal space and relaxing time. who knows? maybe in 30 years it'll come back and bite me in the ass and my health will go down the tubes a touch too quick. but i don't think so. faith in oneself is the most important part.

forgiving our fathers

by dick lourie

maybe in a dream: he's in your power
you twist his arm but you're not sure it was
he that stole your money you feel calmer
and you decide to let him go free

or he's the one (as in a dream of mine)
I must pull from the water but I never
knew it or wouldn't have done it until
I saw the street-theater play so close up
I was moved to actions I'd never before taken

maybe for leaving us too often or
forever when we were little maybe
for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous because there seemed
never to be any rage there at all

for marrying or not marrying our mothers
for divorcing or not divorcing our mothers
and shall we forgive them for their excesses
of warmth or coldness shall we forgive them

for pushing or leaning for shutting doors
for speaking only through layers of cloth
or never speaking or never being silent

in our age or in theirs or in their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it -
if we forgive our fathers what is left?

This powerful piece is excerpted at the end of Sherman Alexie's movie Smoke Signals.

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Why Men Leave - A Hidden Epidemic

A solid article on a topic that needs to be addressed in a constructive manner.

"Assertion: Modern culture is in the midst of a hidden epidemic of fathers leaving their families - usually around the time when the first child is born. Men leave their families in a multitude of ways. Even if they remain in the home, many fathers are often emotionally absent - through depression, workaholism, violence/aggression, physical or emotional abuse, or a retreat into addiction to substances, media, consumer goods, sports, food or sex.

Most men in the "developed" nations today never bonded (or very poorly bonded) with their mothers. Most people don't even notice how disconnected modern people are from each other, compared to cultures where the bond is still intact.
Yes, we talk of alienation and notice how much people in Mediterranean cultures touch each other, but we make no connection between these phenomena and how our bonds among people, with nature, and with the divine have been torn asunder. I propose that this unnoticed, silent epidemic of disconnection/alienation is the source of most societal ills. Fathers leaving their children and their families is only the tip of an iceberg."
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article courtesy of:

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