Launching Interactive Dads

Partnership for Dads begins its new Interactive Dads campaign with MINECRAFT DAYS!  Interactive Dads is a series of activities and events designed to provide dads and kids fun, social, and educational opportunities to interact and MINECRAFT DAYS! is a great way to start.  In a partnership with the Southfield Public Library, dads, father figures, and their kids will come together to build and play on the biggest PC game to ever exist! 

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An Open Letter to Young Dads and Dads-to-Be

As I write this, our first-born is just back home from his first year of college and our youngest is soon to finish her junior year of high school. A window will close soon for us. That window through which we enjoy hours and hours physically together most days, molding each other. That window closure is the natural way of things; it truly is the way it’s meant to be as they become their own people. Though this dad finds that bittersweet, it’s much easier to face knowing I have no big regrets.

That’s not to say I didn’t make mistakes; I made tons of them, and continue to very regularly. But I don’t look back and say “I wish I’d made more effort to be a part of it all.” I was intentional, from well before they were born, about being as much a part of their childhood as humanly possible. For all the miscues in the past and future, getting that one right has made all the difference for them, and for me.

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President Obama and Bryan Cranston Gives Us REAL Dad Talk

Barack Obama has become increasingly reflective as his term as President winds down. On the impact of his father and mother on his life and his role as a father to his own daughters, it’s clear this man knows what a father is. The President and Academy Award winning actor Bryan Cranston sit down in the Oval Office with the New York Times and discuss parenting in this must read article.  Check it out at http://nyti.ms/23u9qlk.

Mitch Albom: When did fathers become expendable?

A third of American kids now live without their biological fathers. Nearly every statistic on kids turn sour when fathers disappear.

  • Youth suicides, five times higher than average.
  • High school dropouts, nine times higher.
  • Behavioral disorders, 20 times higher.
  • Runaways and homeless children, 32 times higher.

What does a father bring to the table?

  • Strength
  • Quiet confidence
  • Discipline
  • Responsibility
  • Love

— all displayed differently than my mother, which was fine. My father also taught us how to be a husband, how to respect a woman, when to lead and when to support.

See complete article here

New Hollywood Trend & the “End of Men”

A couple of years ago, author Hannah Rosin sparked a firestorm when she wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly called “The End of Men” where she proclaimed that the “age of men” has all but run its course  and women are taking over.  In her article, she noted that the educational tables have already flipped and in the next decade two out of three college graduates will be women.   As a result, women are landing many of the primo jobs and gaining power in our society (at the expense of men).

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#1 Hottest Fathers’ Day Gift Idea for 2012!

I’m sure many people tuned into this post to find out about the hot new gadget to get dad for Fathers’ Day.   Sorry, but there’s no update on the newest in computerized grill accessories or digitized golf toys.  Instead, I wanted to share an idea for the ultimate gift – the one that more than pays for itself.  Unfortunately, there’s a major string attached to this gift – Dad doesn’t actually receive it until many years down the road.  In fact, with this gift, Dad needs to do most of the heavy lifting!  I know this isn’t sounding much like the traditional gift, but trust me – it’s the best gift ever given and ever received.

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The Man in the Father

Fathering Is
Unconditional Masculine Love
Masculine is Power & Play
Power Is Authority Over Your Self
Play Is Putting Power Into Action
Drawing from the Four Wells,
Leading . . .
So the Children
Can Learn
To Become
Authors of their Lives

The Man in the Father: The Fullest Potential of the Man for the Father of the Child

The July/August, 2010 issue of The Atlantic Monthly questioned “Are Father’s Necessary?” concluding they are not. Really?

Frustrated? Feel like your potential as a father is under utilized? Unrecognized? Invalidated? Perhaps even ridiculed? Overshadowed by the importance and emphasis on mothering? Feel like your gifts, knowledge, skills, capabilities and powerfulness are held back? Diminished? Lack coherence and effectiveness?

You’re in the right place. Fathering is critical to the welfare, safety, health and happiness of their children. The man in the father is about potency in all of its beauty, grandeur, generativeness, and service to the family, neighborhood, community, nation and planet.

I’ve yet to meet a child who does not need his/her father in his fullest and greatest potential to love, protect, teach, guide, lead, and bless. The “Man In The Father” is the fullest expression of the man he was born to become and the father he is meant to be.