Father Absence, Father Deficit, Father Hunger | Psychology Today (Canada)

Despite President Obama’s 2011 Father’s Day lament on the irresponsibility of “deadbeat fathers” footloose and fancy free from taking responsibility for their children, in fact the two major structural threats to fathers’ presence in children’s lives are divorce and non-marital childbearing. More often than not, fathers are involuntarily relegated by family courts to the role of “accessory parents,” valued for their role as financial providers rather than as active caregivers. This view persists despite the fact that fathers in two-parent families, before divorce, typically share, with mothers, responsibility for the care of their children. This is both because fathers have taken up the slack while mothers work longer hours outside the home, and because fathers are no longer content to play a secondary role as parents. Most fathers today are keen to experience both the joys and challenges of parenthood, derive satisfaction from their parental role, and consider active and involved fatherhood to be the core component of their self-identity.

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DadLabs

America is seeing a fundamental shift in the role of men in parenting. While many in the media and academia have observed this trend, no company has emerged to meet the needs of these "New" fathers, the modern dads. Enter DadLabs, Inc., a start-up company dedicated to providing creative media content and information products to serve this new generation of "Super Dads."

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Male teacher numbers falling over abuse and pay concerns

FEAR of being accused of child sex crimes and higher pay in non-government schools are being blamed for a 4 per cent fall in the number of men teaching in NSW public schools.

While the number of male teachers in private schools has risen 20 per cent, government schools are suffering a lack of men.The "alarming" figures contained in a Social Trends report released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics were damned by the NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations.

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Involved Dads Give Kids an Edge (Canada)

September 15, 2011 — New data from a long-running study of Canadian families suggest that fathers play a key role in their children's intellect and behavior.

Compared with children with absentee fathers, children whose fathers were present and actively involved in their lives during early and middle childhood had fewer behavior problems and higher intellectual abilities as they grew older, even among children of lower socioeconomic status.

"Regardless of whether fathers lived with their children, their ability to set appropriate limits and structure their children's behaviour positively influenced problem-solving and decreased emotional problems, such as sadness, social withdrawal and anxiety," first author Erin Pougnet, a PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, noted in a statement.

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Too many mums exclude dad from bringing up kids (UK)

I’ve always been keen on dads, even when there were no stats around to prove just how crucial they are to the healthy all-round development of a child. And this is particularly true with boys.

I have even gone as far as criticising absent or negligent dads for ignoring the needs of their children.

But now it would seem that it’s not errant dads who are the critical factor, it’s mums who don’t want dads around.

There is a new generation of women who choose to be a single mum and exclude dad from bringing up their child.

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