Article here. Excerpt:

'Mike Espinoza's life has become a stereotype. Like divorced fathers across the country, the Apache Junction flooring installer crams a life with his sons into every other weekend and a few weeks in the summer.

He's furious about it and is trying to change it.

And while he hasn't yet won more time with his own children, he has given Arizona fathers a better chance at equal parenting time. In the process, he's become a role model to his 8- and 10-year-old sons.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'"Gender politics are alive and well in this country, let there be no doubt," said Dean Jennifer Delahunty, who laid it all out in a 2006 opinion piece in The New York Times exposing the widening gap in achievement.

"There's a kind of anti-intellectualism of young men that really bothers me," Delahunty said, "that it's not cool to be smart. That it's not cool to be engaged. That it's not cool to do your homework. That bothers me.

"Not only do they not enroll in college at the same rate as women, they don't graduate from college at the same rate. They don't retain at the same rate."

The numbers don't lie: Male college enrollment has been sliding for more than four decades - and it's expected to just get worse.
...
"Boys think that academic disengagement is a sign of masculinity," said Kimmel. "The less you can do in school, the less connected you are, the less interested you are, the more manly you are."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'NEW YORK -- When my mind gets stuck on everything that is wrong with feminism, it brings out the 19th century poet in me: Let me count the ways. Most of all, feminism is pretty much a nice girl who really, really wants so badly to be liked by everybody -- ladies who lunch, men who hate women, all the morons who demand choice and don't understand responsibility -- that it has become the easy lay of social movements. I am going to smack the next idiot who tells me that raising her children full time -- by which she really means going to Jivamukti classes and pedicure appointments while the nanny babysits -- is her feminist choice. Who can possibly take feminism seriously when it allows everything, as long as women choose it? The whole point to begin with was that women were losing their minds pushing mops and strollers all day without a room or a salary of their own.

It's always a holiday here at MANN that brings mixed emotions. Many of our readers don't get to see their own kids much or at all, or are estranged from them, or something else. Still, it's a day to say "Thank you, dads," and MANN says it with gusto.

THANK-YOU, DADS!!

Whatever this day means to you or how you experience it, we hope it is as good as it can be for you.

Article here. Excerpt:

'(The Root) -- Timed for Father's Day weekend, on Friday the White House Domestic Policy Council issued a new report detailing the Obama administration's various initiatives to encourage fatherhood and healthy families.

Article here. Excerpt:

'In terms of dollars and cents, it makes sense to try and prevent prison rape.

That's the conclusion of a recent report from the Department of Justice, which examines the costs and savings associated with the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) -- a law that was passed in 2003, but with specific rules that weren't finalized until last month.
...
Full compliance with the standards set out in the PREA would cost penal facilities about $468.5 million a year, according to the report. By contrast, the financial benefits to society from eliminating prison rape would come to almost $52 billion a year.

The real horror of prison rape, of course, has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with the physical and emotional trauma that prisoners experience -- especially when those prisoners are juveniles suffering abuse at the hands of staff.

It all points to a problem that seems to cost more to ignore than it would to treat.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says his wife told him to knock it off for calling Father's Day a "forgotten holiday."

Obama ate lunch with four campaign supporters in downtown Washington on Friday and observed that people make a bigger deal out of Mother's Day. He said he had shared his observation with Michelle Obama and that she told him to knock it off.

The president said the first lady told him Mother's Day should be a bigger day because "every day is Father's Day" and he is "always getting a treat."

Obama's comments came as he chatted with his lunch mates in view of the media. Later Friday, he and his family were flying home to Chicago, where they planned to spend Father's Day weekend.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'In its broad outlines, the story is familiar by now. In 1965, 93% of all American births were to women with marriage licenses. Over the next few decades, the percentage of babies with no father around rose steadily. As of 1970, 11% of births were to unmarried mothers; by 1990, that number had risen to 28%. Today, 41% of all births are to unmarried women. And for mothers under 30, the rate is 53%.

Article here. Excerpt:

'There's a movement under way among dads in America that's changing what you see on TV.

Across the country, more and more are fed up -- and rising up against the stereotype of the inept, clueless father.

"We're not the Peter Griffin or the Homer Simpson that we're often portrayed as," said Kevin Metzger, who runs the Dadvocate blog.

It's often the chief gripe among the dads I interview about modern fatherhood.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Three questions drawn from parental acceptance–rejection theory were addressed: (a) Are children’s perceptions of parental acceptance transnationally associated with specific personality dispositions? (b) Are adults’ remembrances of parental acceptance in childhood transnationally associated with these personality dispositions? and (c) Do relations between parental acceptance and offspring’s personality dispositions vary by gender of parents? All studies used the child and adult versions of the Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaires (PARQ) for Mothers and for Fathers, as well as the child and adult versions of the Personality Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ). Results showed that both maternal and paternal acceptance in childhood correlated significantly in all countries with all seven personality dispositions of adult offspring. Adults’ remembrance of paternal acceptance in childhood correlated significantly with all adult personality dispositions except dependence.'

Link here. Excerpt:

'The Minister responsible for male health, Warren Snowdon, today launched the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) second male health bulletin, Health of Australia’s males: a focus on five population groups, during a visit to the Murrumbateman Men’s Shed.

The bulletin examines five male population groups at risk of poor health: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males; those living in regional and remote areas; males living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas; males born overseas; and older males.

“This bulletin shows just being a part of these groups can have a very mixed impact on health, but often preventable risk factors play a role,” Mr Snowdon said.'

Article here. Excerpt:

'SAN DIEGO – Mandating circumcision in the United States would prevent 24 more cases of HIV than does the traditional optional approach to circumcision, but would increase costs by approximately $389 million, making it far less cost effective, an analysis of published data suggests.

The investigators assumed that the overall incidence of HIV in the United States is 27 cases/100,000 people and the lifetime cost of care for someone with HIV is $119,000, based on published data from government statistics and peer-reviewed studies. Using the $392 cost of a circumcision at their institution, they developed computer-generated estimates of the cost-effectiveness of mandatory or traditional circumcision strategies for various populations, said Dr. Sarah E. Drennan, a third-year resident in ob.gyn. at Ochsner Medical Center, New Orleans.

Article here. Excerpt:

'We are just a few days away from Father's Day 2012. On Sunday, June 17, Americans will celebrate the value of fatherhood.

Yet, without seemingly having given it much thought to it at all, our society now allows millions of men and women to create children who will never know their biological fathers. That's because we sanction allowing men and women to purchase sperm from anonymous donors. These donors will forever be shielded from having their identities discovered by their sons and daughters.

This policy inherently presupposes that bearing children who have no opportunity to know their biological fathers does not deprive them of anything that is inherently theirs--as a fundamental human right.'

So rare to see that it is worth noting. Some of what was said in their email:

'Why lend to men?

As the nonprofit world focuses on empowering women, men's contributions to their families and communities are too often overlooked. On Kiva, men make up only 19% of all borrowers but account for 65% of loans that don't get funded. True equality means expanding opportunity and financial independence to everyone. Consider the incredible ripple effect of lending to men:

Article here. Excerpt:

'It seems inconsistent that the group that says its purpose is “sharing equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities with men,” opposes shared parenting. On its website, NOW states:

NOW is the largest, most comprehensive feminist advocacy group in the United States. Our purpose is to take action to bring women into full participation in society — sharing equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities with men, while living free from discrimination.

Gloria Woods, President of Michigan NOW, wrote this about shared parenting:

"Shared Parental Responsibility." In our work as women's advocates, how often have we heard custodial moms wish that their children's father would share the parental responsibility? Unfortunately, "shared parental responsibility" is the new doublespeak for joint physical custody by so-called "father's rights" groups.'