June 26th, 2010 | 
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It seems obvious that everyone sets that standard themselves. Being a great dad isn’t achieving one set of measures, or even ensuring that your child confirms you’re a great dad whenever prompted.
Being a great dad is an every day climb up the mountain, or a thousand-task test of parenting skills: patience, generosity, creativity, intelligence, wisdom. What works one day is a failure the next. Not all of us can stay at home with our kids, attend every concert and performance, or even make macaroni and cheese. Unlike moms, who seem to have more prescribed roles by society in this area, we blunder about trying to maintain our manhood, while aiming to be good and present parents. But, what does that entail? It’s not just making breakfast, but knowing how to make oatmeal like mommy makes it. It’s not picking them up at school, but being there five minutes early because you know a five-year old doesn’t want to be the last one picked up. It’s not just setting out the clothes to wear, but allowing your daughter to wear all pink. It’s not just buying the toy, but playing it over and over for hours because you can’t let the kid “just win.”
Today I failed at being a great dad to my daughter. It was the big Chinese New Year’s trip to Chinatown and she had her Chinese dress all set up to wear, but all her tights were in the laundry. I quickly volunteered to wash them and throw them in the dryer. Twenty minutes later with my carpool partner knocking at the door, the tights were still soaking wet and unwearable. Daughter, in tears, left the house, tights-less. The story has a happy ending only because I had the free time to continue drying the tights and race over to the school to beat the field trip departure and hand over the now-dry tights. Crisis averted, daddy restored to hero status. But how fragile that perch!
I’ll try in this blog to provide a forum for dads of different types and styles to relate their challenges and solutions. I’ll also give some advice on things to do, places to visit, and some things to have in your pocket, both literally and figuratively, as you try to be a great dad, whatever that means to you.
For more information about parental advice for single dads, please visit: http://www.greatdad.com
Paul Banas
http://www.articlesbase.com/men’s-issues-articles/howto-be-a-great-dad-99336.html
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Questions about divorce usually begin with people asking their friends who have already gone through the divorce process. They are generally subtle so the person being asked doesn’t really know that the one asking is contemplating a divorce. They ask questions about how the kids are doing or whether they’re still in touch with their ex. To those who haven’t gone through divorce the whole thing is a big mystery and very scary. Usually the person who is contemplating divorce has a friend they will soon confide in to gain support for their own move in that direction. A person being asked is seen as somewhat of an expert because they have gone through it, and the person being asked finds some relief from their own pain by sharing their experience. Unfortunately the questions that are being asked are the wrong questions. Usually the first question that is asked once the person comes clean is, “Was it worth it?” The typical response is the response of someone who felt they had no choice in the matter, so they answer yes. I would prefer other questions were asked rather than “how to” questions. So I have prepared a list of 6 divorce questions along with the truthful answers.
- Was the person you divorced the same person you married?
- Was your spouse a good mother or father, or did they beat or otherwise abuse your children?
- Were you a loving spouse, or did you not care anymore?
- Do you love your spouse?
- Did you ever get a marriage manual?
- Are your kids really doing OK now that you are divorced?
I met with someone today who was in tremendous pain because he didn’t know what to do anymore; he was losing his wife. His situation was so bad that his wife wouldn’t meet with he and I together. The truth is he was not a good husband and was quick to blame his wife for the breakdown of their relationship. They have two little children and so I agreed to meet with him alone, even though I usually don’t meet with only one of a couple.
When I asked him if he still loved his wife his response, although in the affirmative, was not very strong. When I asked him if he loved his children his response was clear as a bell. He was worn out and didn’t know what to do. I asked him if he read the marriage manual and he said he hadn’t ever heard of one. I said, “I know; until I wrote it there wasn’t one, so don’t be too hard on yourself for completely screwing up your marriage” (I only talk to men that way). I explained to him that he was like a guy who found himself in the cockpit of a plane, and had no idea how to fly. To make matters worse when he looks back he sees two children, and a woman depending on him to fly the plane. Now I’m not suggesting a marriage only requires a man knowing what to do, but it was an illustration he could relate to. He needed to understand that he simply didn’t have the tools needed to be successful.
I asked him if his wife was a good mother to their children and he acknowledged that he had some difficulties with some of her practices. I got all over him (again, a man to man conversation is much different) for having the audacity to point to a few particular things he didn’t care about, rather than point to some of the amazing things she does with the children. He understood what I was driving at. He had the choice, and had chosen, to be mean rather than supportive. So I questioned him some more about her virtues vs. her negative qualities, this time he pointed out her superior qualities, telling me he understood my point.
I asked him if his wife was as beautiful and charming as when he first met her, dated her and eventually asked her to marry him. He acknowledged that she was even more so. I then asked him why he didn’t continue to treat her the way he did when they first met. I asked him if someone gave him permission to start abusing her. He said no, and he also said he was starting to understand my point of view.
I told him he needed to read the Lessons For A Happy Marriage book, which covers all of these topics from many perspectives, in order to prove marriage is heaven on earth, when you know what to do.
Before you get a divorce or even seriously think about one, ask yourself if you are like that pilot in a plane who just hadn’t read the manual yet. Chances are very good you are married to exactly the person you should be married to but have no idea how to behave in order to make your marriage the kind of marriage you deserve.
Now the last question about the children; if you believe your kids will be OK after you get a divorce you have been duped. The kids don’t do OK. You could ask any teacher about what happens to children when their parents are going through divorce. The little boys crumble for all to see and the little girls internalize the suffering. Their lives are shattered and their futures become uncertain. Not only do they not do as well in school, they don’t do as well in life. Yes, there are always some who look like they beat the odds but you don’t have to take that chance with your own children. I don’t believe that you should suffer your entire life in a horrible marriage just for your children. I believe you should make your marriage a blissful satisfying heavenly experience. It would be better to suffer if you had to, rather than destroy the lives of your children. With a full heart say to your spouse, “I love you.”
Paul Friedman
http://www.articlesbase.com/marriage-articles/6-divorce-questions-716872.html
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With the rule of society changing to make way for smaller families that live away from their own families and friend’s groups or known communities like those existing in small-towns or rural settings that often have family elders or older siblings looking after the younger lot, there is a need for good childcare facilities that daycare centers springing up everywhere hope to provide. Not only do working moms and dads benefit from sending their kids to quality daycare, but even those recuperating from an illness or those attending to medical emergencies in the family also find a way to meet child-rearing challenges in a child-safe environment that the daycares of today provide.
1. Thus, with baby boomers showing the way for independent thinking and living even post-retirement and having been the kids that go out there and ‘just do it’ – there is loads of encouragement for kids to become independent of parental support at an early age; there are fewer stay at home moms and many Single parents that make it necessary for more children now than ever before to be placed in daycare so they are not latch-key kids, like the ’80’s had. With so many instances of sex-offenders on the prowl for innocent kids, staying home alone is not a viable option and daycares provide qualified, trained staff focused on keeping children safe, happy and out of danger while learning new skills and activities besides seeing to their timely meals and rest, so are a good bet for many parents.
2. For those parents that cannot afford or find a suitable in-house babysitter or caregiver, daycare provides the best alternative for placing their child in safe, capable hands and a kids-friendly community where they learn to get along with other kids. Daycare options are a-plenty with variable fee-costs that make it an affordable and convenient option, not to mention safe and comfortable kids-friendly environment to learn and socialize in, for many parents; from full-daycare to part-time services to even week-end options, there are all kinds of daycares abounding! For pre-schoolers, there’s the option of after-school only daycare (3-5 hours) and for babies or toddlers, many a time one parent or the other may juggle work-load and shifts to be around so it may only be part-time daycare required, which makes it possible for parents to always follow every important milestone in the child’s life.
3. Instead of just watching TV or eating junk-food or perhaps putting themselves in danger when left alone without adult supervision at home, children are better off at daycares that provide a host of all-round child development facilities apart from full-time trained staff attending to children’s needs, right from healthcare to playtime and medical emergencies. You can choose to volunteer a few hours a week to make the transition from a home environment to a community one easier on your child or pay surprise visits to spend extra quality time with your precious one; this will allow you to know the real functioning of the daycare center and allow you to bond with your child.
Abhishek Agarwal
http://www.articlesbase.com/parenting-articles/child-care-3-points-that-make-it-imperative-740391.html
Coping with divorce seems especially difficult during the holidays. Sadness, anger, and regret can overwhelm you at a time that should be exciting and happy. Memories of happier times emphasize the unwelcome changes divorce brings. You may dread holiday get-togethers that you used to anticipate with pleasure. It’s difficult enough to deal with your own emotions; facing family and friends is often too much to bear. Financial uncertainty may create worry where once you enjoyed generosity.
For children, divorce turns the holidays upside down. They are torn, wanting to be with both parents. They worry that the holidays won’t be the same. Will they see Grandma? Will Santa find them? Will they get any presents? They hide their bigger fears about how divorce will change the family behind a litany of fears about holiday activities and traditions.
Other than perhaps the death of a parent, divorce is often the single most traumatic event in a child’s life. In America 60% of all marriages end in divorce and a third of those divorces involve bitter conflict. One million children in our country are involved in divorce each year.
As typically practiced in America, divorce rips asunder the very foundation of a child’s world. It shatters the family structure, destroys communication between the parents, and irrevocably changes the child’s relationship with each parent. Children suffer not only their own fears and misery over the loss of the family but, too often, are used as pawns by one parent to hurt the other. Out of anger or emotional need, one parent may seek to monopolize the child’s time and affection to the exclusion of the other parent. There are no winners in a divorce. Everyone loses, but the children lose most of all.
How a couple divorces has far greater impact on their children than the actual separation, researchers have found. Weary of acrimonious divorce battles and the expense and emotional damage they cause, legal professionals sought a more constructive way to dissolve marriage, giving birth to Collaborative Family Law in 1990. Collaborative law focuses on divorce not just as a painful ending but as an opportunity for a new beginning. Stressing cooperation over confrontation and resolution over revenge, collaborative divorce is transforming how couples dissolve their marriages, divide their assets, and reinvent their post-divorce parenting relationships.
Taking place outside the court process, collaborative practice uses a cooperative team approach in which both parties and their respective attorneys meet together, sometimes advised by financial or child experts. During meetings, parents learn and practice open communication, self-management and negotiation skills that can form the basis for successful future interactions. They learn to manage and reduce conflict and the anguish and divided loyalties it can engender in their children. Through collaboration, parents have the opportunity to lay a foundation for the respectful, cooperative parenting of their children. Agreements are reached jointly in the collaborative process and seek to accomplish the goals of both parties while preserving the welfare of the entire family, particularly the children. Through collaborative divorce, couples have the opportunity to emerge with a fair settlement and peaceable relationship that minimizes the negative effects of divorce on their children. That’s a holiday gift more precious than gold!
Michaeil Mastracci
http://www.articlesbase.com/mental-health-articles/coping-with-divorce-during-the-holidays-675462.html
If you’re a husband who is seeing signs and signals that indicate your wife may file for divorce, there are some important things you should be aware of.
First of all, DO NOT move out of YOUR house. DO NOT go stay with someone else for a while. DO NOT relinquish control of YOUR possessions in any way.
If your wife suggests that the two of you “take a break” and “spend some time apart”, then directly and firmly let her know that SHE certainly has the right to go stay somewhere else but that you are NOT leaving your house.
Of course, it sometimes happens that a woman will have the locks changed on the house while her husband is away but more often than not, if a man tells his wife that if anyone is leaving it will be her, then, she’ll be the one who does the leaving.
Now, this is important for a number of reasons…
One, when a man leaves, it gives a woman extra space and freedom to initiate the divorce. For whatever reason, it seems to be easier for a woman to file for divorce when she’s separated from her husband.
Two, it sets the foundation for the woman to get custody of any children by default. If you care about your children at all, this is very important.
Three, lawyers can and WILL distort anything and everything you’ve ever said or done – which means if you try to be the nice guy and leave your house to give your wife her “space” until things get “worked out”, and things take a turn for the worse instead of for the better, then don’t be surprised if in court your separation gets morphed into something like, “This horrible abuser ABANDONED his family and left them to fend for themselves.”
Now, before you start thinking to yourself that I’m some amazingly negative person with major issues and a huge chip on his shoulder, please understand that I’m merely relating facts based on what happens to thousands of men every day.
In fact, before I continue on, let me inform you that every day, false charges are filed by women against the husband they are divorcing – simply to gain the upper hand on him in the divorce and/or custody proceedings. And, these false charges are usually of a very serious nature – ranging from “alleged” physical abuse to outright claims of sexual abuse – often resulting in the woman gaining a protective order which blocks the husband from all access to his children and possessions.
Ok, let’s continue… The second thing you should know is that if your wife files for divorce, EXPECT her to become vicious in all sorts of ways you would have never dreamed of – ways that hurt you and cost you. I’ll give you two common examples.
One, it’s typical for husbands to want JOINT custody of the children. In other words, they want their children to have equal access to both their father and their mother. And, that seems like a reasonable sort of arrangement, don’t you think?
Well, court records PROVE that with very, very few exceptions, women seek SOLE custody of the children – and specifically, they mostly seek an arrangement where children have as little access or contact with their father as possible.
Two, in the context of a divorce, it’s typical for husbands to want a fair and equitable distribution of the property. Again, that seems like the fair thing to do, wouldn’t you agree?
But again, court records PROVE that with very few exceptions, women seek to get ALL of the major possessions of worth or value. It seems that women rationalize to themselves that their husband has some unfair advantage such that she needs EVERYTHING to continue on and he needs NOTHING because he can easily go make a new start.
The third thing you should know is that it’s certainly appropriate to want to work things out between you and your wife. By all means, let her know that you would PREFER to work things out with her…that you’d PREFER to make a fresh start where you do a better job of meeting her needs and equally as important, where she does a better job of meeting your needs too.
She may or may not accept your INVITATION.
If she doesn’t, LET her be an individual who is free to make her own choices and who is free to pursue whatever paths in life she chooses to pursue – even if that means one without you.
DO NOT supplicate. DO NOT beg. DO NOT pester her with “tracking” calls any time the two of you are apart. DO NOT stalk or spy. DO NOT project insecurity and paranoia. Be a man. Respect yourself. You’re a survivor and a winner. You WILL be ok with or without this PARTICULAR woman.
If your wife chooses to move on without you, there are plenty of quality women in this world who would be EAGER to join paths with you.
Of course, you don’t want to go overboard with this such that your wife thinks you don’t have any interest in her. That obviously wouldn’t help improve your marriage.
On the other hand, if she does accept your invitation, that’s wonderful. Promptly and proactively seek for ways of improving your marriage relationship.
When it comes to “fixing” relationships, the pattern is that men tend to procrastinate and women tend to act. And specifically, women tend act by interviewing multiple attorneys, by making plans and arrangements – all the way down to knowing exactly where you’re at and making sure any children are with her when she fires off her dirty deed of filing for divorce. The result is that men willingly put themselves in a position of HUGE disadvantage.
So, your best option is to DO something TODAY to turn your marriage around for the better.
Whatever you do, don’t leave things in limbo – put time frames and constraints on things. Many a woman has strung her husband along while she’s out playing the field, making alternate arrangements, and setting up a new life without him while he’s at home hoping she’ll come back around.
And, just so you know, when a man is passive in this way, it just proves to his wife that he’s not man enough for her and that she needs to find someone else who is manlier.
Also, a word of warning…
Beware of counselors who want to pull up and “analyze” all the bad stuff that’s happened in your marriage as this will only serve to emphasize the negatives that your wife is already holding in her mind and further suggest to her that leaving you is the right thing to do.
Your wife is already acknowledging internally all the bad stuff and perceived wrongs that’s happened in your marriage in a strong, vivid way and anything that “strengthens” her in this state is only going to work AGAINST you.
So, if you and your wife are still in the same house and nothing has happened yet, then I URGE you to get these two books (available at MarriedAndHappy.com/Catalog) right away:
“How To Turn Your Wife Into A Nymphomaniac”
“Strategies and Tactics for the Husband in a Sexless Marriage”
Not only will these two books show you what you need to do to save your marriage, they will also show you how to get the kind of marriage you want – a happy, sexual one.
Now, if you’re reading this and your wife has already filed for divorce, then I have two important recommendations for you:
One, I highly recommend that you IMMEDIATELY go to Amazon.com and get the following book OVERNIGHTED to yourself:
The Father’s Emergency Guide to Divorce-Custody Battle: A Tour Through the Predatory World of Judges, Lawyers, Psychologists & Social Workers, in the Subculture of Divorce by William Dawes
Also, if you have children, I STRONGLY recommend you get these books too:
Custody for Fathers: A Practical Guide Through the Combat Zone of a Brutal Custody Battle by Carleen Brennan
Fighting for Your Children: A Father’s Guide to Custody by John Steninbreder
Fathers’ Rights: Hard-Hitting & Fair Advice for Every Father Involved in a Custody Dispute by Jeffery Leving
All four of the above listed books are critically important to a man with children facing a divorce.
Perhaps most important is that they will educate a man on how to direct and drive his attorney in a way that’s useful to him. Without the information contained in these books, a man’s attorney will more often than not work AGAINST him more than he works FOR him. But, with the knowledge contained in these books, a man is better armed to protect himself and his interests.
The second recommendation is to realize that EVERYTHING is important in a divorce proceeding. If your attorney tells you something isn’t really important then understand that HE/SHE is probably LYING to you.
For example, attorney after attorney has told husband after husband that the initial “Temporary Hearing” (the “Pendente Lite”) was “no big deal” and that it wasn’t important for him to be there. Well, the fact of the matter is that this is usually the MOST IMPORTANT hearing there is because key precedents are set which shape the way things are to be LONG-TERM.
Similarly, everything a man signs is important. For example, many a man has signed an unfavorable agreement in good faith based on his attorney’s statement of “just until we get this worked out”. Unfortunately, that unfavorable agreement became a binding and legal agreement that the man had to live with for the next 10 to 20 years – or in some cases, for the rest of his life (or his ex-wife’s life).
Copyright 2009, Article by Calle Zorro of MarriedAndHappy.com. Permission is granted to reprint this article ONLY if a resource box pointing to the following website is included with it.
Calle Zorro
http://www.articlesbase.com/divorce-articles/i-think-my-wife-is-about-to-file-for-divorce-help-737370.html
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