81 quotes
I could be a much better role model by sharing more openly with him my shadow side, my faults, my mistakes, asking him to be my teacher rather than being his.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
Feminists often discuss women having two jobs: work and children. True. But no one discusses those divorced and remarried men who have three jobs: work, and two sets of children to nurture and financially support.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
If we are to inspire men to father it also helps to stop reflexively condemning men as afraid of commitment and address what they are afraid of. –page246.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
The Male Teacher Corps not only exposes children to men from a variety of professions, but exposes children to men with more risk-taking, entrepreneurial male energy and values, creating a balance between exposure to the male and female value systems.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
If there is one quality that I find is more essential to a successful and happy life than any other, it is empathy. It is at the core of family stability and love. I’ve never had a couple come to me and say, “I want a divorce; my partner understands me.”
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
By starving our children of men, we have made them more vulnerable to the very abuse we are trying to prevent. – page 97.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
If we want our children to have a balance between their abilities to earn money and show love, it will help if both their parents model that balance. – page 114.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
In brief, when a man fails as a wallet, we put him in prison; when a woman fails as a mother, we offer her social services. We’re taking a criminal approach to men, a social services approach to women.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
When I see dads being most effective with children, it is usually when they have an intuitive understanding that, for example, the car trip to and from the soccer game is potentially as important as the game itself.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
On a deeper level, if our sons are learning they are obscene, disgusting, and untrustworthy, is this the best preparation for fatherhood? And is it the best preparation for becoming a mother -- to feel this way about her son?
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
We would not think of allowing a man to determine a woman’s life merely because a fetus he helped create was in her womb; then why would we allow a woman to determine a man’s life merely because a fetus he helped create is in her womb?
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
Many women are discovering that the motherhood instinct implies a responsibility to be certain children have dads -- everyday, not far away; and some are aware that economic independence requires not holding on to her child as if it were her job.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
When we speak of mom winning custody or of dad getting visitation time, we speak of someone winning, someone losing. When we speak of mom or dad spending “parent time” with a child, we speak of two parents, not a parent versus a visitor.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
Shifting our attitudes about the future of fathers requires shifting our attitudes about the way our fathers loved. Recognizing that the rigid roles of the past were not designed by men to serve only men is not unrelated to shifting our attitudes toward dad.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
We are at a unique moment in history -- when a woman’s body is affected, we say the choice is hers; but when a boy’s body is affected, we say the choice is not his -- the law requires our 18 year old sons to register for the draft, and therefore potential death-if-needed.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
When a government requires a man to support a child he was tricked into creating, that government subsidizes fraud. No. It is worse than that: It subsidizes the woman using a man’s body for 18-21 years without his consent.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
From these biased studies come biased social policy. Hundreds of millions of dollars to enforce sanctions against fathers who don’t pay mothers; almost nothing to enforce sanctions against mothers who don’t allow fathers to see children.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
The worst form anger can take is that of a parent who feels her or his chance for “winning my child” is enhanced by “ruining my ex.” The law has given the most vindictive parent an invitation to play the “abuse” card. This is the “Great Temptation.”
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
It is ironic that a movement that made its reputation championing the irrelevance of biological differences when those differences were to most women's disadvantage immediately returned to biological determinism when those differences were to the most women’s advantage.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)
When we train men for war, we lose some part of every man we train -- even if we win the war. When we train men to be better nurturers, even men who fail the course will have won. And so will every child they ever meet. Training men to love is a nation’s best investment.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)