Organized Fathers

There are more Father's Day pieces to come, but there's a lot on my plate. I promise they'll be done before the Independence Day pieces begin ...

I've long maintained that among North American countries, Canada seems to take the whole dads-as-parents thing a lot more seriously, so I was happy to see 1) a smart new parenting blog from the Toronto Star that 2) pulled together a nice post that asks a darn good question: "So why, as the Mommy Wars debate rages on, with a new book on the subject popping up every month, are dads not part of the discussion?" It's nice to be explicitly included in one of the more profound discussions going on today.

The other interesting part of the post? The contention by Kerry Daly of Canada's Father Involvement Research Alliance, that though the number of at-home dads is up, the visibility of fathers remains low both on the micro level (the playgrounds) and the macro level (the grand work-family policy conversation).

South of the Boarder: A couple of weeks ago, I asked exactly what the new national at-home dad group (Daddyshome Inc.) was out there to do. I still don't have a very good answer, but I did come across this article from a suburban DC paper that interviews group founder and longtime DC SAHD leader Peter Steinberg. Steinberg says the group is dedicated to reducing isolation among its local members, as well as removing misperceptions and lobbying Congress. I've obviously down with the isolation thing, but I'm still hazy about everything else ...