Work Family Balance Takes a Sick Day

The economic crunch is cutting down on the flex time allowed for work/family balance initiatives. And surprisingly, dads are more worried about that conflict between work and life than moms.

Of Marriage & Others Elephants in the Room

David Blankenhorn, President of the Institute for American Values, has written a fabulous open memo to President Obama imploring him to use his bully pulpit to advocate for something very obvious and yet untouched by the Obama-messagers: his marriage.

Michelle, Malia and Sasha have been in the news frequently and the President's image as an involved father is a recurring theme for the First Family. And yet, little is said about the President's life decisions getting to this point: he finished school before marrying Michelle, and married Michelle before having their two lovely daughters.

Kids have a much better chance of having an invovled, responsible and committed father when that father is married to their mother. It's not always possible to have that situation, but if marriage makes the ideal father-child relationship more attainable, why wouldn't we encourage it?

Council on What Are We Going to Do When There are No Good Guys Left?

Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker has an interesting take on the Obama administration's recent creation of the Council on Women and Girls.

"As a father of two girls, Obama wants to do the right thing by women. A noble purpose. But if he wants America's girls to find proper mates, he might create a White House Council for Boys and, perhaps, Fathers."

Travis Henry: 9 kids. 9 kids' moms. 1 paycheck.

"'I love all my kids,' he said in the interview, but asserted he could not afford the designated amounts, estimated at $170,000 a year by Randy Kessler, his Atlanta lawyer. Kessler said Henry was virtually broke."

"Henry made no excuses but said absentee fathers were part of the landscape during his developmental years. His father disappeared early on, only to resurface at the dawn of his football fame."

The story is sad, not only due to Henry's predicament, but because the story is so common. Who was going to prepare Henry for the reality of fatherhood, and on a broader level, how is Henry preparing his children to follow a path different from their father's path?