The 'What Not To Do' Example

Today is Father's Day. For many people with great Dads, it's a time for celebration and joy, for the rest, it's probably another occasion to play hypocrite, but whichever side of the fence you're on, Father's Day makes for great reflection. I remember one year I actually gave my Mom a card on Father's Day... we were doing a poem in English class called For My Mother, May I Inherit Half Her Strength and I realised she did double duty with me, for which I'll always be grateful. This year is even more poignant because J and I are both looking forward to the birth of our first child together. So understandably I've been looking through all the mommy and daddy info I can find online these past few months - why should preggo moms be the sole focus of attention?

With all that in mind here's one from an MSN article on Ten Ways To Be a Great Dad:

6. Treat your kid the way you wanted to be treated when you were a kid. Take a look back on how you were raised... Look back at how your dad showed, or didn't show, his love for you. How he disciplined you, encouraged you, criticized you, and molded you. If you had a great dad, now's your chance to take everything he showed you and put it to good use.

If you didn't have a great dad, this is your chance, your golden opportunity to make up for every fatherly injustice he did to you by being to your child a much better and more sensitive, involved, loving dad than he was to you. This is your chance to show your dad, and the world, "This is what being a good dad looks like." Provide your child with a level of love, patience, understanding, and affection that shows your own dad how it's done.

Click here for: Ten Ways To Be a Great Dad

Here are a couple funny tidbits I found in another MSN article, Things a man should know: About fatherhood:

• Don't worry, your dad didn't know what he was doing, either.
• Your child, at birth, already has a deeply complicated relationship with his mother, and, for the first year, you are only a curiosity.
  
  For a couple of years after that, an amusement-park ride.
  
  Then, a referee.
  
  And finally, a bank.
• Reason boys are better: They cannot get pregnant.
• Reason girls are better: They're less likely to get arrested.
• The first time you change your son's diaper and he pees all over you is not an accident. It's foreshadowing.
• You are under no obligation to tell children the truth.
  
  Lying to children is, in fact, half the fun: "Oh, that tree? That's a yellow-spotted spickle-gruber, of course."
  
  On the other hand, they do remember everything.
• Your bedroom door gets a lock. Your teenage son's does not. Lock or no, please knock before entering, as the disruption of a youth who is spanking his monkey will be twice as traumatic for you as it is for him.

I'll stop here but if you'd like to see the rest, here's the link:

Click here for: Things a man should know: About fatherhood

And last but not least, I found a quiz on American Baby.com Are you man enough to be a stay-at-home Dad? Have fun guys!

Click here for: 'Are you man enough' quiz

• Mood: restive
• Music: classical music (well, headphones on the tummy for the baby)