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"The child support system is asking very poor people -- the fathers -- to support other very poor people --the mother and child. This has not worked and will not work, because the money just doesn’t exist. "By pursuing these fathers with an iron fist collection policy, we turn these fathers into fugitives. This takes away the only thing the very poor father has to offer his child: his love and guidance." .... cont.

If you ever ran into Nokesville dad Thomas S. Vander Woude, chances are you would also see his son Joseph. Whether Vander Woude was volunteering at church, coaching basketball or working on his farm, Joseph was often right there with him, pitching in with a smile, friends and neighbors said yesterday. When Joseph, 20, who has Down syndrome, fell into a septic tank Monday in his back yard, Vander Woude jumped in after him. He saved him. And he died where he spent so much time living: at his son's side.

The "Cindy Bischof Law" has the potential for victimizing innocent Illinois fathers and may spread nationwide. The Bischof Law is a draconian measure that will allow judges to order anyone, mostly men and fathers, to wear a GPS tracking device if they are simply considered to be at a high risk for domestic violence without being found guilty of any crime. There is a presumption of guilt without the benefit of a trial, yet the foundation of our criminal justice system is that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Perhaps such a drastic measure would be warranted...

Fathers' rights activists have complained about arbitrarily high child support orders for almost two decades. Class action suits were filed, the fathers' rights movement grew, debates broke out in academic journals, a few social scientists demonstrated with calculations and documentation, some men have committed suicide because they were unable to support themselves, and a few serious investigative journalists analyzed in depth. Congress finally decided to act – with a flat luxury tax on child support income.

"I'm a dad, not a wallet." What may prompt millions of non-custodial dads to say this phrase -- or at least think it? How is it that millions of children of divorce or separation may wonder why they can't see their beloved Dad, or sometimes Mom, more than 4 to 6 days a month, if that? These are just two of the important questions raised by Angelo Lobo, Producer and Director of the full-length documentary "Support System Down," which examines problems within the nation's child support system. Lobo's film "Support System Down" comes to the Ohmann Theatre in Lyons,...

Hope comes in all different shapes and sizes. Today it comes in the form of a lizard. The hope? That some day I may procreate and produce Bo Jr. I know it sounds impossible, especially given that I had my nads removed, but if a 111 year old lizard can slip one by the goalie, I should be able to figure out a way to do the same.

Father, have you been to the mall lately and watched an unsupervised group of teenage girls get hit on by the ubiquitous male oxygen thieves? Pretty disturbing, eh? What’s even more mind numbing is the number of beautiful young ladies who actually give these scat based boys the time of day. Unreal. Ticks you off now, doesn’t it? If you have a pre-teen niña, then more than likely after watching those mall chicks capitulate to the weird male critter’s advances, you probably just swore to God that your daughter will never grow up to be one of “those girls” who...

Last Wednesday, the British House of Commons decided that a father is completely and totally irrelevant to a child's development. The legislation, which dealt with in vitro fertilization, or IVF, would have included a clause requiring a fertility doctor to "consider a child's need for a male role model before giving women IVF treatment," according to news site This Is London. Even though IVF already marginalizes fathers by effectively removing them from the procreative process, feminists would not allow even this bland and toothless reference to men to stand. The clause was voted down. This Is London went on to...

VIRGINIA, June 27, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a research brief this month, Bradford Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, analyzed three national studies in order to discover if "there is any evidence that religion is playing a role in encouraging a strong family orientation among contemporary American men?"   His research led him to conclude that men who regularly attend Christian services are engaged in happier and stronger marriages and are more involved in the lives of their children than men who do not. "70 percent of husbands who attend church regularly report they are 'very happy'...

Barack Obama's recent call for responsible fatherhood is welcome, overdue -- and misleadingly incomplete. That America's fathers need to embrace their most important role is no secret. Activist fathers have been trying to make the same claim for decades, without much success. Not all fathers are trying to be good dads, it goes without saying. But neither are all absent by choice, as Obama's message implied. His plea to fathers came on Father's Day, a time we usually reserve for praising good men. Noting the plague of fatherless homes, he called on fathers who have abandoned their responsibilities to act...

Good morning. It's good to be home on this Father's Day with my girls, and it's an honor to spend some time with all of you today in the house of our Lord. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus closes by saying, "Whoever hears these words of mine, and does them, shall be likened to a wise man who built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock." [Matthew 7: 24-25]...

Honoring Thy FathersBRADFORD WILCOXFor millions of children across the U.S., this Sunday will not be a cause for celebration. Because of dramatic increases in divorce and nonmarital childbearing, about 28% of our nation's children -- more than 20 million kids -- now live in a household without their father, up from 10 million kids (14%) in 1970, according to a recent Census Bureau report. Moreover, because most of these boys and girls see their dads infrequently (once a month or less), Father's Day will offer cold comfort to many of these children.Our nation's epidemic of fatherlessness is just the most...

Barack Obama asks fathers to take responsibility By Alex Spillius in Washington Last Updated: 12:51AM BST 16/06/2008 Senator Barack Obama has called on black American men to accept their responsibilities as fathers and to stop "acting like boys instead of men". Barack Obama speaking at the Apostolic Church of God In a Father's Day speech at a black church in his home city of Chicago, the Democratic presidential nominee listed the disadvantages faced by single parent families in the community, and urged men to realise that their responsibility as a father does not end at conception. "If we are honest...

Staff Sgt. Andy Graves, a Paragould, Ark., native, takes a moment from his deployment to go on a mental vacation with his three daughters on June 13. Graves is a sergeant of the guard for the 1123rd Transportation Company, an Arkansas National Guard unit, 1/152nd Cavalry Regiment, an Indiana National Guard unit, 1st Sustainment Brigade, in support of Multi-National Division-Baghdad. Photo by 1st Lt. George Fowler. CAMP TAJI — Alone with his thoughts, Staff Sgt. Andy Graves, a Paragould, Ark., native, sits quietly in the “Snack Shack� during his guard shift reminiscing. Presently Graves is a squad leader for the...

Walter Dean Myers, a best-selling author of books for teenagers, sometimes visits juvenile detention centers in his home state of New Jersey to hold writing workshops and listen for stories about the lives of young Americans. One day, in a juvenile facility near his home in Jersey City, a 15-year-old black boy pulled him aside for a whispered question: Why did he write in "Somewhere in the Darkness" about a boy not meeting his father because the father was in jail? Mr. Myers, a 70-year-old black man, did not answer. He waited. And sure enough, the boy, eyes down, mumbled...

“Son of a…” June 14th, 2008 by Tom Purcell Get this: Dads are essential to kids.According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, kids who grow up without dads are more likely to grow up poor, drop out of school, end up in jail and encounter numerous other struggles in life than kids who grow up with dads.This information comes as no shock to most men. We know that boys are prone to stupidity and that the creature best suited to taming them is the like-minded fellow called dad.When I was five, my father told me to stop jumping around the tub,...

A Fatherly Kind of Love June 14th, 2008 by Heidi Bratton I happened across a quote the other day that captures perfectly my experiences of fatherhood. The quote is from a small book titled, Radical Hospitality; Benedict’s Way of Love, by Fr. Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt. In describing a friend of theirs named Joe, the authors said, “He knew not the name of intimacy, but the meaning.” Joe, they said, “probably could not have articulated the meaning of hospitality, but he knew how to pour you another cup of coffee. You would leave Joe’s company feeling taller, stronger,...

The Blueprint for Heroic Family Life by Dr. Jeff Mirus, June 13, 2008 Owing to the confluence of an East-coast heat wave and the failure of a home air conditioning system, my son Peter, his wife Kristina and their two daughters lived with Mom and Dad again for a few days this week. Seeing Elena (age seven) and Natalie (four) bright-eyed and cheerful at the beginning of each day was a joy. It was also a reminder of how things used to be. With the last of our six children going off to college this Fall, I sometimes need to...

For millions of children across the U.S., this Sunday will not be a cause for celebration. Because of dramatic increases in divorce and nonmarital childbearing, about 28% of our nation's children -- more than 20 million kids -- now live in a household without their father, up from 10 million kids (14%) in 1970, according to a recent Census Bureau report. Moreover, because most of these boys and girls see their dads infrequently (once a month or less), Father's Day will offer cold comfort to many of these children. Our nation's epidemic of fatherlessness is just the most salient indicator...

During my 1960s boyhood, Father's Day was an awkward occasion. It required my brothers and me to express love to a man who considered such talk girlish, and who knew we feared more than liked him. Only for the sake of Mom did Dad and his five boys put on a Father's Day act. But after the death of my father last month, I understand that those fake-feeling gestures back then had conveyed a lot of truth, and that the expression of love between a father and his boys can be -- maybe should be -- at times difficult.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY, DADS!!! My Father When I was ... 4 years old: My daddy can do anything. 5 years old: My daddy knows a whole lot. 6 years old: My dad is smarter than your dad. 8 years old: My dad doesn't know exactly everything. 10 years old: In the olden days, when my dad grew up, things were sure different. 12 years old: Oh, well, naturally, Dad doesn't know anything about that. He is too old to remember his childhood. 14 years old: Don't pay any attention to my dad. He is so old-fashioned. 21 years old: Him?...

Inside the left's war against the family...and specifically fathers Eric Svane of the terrifically popular blog No Pasaran has done yeoman's service in exploring this topic. Here is a synopsis of his latest on the subject:Witch Hunts in Contemporary America: Is the United States Turning Into a Fascist Country? "Destroy the family, and you destroy society" —Lenin Like many conservatives, Erik Svane has been more of the optimistic type, thinking that lovers of liberty were winning the battle of ideas against the statists, or at least doing a pretty good job of holding their own. He found it therefore "highly...

Children of older fathers have greater risk of early death Men, listen up. No longer can you comfort yourselves with the notion that you can father a child at any time...Children of older fathers more 'likely to die early': LONDON: When it comes to fertility and the prospect of having babies, it has always been assumed that men have no biological clock — unlike women, they can father a child late in their life. But a study has dispelled this myth. Researchers in Europe have found that children are almost twice as likely to die before adulthood if they have...

Introduction. Who were the Apostolic Fathers? They were some of the first church leaders after the Apostles, whose lifetimes overlapped those of the Apostles, who at least in part had personal contact with Apostles, and whose writings have at least in part survived. They formed the connecting link between the Apostles and the church history which followed, which should be of real interest to us. These Apostolic Fathers include Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp; and in a broader sense Papias and the uncertain or unknown authors of The Shepherd of Hermas, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Epistle to Diognetus, The...

The news out of England is discouraging. Single women and lesbian partners will soon stand in the legal same place as fathers with the deletion of four words from British legislation called “The Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill”. The Bill had language in it which had been applied at fertility clinics to encourage two- parent, opposite sex families. Putting aside all of the vitally important moral issues of anyone ever even using a “fertility” clinic, and the horrid truth of the killing of the “spare” “embryos” which are “manufactured” in the IVF process, I write this commentary to address just...

"We are living in a new time, where people are behaving in abnormal ways and calling it normal…No longer is a person embarrassed because they're pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child" -- Bill Cosby, speaking to African-Americans at St. Paul Church of God in Christ, Detroit, July, 2007. As Mother's Day approaches, it seems a fitting moment to point out the truth of Bill Cosby's observation. Left unsaid but well understood by him: This "new time" and these "abnormal ways"...

Good fathers 'powerless against vengeful mothers' By Tom Peterkin Last Updated: 1:04PM BST 01/05/2008 Decent fathers are left powerless to see their estranged children if vengeful mothers are determined to prevent access, a senior judge has admitted. Lord Justice Ward attacked child access law after presiding over a case that saw a “vicious” mother falsely accuse her ex-husband of sexually abusing their child. He spoke out after telling the father that there was nothing he could do to help him re-establish contact with his daughter after his ex-wife turned her against him. The man’s 14-year-old daughter, who cannot been identified,...

Five defendants were driving from Howard Circuit Court when deputies arrested them on charges of driving with suspended licenses because of delinquent child support payments, said the Howard’s Sheriff’s Office. “I think they were shocked,” said Lt. Charles Gable, sheriff’s office spokesman, referring to the arrests that occurred Friday and Monday. “We got all kinds of reactions; the first person we pulled over was like, ‘Wow.’ ” The defendants are John Porterfield, 43, of Columbia; Denee Powell, 43, of Silver Spring; Riko Johnson, 26, of Annapolis; Craig Myers, 44, of Highland; and Renard Whitehead, 41, of Bowie. The maximum sentence...

Pre-Millennialism and the Early Church Fathers by Bob DeWaay In this paper, I will show that the earliest fathers of the church (before 300 AD) primarily believed in a literal millennium. This will be accomplished by consulting the primary sources, the fathers themselves, and other writings about the views of the early fathers. Those early fathers who wrote about this issue will be dealt with one at a time. Papias The fourth century church historian Eusebius considered Papias to be a primary source for the millennial views of early fathers. He wrote: In these [Papias' accounts] he says there would be...

Children Who Have An Active Father Figure Have Fewer Psychological And Behavioral Problems ScienceDaily (Feb. 15, 2008) — Active father figures have a key role to play in reducing behaviour problems in boys and psychological problems in young women, according to a review published in the February issue of Acta Paediatrica. Erikson's stages of psychosocial development Swedish researchers also found that regular positive contact reduces criminal behaviour among children in low-income families and enhances cognitive skills like intelligence, reasoning and language development. Children who lived with both a mother and father figure also had less behavioural problems than those who...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2007 – The National Fatherhood Initiative is looking for a few good military fathers for the 2008 NFI Lockheed Martin Military Fatherhood Award. “The purpose of the award is to recognize the outstanding efforts of military fathers to stay engaged with their families while meeting the military missions, even through deployments,” said Jim Knotts, Lockheed Martin Corp.’s director of corporate citizenship. “(It) helps bring attention to those sacrifices and celebrates the efforts above and beyond the call of duty to balance military duty with family obligations.” Though the award is given to the father, he added...

Boys 'look up to footballers, not fathers' By Stephen Adams Last Updated: 1:55am GMT 03/12/2007 One child in four does not consider their father to be close family, according to a study published today. More boys view footballers as role models than their fathers and only one child in 10 said they would go to their father first if they had a problem. Even among traditional families, fathers are much more in the background of children's lives than their mothers, the research carried shows. Family breakdown and long working hours mean fathers are simply not around as much as their...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2007 – Few U.S. troops have the opportunity to deploy with their loved ones, but soldiers of 325th Combat Support Hospital, a unit from Independence, Mo., currently at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, have two such family relationships within their unit. Maj. David Clark and his son, Sgt. Michael Clark, both natives of Manchester, Conn., deployed to Iraq together with the 325th CSH. The Clark family has a long tradition of military service stretching over three generations. This deployment will mark their second tour together, the first being a 10-month deployment to Kuwait with the 405th...

In order to better see where the fathers’ rights movement should go, it needs to think about where it has been and where it is now. For this reason, I present my own initial draft outline of the major phases of the fathers’ rights movement. Phase 0: Prior to 1990, few men saw reason for an organized movement. We had heard for some time that “it’s a man’s world.” In the US, and other civilized western nations, private issues – when they needed any government involvement – would be handled in court. Some men did see reason for men’s...

Ford has come out with a new father-positive car commercial for its 2008 Taurus. The ad, called "We Know," depicts a father looking out for his little son as he rides his bicycle, and then draws an analogy between the way the father knows how to keep his son safe and the way Ford says its automobile engineers know how to keep people safe. The ad depicts the father as being what the vast majority of fathers (and mothers) are--caring, loving parents. To watch, click here.Last year there was considerable controversy in the fatherhood movement over Ford's controversial “Bold Moves”...

Virginia E. Fisher  Other Articles by Virginia E. FisherPrinter Friendly Version   Where Have All the Christian Men Gone? My Conversation with John Eldredge September 3, 2007 Many men balk at the idea of going to church. Some resist the tendency in Christian circles to "feminize" God. Others object to how Christian men tend to be so tame and passive — more like women — and very bored. And so, it is perhaps not surprising that John Eldredge's books, especially Wild at Heart, have been wildly successful. Seeking to discover the secret of a man's soul, Catholic and Protestant...

When children get lost in a mall, they're supposed to find a "low-risk adult" to help them. Guidelines issued by police departments and child-safety groups often encourage them to look for "a pregnant woman," "a mother pushing a stroller" or "a grandmother." The implied message: Men, even dads pushing strollers, are "high-risk." Are we teaching children that men are out to hurt them? The answer, on many fronts, is yes. Child advocate John Walsh advises parents to never hire a male babysitter. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers rather than male passengers. Soccer leagues are telling male coaches...

As with all editorials LifeNews.com features, the comments are solely the views of the authors and not necessarily representative of the views of LifeNews.com.   Why are men reflexively treated as the fall-guy in the abortion debate? Recently National Review Online convened a group to opine what would happen in a post-Roe v. Wade world to women who might obtain an illegal abortion. The panelists reveal that before 1973, women who sought an abortion were not subject to criminal prosecution. So overturning Roe v. Wade would not fill our jails with post-abortive women.One theme surfaces repeatedly in the commentaries: feckless...

Columbus, OH (LifeNews.com) -- Ohio lawmakers are taking a different approach to the issue of abortion by proposing a bill that would prohibit abortions unless the father of the unborn child also provides his consent to it. The measure could draw attention to the lack of a voice fathers have, but it will likely encounter constitutional roadblocks. Led by Republican Rep. John Adams, several state legislators have introduced the bill that they say isn't intended to just make a point or be controversial."This is important because there are always two parents and fathers should have a say in the birth...

Poetry and lore speak of a mother’s grief, a mother’s tears for a deceased child. So perhaps the spotlight after her soldier-son’s death in 2004 was bound to be captured by Cindy Sheehan. For Pat Sheehan, the very private role of simply continuing to be Casey’s father has been enough - until recently, that is. In a blip of publicity Cindy Sheehan bowed out of her diminishing limelight, announcing that she would stop her activism against the Iraq war. In doing so, she declared that Casey Sheehan “did indeed die for nothing.” That statement ended Pat Sheehan’s silence. He called...

Father's importance no laughing matter http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/berman/422242,CST-FTR-berman11.article http://tinyurl.com/yrp9wc Dad may not always know best, but he knows far more than contemporary TV sitcoms suggest June 11, 2007 BY LAURA BERMAN Black-and-white sitcoms such as "Leave It to Beaver," "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and "Father Knows Best" constructed Dad as the center of the American family. The fathers in these shows did it all -- they were the breadwinners, the coaches, the teachers, the advice-givers and the loving guides who saved their children from danger. But if you turn on your television today, fathers on recent sitcoms like "Everybody Loves...

Picture a world where your father walks with you down a starlit road, pausing to point out Orion. He recites Robert Frost, knows how a battery works—and all the rules about girls. "The Dangerous Book for Boys," by brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden, is peaking on Amazon's best-seller list (No. 5 last week) by recalling just that world. The compendium of trivia, history and advice is geared toward preteen boys, but it's found a surprising audience in men in their 30s and 40s, too. The book's marbled endpapers, archival illustrations and dry, humorous tone ("excitable bouts of windbreaking will not...

When I had a son of my own six years ago, I looked around for the sort of books that would inspire him. I was able to find some, but none with the spirit and verve of those old titles. I wanted a single compendium of everything I'd ever wanted to know or do as a boy, and I decided to write my own. We began with everything we had done as kids, then added things we didn't want to see forgotten. History today is taught as a feeble thing, with all the adventure taken out of it. We wanted...

The following is a commentary from the Truth and Hope Report (http://www.truthandhope.2truth.com) Weekend update by Democratic Political Analyst Dave Screwtape Father's Day is a happy day of celebration for some people. For others, it's a day when their guilt gets the better of them and they buy the man a tie and place a phone call in order to feel less guilty about a year of neglect. For some, Father's Day is a source of pain because of abusive or absent fathers. My general opinion is that Father's Day is hooey. I didn't have a father around growing up, and...

Fathers deserve a special salute for all they do http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/06/17/opinion/doc4675cd32b9bbf793658538.txt http://tinyurl.com/2gq4t5 Sunday, June 17, 2007 7:18 PM CDT Fathers don’t always get the respect they deserve — and we don’t just mean children ignoring their pleas to take out the garbage or mow the lawn. On television and in the movies today, the theme seems to be “Father Knows Nothing” rather than “Father Knows Best.” Instead of Ward Cleaver in “Leave It to Beaver,” we have Homer in “The Simpsons.” A larger percentage of Father’s Day greeting cards lean toward humor rather than the sentimental variety more often seen on...

If you believe popular culture, the man we're honoring today is a complete idiot. You don't have to watch much TV to believe that. The dads who populate the small screen are mostly dorks, dunderheads or dimwits. Recent ads show dad as the ineffective homework coach (who only gets in the way, to his daughter's utter contempt), as the immature moron who gloats when he beats his small daughter at pingpong, or as the klutz who falls down the stairs. And wise, gently authoritarian dads like Howard Cunningham (Happy Days ) and Cliff Huxtable (The Cosby Show) are nowhere to...

There is a certain immediacy about motherhood that cannot be said of fatherhood. Nature goes a long way in helping a mother know what it means to be a mother. Ovulation, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation and breast feeding are natural and immediate experiences that teach a mother a great deal about the meaning of her motherhood. Motherhood is eminent, but fatherhood is transcendent. If nature does comparatively little to teach a man the meaning of fatherhood, his wife, his children and his culture must help to fill in the blanks. Nonetheless, secular feminism, the high divorce rate and abortion most emphatically...

The father factor: Fathers and sons http://www.antiguasun.com/paper/?as=view&sun=281935077507132005&an=410802067106152007&ac=Opinion http://tinyurl.com/38wf8g Saturday June 16 2007 Men become biological fathers in a moment. Not much is required except the right anatomical equipment and opportunity. The father need not love the mother. The father does not need a course in parenting, nor does he need to even desire to be a parent. The father does not always even know of his progeny. Nevertheless, each child born into this world has two parents, and one of them is, by definition, the father. For many men, that is where their input begins and ends. Children need fathers....

Elise Graveline Hilton  Other Articles by Elise Graveline HiltonPrinter Friendly Version   What Makes a Man a Hero? June 15, 2007 It is almost impossible to find a decent hero these days — our sports figures are regularly arrested, dress up in weird costumes or get married for three minutes, our civil servants lie to us on national television and allow their staffs to "put the right spin on it", and the movies offer up too violent a fare to present to our young people for emulation.  Where can we look for role models and people of distinction?I am...

Fathers of the zodiac tracked downAstronomer shows when and where his ancient counterparts worked. Geoff Brumfiel The MUL.APIN tablets record the dates that constellations appeared in the Assyrian sky. R. D. Flavin Using modern techniques — and some rocks — a US astronomer has traced the origin of a set of ancient clay tablets to a precise date and place. The tablets show constellations thought to be precursors of the present-day zodiac. The tablets, known collectively as MUL.APIN, contain nearly 200 astronomical observations, including measurements related to several constellations. They are written in cuneiform, a Middle-Eastern script that is one...