Dear Mr. Dad: My wife and I desperately want to be parents. But after years of trying and tens of thousands spent on fertility treatments, our doctor is telling us that we should either consider using donor sperm or eggs or adopt. We’re considering those options, but I’m finding this whole thing rather emasculating and...Continue reading
For young children, those first Halloweens can be lots of fun—wearing costumes, staying up late, counting their haul of candy, and sneaking extra pieces when parents aren’t looking. But Halloween also worries me a bit because I’ve seen how easy it is for kids to mistake medicines for candies. As a dad, I know that...Continue reading
We all want nothing more than to be understood. But for some kids, that isn’t as easy as it seems. Learning and attention issues are much more common in children than most people realize. In fact, in the U.S., 1 in 5 children struggles with brain-based learning and attention issues that affect reading, writing, math,...Continue reading
Dear Mr. Dad: This may sound dramatic, but I’m hoping you can help save my mom’s life. She’s constantly on her phone, talking or texting, while she’s driving. I’m only 13 and I’ve tried telling her to stop but she says she has it under control and says I should be quiet. She’s cut out...Continue reading
For many decades, conventional wisdom told us that when it came to child development, mothers were the most important parent. Fathers, apparently, weren’t good for much more than piggybacks, reading an occasional bedtime story, and, of course, discipline. Researchers who studied child development bought into that conventional wisdom and rarely bothered to investigate whether dads...Continue reading
Dear Mr. Dad: My wife and I are in the midst of what’s turning out to be a rather unpleasant divorce. We can’t stand to be anywhere near each other and conversations are pretty much impossible. The only thing we agree on (besides that we shouldn’t be married anymore) is that our kids need both...Continue reading
It is natural to dismiss dangers that are rarely seen. That has become our present circumstance with respect to many devastating infectious diseases. Since medicine has made significant progress against its former greatest adversaries, complacent beliefs have flourished. Surprisingly, a new malady has arisen and we are now suffering from a growing amnesia regarding the...Continue reading
“Less is more.” Is there a better description for the modernist architectural style of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe? His Barcelona Pavilion is one of the world’s most exquisite examples of architecture as sculpture, akin to the Parthenon in Greece, or the Pantheon in Rome. It simply works. It also reminds us of how complex “less”...Continue reading
Gendered expectations in marriage are not just bad for women, they are also bad for men, according to a new study by University of Connecticut (UConn) sociologists. Using data on the same nationally representative group of married men and women over 15 years, the authors examined the relationship between men’s and women’s relative income contributions...Continue reading
Truth be told. No fairy tales here. Gotta believe that biology always wins. I was reminded of this as Kevin Richardson, the Backstreet Boys star of our movie If I Could Tell You, recently revealed his own infertility journey. Given his great performance in the film, it’s no surprise he came into it guns loaded with emotional ammo. Sex...Continue reading