Dear Mr. Dad: My husband and I have a 5-year-old son who spends a great deal of time pushing boundaries—and our buttons. The three of us were recently shopping at a giant hardware store and our son was tearing around, picking everything up and playing with it. We told him over and over to stop...Continue reading
Dear Mr. Dad: My mother passed away several years ago and my father suffers from dementia. They were great parents and are definitely role models for me as I father my own children (ages 7, 12, and 16). The problem is that when my kids ask me questions about their grandparents, I barely have any...
There’s no question that parents’ mental health is an excellent predictor of their children’s mental health; children of parents suffering from anxiety and/or depression are far more likely to be diagnosed with the same conditions. Unfortunately, most of the research done on parental mental-health influences has focused exclusively or primarily on mothers. As a result,...Continue reading
Feeling like you desperately want to have kids while your partner doesn’t may put a lot of strain on your relationship. Some people may harbor more or less irrational fears or negative attitudes towards parenting. In most cases, some myth-busting or consultations with professionals may get to the root of the problem. However, this is a...Continue reading
Dear Mr. Dad: I’m in the early stages of what is going to be a very contested divorce. One of the core issues is that my soon-to-be-ex-wife admitted that she’s been having an affair for the past four years. As if that weren’t bad enough, we have two children that were born during that time...Continue reading
Dear Mr. Dad: I don’t know how to put this nicely, but my seven-year-old son is a liar, a cheater, and a thief. He fibs—usually straight to my face—every chance he gets, and after several recent trips to grocery stores, I found that he’d stolen some small items. What have my wife and I done...Continue reading
Dear Mr. Dad: I’m in my 60s and have been thinking about retiring from the small-ish company that my great-grandfather founded nearly 100 years (I’m the CEO). We made it through the COVID pandemic, and I’ve been thinking a lot about retiring and bringing my adult children in to learn the ropes. This isn’t exactly...Continue reading
Dear Mr. Dad: I recently got remarried and really want to make my relationship with my new wife a success. One of the things I love about her is that she’s a great mother. I really like her kids 7 and 11), but ever since we got married, they treat me horribly. They’re rude, refuse...Continue reading
Dear Healthy Men: I can’t stand the music my kids play (and yes, I realize that my parents said the same about me, and their parents said the same about them, and so on. But the difference is that my kids have sent me links to articles that supposedly prove that listening to music (they’re...Continue reading
Dear Healthy Men: I just read that the United States is one of the only industrialized countries in the world without a paid maternity leave program. Where do you stand on that issue? A: We support it—and we’re glad to see that President Joe Biden and others in his administration have come out in support of...Continue reading