Dear Mr. Dad: As someone who has been overweight for most of my childhood and adult life, I am concerned about my son facing the same struggle. I am someone who has felt shame while at the same time being uncomfortable talking about myself as someone with obesity – which, in medical terms, I am....Continue reading
Category: Parenting
The Upside and Downside to Paternity Leave
Dear Mr. Dad: My wife is due to give birth in a few months and I’m trying to work something out with my employer to take some leave after the baby is born. What’s a good amount of time to take off? A: Great question—one which, unfortunately, has no single answer that will work for everyone....Continue reading
Talking to Your Stepson About His Dad
Dear Mr. Dad: My parents divorced when I was a teen, and I had a difficult relationship with my alcoholic father, which impacted my self-worth and adult relationships for years. Now, as a stepfather, I see my young-adult stepson dealing with similar issues—especially feelings of disappointment and anger—around his deceased birth father, who was also...Continue reading
A Chore by any Other Name Still Stinks (but Has to Be Done)
Dear Mr. Dad: I’m sure this makes me sound old, but when I was a kid, my siblings and I had chores that we had to do around the house. My wife, though, grew up in a house with full-time staff who did all the cleaning and meal prep. Naturally, that’s led to some arguments...Continue reading
Parents Play a Significant Role in Their Children’s Capacity to Regulate their Emotions
“If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.” – Carl Jung, Founder of Analytical Psychology, Swiss Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst Attachment to Both Parents Predict Preschool Children’s Emotional Regulation A 2021 Portuguese longitudinal study measured the...Continue reading
Fertility: Not Just a Women’s Issue
Dear Healthy Men: My wife and I have been trying for seven months to have a child but haven’t had any luck. We’ve got an appointment scheduled with my wife’s OB, but I’ve been reading about how sperm counts around the world are down and I’m wondering whether our trouble conceiving could be on my...Continue reading
Hollow Threats: Doing More Harm Than Good
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
Getting to Know You: Why It’s Important to Tell Your Kids the Story of Your Life
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...
What to Do If Your Partner Doesn’t Want Children and You Do
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
Paternity Fraud
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