Magazines for Kids: Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, and Jack and Jill Posted by Oren Miller on 5/20/2013 No comments

I know we're a digital world, and I don't really have a problem with that. My kids could swipe-open the iPhone before they could walk, and if we're waiting at the doctor's office, you know it's Temple Run and Toca Boca time. But when I got an email about 3 magazines for kids, I immediately asked them to send me copies.

When I was a kid, I had a subscription to a nature/environment kids' magazine, and I remember knowing roughly when it was about to arrive. Every day after school, I would look up at the mail box, hoping to see the one piece of mail with my name on it. Because really, it was the only mail I got, and when you're a kid, there's nothing like getting mail addressed to you to make you feel like "you've arrived."

So I was very excited to try these 3 magazines, and of course, the day after I showed them to my kids, I ended up subscribing to two of them. I subscribed to Humpty Dumpty for my 5-year-old boy. It's aimed at ages 5-7, but I feel he's ready for most of it. He was a very early reader, and I feel like he could really get into the whole community part of the magazine (like sending pictures to the editors). I also got a subscription to Turtle, which is aimed at kids 3-5 for my just-turned-3 girl, because I couldn't get a subscription just for the boy. She still seems a little young for most of it, but she's getting there. And she called it "My book," which was cute and made my doubts about getting the magazine disappear. No one can say No to a 3-year-old girl reading a magazine by herself on the couch.

The third magazine I was sent, Jack and Jill, is aimed at ages 7-12. Maybe in a couple of years...

Each of the magazines has just won a 2013 Parents’ Choice Award from the Parents’ Choice Foundation. And here are some words from the email I got:

Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, and Jack and Jill are published by the nonprofit Saturday Evening Post Society based in Indianapolis. U.S. Kids magazines encourage children to strive for excellence and are designed to promote creativity, personal fitness, and academics among children in a format that is entertaining and engaging.

Can't argue with that. There are art projects, science projects, poems, comics, contests, mazes, spot the differences, and like I said, a sense of community. And the mail is addressed to your kid, which is the best part.

It's a little short, especially considering issues come out every 2 months, but I'm sure my kids will be happy no matter what. And this link will get you to a subscription form for $10 per year, which should help make your decision. I just got my two subscriptions using that link.

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Daddy Day Care Posted by Oren Miller on 5/19/2013

Brought to you in association with Oral B

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Differing parenting styles may purely be down to personality but some would suggest that they are perhaps partly attributable to the gender gap. In fact, many couples concur that men and women do indeed parent in different and at times distinctive ways.

Mothers tend to take the role of primary caregiver. Not particularly surprising considering the biological necessities of nature. As such, it’s not uncommon to hear a mother berate a father’s behaviour towards their child in a way that might not be markedly dissimilar to a toddler receiving a good telling off.

Mums tend to be more averse to allowing their children to take risks, which isn’t always because of a propensity to be over-protective. A mum may consider a certain activity to be an accident waiting to happen, whereas a father may view a potential tumble as part of the experience of mastering a new manoeuvre or experimenting with an unknown activity.

Dads tend to be less anxious to follow advice and perhaps more inclined to stick with what works for their family unit. Mothers may be keener to heed opinion, share experiences and follow an alternative formula for fear of being blamed should anything go awry with their offspring. Trusting in your own instincts can be a lesson well learnt from a father’s style of parenting.

There are several aspects of the day to day care of a child over which many women are reluctant to relinquish control. Turning a blind eye to issues of control, such as clothing choices, can prove to be liberating for all family members. As long as children are safe and comfortable and dressed according to the weather, it’s immaterial whether their clothing is coordinated.

Women tend to feel responsible for the running of the household, making sure meal times are met and bedtime is abided by. This burden doesn’t leave an enormous amount of time for having fun and veering from the straight and narrow of parental schedules. Routines are an important part of parenting and combining parental styles can create a complementary compromise that deals with this difference.

Children relish veering from routine. So make the most of this enthusiasm and inject as much fun as possible into everyday rituals. If bath time or teeth cleaning prove to be tedious chores, why not choose the best electric toothbrush to suit your child? Don’t grit your teeth, divert your toddler with a toothbrush featuring their favourite Disney character. Turn a routine chore into an excuse for fun-filled role-play. Dads are the doyens when it comes to diverting children and don’t seem to view a battle of wills as a battle of life or death.

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Famous double beds from TV shows of yesteryear Posted by Oren Miller on 5/19/2013

Guest post by Kevin Walsh on behalf of Sainsbury’s

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The bedroom has to be one of the most important rooms in any house. It’s certainly the room where you spend the most time. Most of us spend about a third of our lives in bed. If you add that up over the course of an average lifetime, that’s about 25 years. That’s a huge amount of time and makes you realise how important it is to have a good bed where you feel comfortable sleeping.


Perhaps unsurprisingly for such an important part of life, the bedroom and the bed has played a big part in the history of TV. One of the most famous double beds to ever hit our screens was that of Morecambe and Wise. Eric and Ernie used to set a lot of their sketches in their bedroom, which for some reason they seemed to share on a platonic level.

It’s funny to think that TV producers were for many years weary of showing people sleeping in the same bed. On legendary TV show I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball and real life husband Desi Arnaz were shown sleeping in two singles, for fear of a scandal. How things have changed. The same was true for much early TV throughout the 20th century. So, in a way, Eric and Ernie were trailblazers.

Other famous double beds include Del Boy’s leopard and zebra hide monstrosity (could it have been any different?) that occasionally featured in Only Fools and Horses. Much of BBC One’s long running My Family was also filmed in the bedroom (not in that way) with Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wanamaker desperately trying to come to terms with family life from the sanctuary of the bedroom.

It’s a simple fact that double beds play an important role in the lives of couples. To ignore them or pretend they don’t exist on TV just seems a little strange. Thankfully, that all seems to have changed.

Back in the real world, it’s so important to make sure your bed is providing the support you need. Getting a good night’s sleep is vital to our overall health. If you’re not sleeping well it can affect every aspect of your life. That’s why we offer a great range of beds, including mattresses, frames and bedding. Check out our range of double beds and think about when it’s time to make an upgrade.

This is a guest post from Sainsbury’s. If you’re looking for a great range of beds for your home then take a look at their impressive selection online today. Taking inspiration from around the world, they’re sure to have just what you’re looking for.

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The Solitary Confinement of Depression. #ForMarc Posted by Oren Miller on 5/16/2013 No comments

In 2006, I was fired from my job. I remember the joyful drive home--finally I was free from this job I had hated for 4 years, free to find a job I loved, one that would challenge me and inspire me. This was the best thing that could have ever happened to me!

Which was fine, until I bombed my first job interview. And the second one. And the third. I started collecting unemployment, but we were still struggling. And then, this endless cycle that seemed to go on forever: Send dozens of resumes. Wait by the phone. Get a phone call. Shave. Put on a suit. Shake hands. Talk about my weaknesses. My successes. Make up stuff. Smile! Don't forget to smile! Pretend your life doesn't depend on their decision. Shake hands again. Wait by the phone. Send dozens of resumes...

You think you know it all in your mid-30s. You think you've reached a point where nothing much can surprise you anymore. You think you know yourself, and you think you know the world around you. But nothing prepares you for depression. Nothing prepares you for that first morning you wake up and wish you could disappear, or not exist. And worse than that, nothing prepares you for the following day, when you wake up to realize you didn't just have a bad day yesterday, and that maybe this thing people talk about, this D-word, is not just something that happens to other people.

It lasted 5 months for me, more or less. Five months of feeling like I was a failure. Five months of feeling like I wasn't a real man, whatever that means. Five months of depression.

I didn't tell my wife, because real men don't talk about this stuff, and I wanted desperately to cling on to this self-imposed solitary confinement of despair, because I thought that if I weren't man enough to find a job, at least I could be man enough to keep my depression to myself. Hell, I didn't even tell myself what I was going through. Waking up day after day for months, wishing I could just sleep for 24 hours, and I thought it made perfect sense, and that everything would be fine once my circumstances changed. I wasn't depressed, I thought, just going through a rough patch.

Things changed eventually before I found a job. I started meditating, which made me calm, and I read The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, which, if nothing else, showed me that people have been dealing with the same problems I had been dealing with for thousands of years. And in the end, for me, that was all I needed: to be calm, and to remember I wasn't alone. Thousands of years ago, someone else had been there, pondering the same questions and overcoming the same self-doubts.

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Marc Block joined the Dad Bloggers group a little after the Dad 2.0 conference in February. He told us he was excited about the new blog he was starting, Divided Dad, and he invited us to read his first post, Being a divided dad.

. . . And why am I a divided dad and not a divided person, or a divided man? The answer is simple. I am a dad. And when you are a dad, that is what you are. And being a dad is way different than being a father. Being a father is a physical thing. Being a dad is emotional, mental, spiritual and any other “al” you can think of. . . . I am not starting this blog so I can tell other dads how to be a dad. I am here to share the joys, experiences, thoughts, insights and feelings about being a dad.

I read this post Marc wrote in February, and all I could see was excitement about his future as a dad and as a writer. I didn't know Marc when I read his blog. I didn't know Marc when I read his comments and posts in the group. I didn't know Marc even though he was my friend on Facebook. I didn't know he had been suffering from depression, and I didn't know he was going to lose that fight.

Marc took his own life a week ago.

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Depressed people often don't talk about depression, and this may be especially true for men. With me, even though I didn't talk to anyone, I still felt "cured" when I realized I wasn't the first person experiencing depression. With me, history may have been all the company I needed. Others may need your company.

Depressed people don't need your sympathy. What they do need is to know they're not the only ones feeling overwhelmed by the weight of it all. Depression shouldn't be a solitary confinement, but a path we travel on with our heads up, as a group.

Some of us in the Dad Bloggers group are writing about depression this week. Here are their posts. I will keep updating this list if more bloggers contribute:

Krazy Dad Memoir – Do Not Go Into That Good Night

Dad of Divas – The Time Is Now To Ask For Help

Clark Kent’s Lunchbox- Dump Truck Full of Dead Babies

Canadian Dad – The Day the Darkness Crept In

Dads Who Change Diapers – When the World Goes Numb

Dad’s a Lawyer – Words From the Wife

The Daddy Files – Come Back to Me

Dads Round Table – Strategies to Fight Depression

Be a Little Weird -- Recognizing Depression in Men for What It Really Is

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5/17/13 Update -- This post has now been republished on The Huffington Post: 
The Solitary Confinement of Depression. #ForMarc

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Dads Don't Trust V8 Posted by Oren Miller on 5/15/2013 No comments

Apparently there's a drink called V8. I've never had it. I've seen V8 ads, where someone hits himself on the head. I don't know why they do that, but I know these ads never made me want to buy a V8. They can hit themselves on their heads as much they want, but when I want a healthy drink, I go for water.

More to the point, I saw this picture on Dad on the Run's Facebook page:

I loved Dad on the Run's comment ("Fathers remain suspicious..."), and normally that's where it would end, but after I went to their site and saw more examples of this "trusted by moms" BS, I decided to email them.

So I emailed the good people at V8, because even though I would never be caught dead drinking one of these kaka-juices, I want brands to be more inclusive. It's not a question of boycotting an item I would never buy--it's a question of education and of them doing the right thing.

My email was nice. I mentioned the usual "trying to convince brands that targeting a certain group (moms), shouldn't mean completely excluding another (dads)." I also wrote about single dads and about two-dad families who may feel excluded by this "Trusted by Moms" slogan. I got no reply. Maybe if I were a mom they would have bothered, but I'm a dad, which to V8, means I don't exist.

It's great to come to a brand and say, "You will change your ways or suffer the consequences!!!" Unfortunately, that's not going to happen in this case. If you're strict when it comes to your kids' health, to the point of not giving them regular fruit juice, you probably know better than giving them V8. They're much better off drinking water and eating fruits and vegetables, after all. And the best part about it? Water, fruits, and vegetables are trusted by moms and dads!

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