This Week in Fatherhood: New Books, Worst Dads of the Week, and More Posted by Unknown on 12/18/2013 3 comments

This week (a day late and a Shekel short) features two new parenting books from dads, two contenders for the Worst Dad of the Week award, a story about a girl's first high heels, and another about a mother's guilt, and more. Hope you like it!

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Books

Kenny Bodanis, who writes the blog Men Get Pregnant Too, has written a book about what many men go through when their wives become pregnant. Yes, it's not just sympathy weight gain. The book includes some material from his blog, and a lot of original chapters with a unique perspective about what to expect when she's expecting. (Men Get Pregnant, Too. (despite never pushing a watermelon through a pigeonhole))

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Another parenting book comes from Whit Honea, who writes at Honea Express. Parenting is not just about discipline--good parenting is thoughtful parenting, which comes from understanding the underlying issues that cause kids to behave the way they do, and this phrase book is definitely a way in to kids' minds. By understanding what we're facing, we can react wisely. (The Parents' Phrase Book: Hundreds of Easy, Useful Phrases, Scripts, and Techniques for Every Situation)

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Girl/Princess

I wrote this guest post on Scary Mommy after my girl turned 3. I was working for a long time to turn her into a well-rounded girl, which meant pink princesses were my arch-enemies. But then, on her birthday, when she received her first tiara and high-heel shoes, I had to try to figure out if I was fighting a losing battle, and more importantly, whether this battle even needed to be fought. (The Sometimes-Princess)

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Motherhood/Guilt

I recently wrote about the guilt of working mothers, after watching a commercial that implied mothers were not allowed to have days off ("When You're a Mom, There Are No Sick Days"?). The guilt is strong here, and it's important that we know what's going on and that we're there for our partners. Working mothers have society and history on one shoulder, laying out the guilt, and us on the other, telling them they're doing more than enough. It's not easy.

In this article on Time, a stay-at-home dad (Dave from Amateur Idiot, Professional Dad), talks about the guilt that often strikes working mothers when they feel inadequate in their "natural" roles. (Stay-at-Home Dad: Why My Wife Is Embarrassed by Me)

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Video

Speaking of feeling inadequate (only the less damaging kind), I often feel a little inadequate as a father and as a husband. And then I see this video and I feel even worse... Still, great father and son duet. (The Mama Song)

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Worst Dad of the Week

The first contender is only guilty of being honest. A dad watched his son being stung by bees more than a hundred times. He was then asked what was going through his mind. And anything else I say will be a spoiler, so just watch the video. (Freak Bee Attack)

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But much much worse is Dr. Michael Niccole, who has named his adopted daughters Charm and Brittani, and that's not even the worst thing. Dr. Niccole believes in beauty: "Our cars are always immaculate, our house is immaculate and all our friends are beautiful." He performed plastic surgery on his daughter when she was 10, turning an outie to an innie. Because outies are gross, maybe? And now he still fixes their bodies, 15 years later, every other month.

Now, the thing that makes this guy the worst dad in the world is not the fact that he's the worst kind of doctor (plastic surgeon), and it's not even the fact that he's injecting his 25-year-old daughters with botox every other month, but that he has raised them to think they need it. (Plastic Surgeon Dad Turns Two Daughters Into Walking Ads for His Clinic)

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