Ah, those media people…always up for generating a little controversy. Here I thought this was an article trying to say moms make better parents. This article just says that moms make better house guests when they get older and need to be taken care of. I know I’m a curmudgeon when I get sick, so might have to imagine old guys are less fun than older moms, but have no strong opinions in this area.

Just in time for Mother’s Day, the national poll found 70% of adult children would overwhelmingly choose their mom over their dad to move in with them if their elderly parents could not take care of themselves.

[From Survey: Adult Children Choose Mom Over Dad | digtriad.com | Triad, NC | Health News Article]

This happened to me a few years ago with a Yahoo! IM, but I changed my password almost immediately before it did much damage. This scam starts with a nice greeting from a friend saying to check out FBstarter.com. It’s amazing how such a short message is actually more compelling than a long Nigerian tale of corruption and greed. I dutifully, COPIED AND PASTED the URL in my browser and got what looked to be a login page for Facebook, only the URL was FBstarter.com. I knew enough to stop there.

Teaching a teenager to drive is as much a rite of passage for the parent as it is for the kid. But who does it better? Mom or dad? According to a survey from AA Driving School in England, the answer is dear old dad. In their very unscientific poll of 1,387 adults, 52 percent said fathers were better at the difficult task, while only 24 percent thought moms were better at the job.

[From Seattle Eastside Parenting Examiners: Who's better at teaching kids to drive? Mom or dad?]

This is clearly not a scientific study, or even anything beyond a controversy starter, but it’s funny that people are always trying to figure out which parent is “better” at one thing or another. I can’t even imagine this one really comes down to a sex difference.

And coming in at #2, …

GreatDad.com
In all seriousness, the manliest pursuit a man can make is to become a father. Not just sire a kid or six, but to become the kind of father that your son wants to be, or your daughter wants to marry. It’s not the easiest thing to do and is just as challenging as being a great mom is for women.
There are roughly 2 quintillion websites for being a great mom and maybe 14 for being a great dad. Here’s one that I would recommend. GreatDad has honest and compassionate articles on being a great dad. It’s one website you should add to your daily reading if you are, or hope to become, a dad.

[From The 7 Websites Every Man Should Be Reading | MakeUseOf.com]

Very nice plug.

Move over Octomom: We found a dad with 86 kids!
And you think Octomom has her hands full. The aptly named Daad Abdul Rahamn claims to be the patriarch of the largest family in the world. The 63-year-old Dubai resident has 86 children–and two more on the way.

[From The Mommy Files : Move over Octomom: We found a dad with 86 kids!]

Yeah, having 86 kids is a lot, but it’s not like he gave birth to them all at once, or probably actively cares for them all - how could he? That’s so many kids, I doubt if he can remember all their names.

I also don’t know if this statistic really says that much about his fertility…

This one hits closer to home since I was already 43 when w had our first.

A recently released study finds that children of older dads score lower on IQ tests even after weighing socioeconomic factors.
Australian and US researchers analyzed test results of more than 33,000 US born children born to fathers between the ages of 14 and 66. The tests included reasoning, concentration, learning, memory and speaking and reading skills, at eight months, four years and seven years.

[From Fatherhood Examiner: Older Dads Father Dumber Kids?]

The lead author, John McGrath says that he was surprised by the results, since a lot of the “blame” for DNA errors usually goes to older eggs in the mom. Luckily, McGrath says the “effect we see is very small.”

Despite my advanced age, my kids are still among the smartest, most beautiful and well-behaved on the planet.

Interesting article in Popular Photography on a study that shows that men and women, in eye-tracking studies, look at photos differently.

Our first question: Do men and women physically see the world differently?

There is some evidence that the answer might be yes.

A report from the Online Journalism Review made a splash in March 2007 when it reported an eye-tracking study that looked at where viewers glanced on a given news page on the web. When presented with an image of a figure, females most often looked at the face, while males focused both on the face and the crotch.

Funny enough for salacious blog posts, but the results may have been onto some serious differences in behavior. In 2000, Life Sciences published a Japanese eye-tracking study that found a marked difference between the gaze of adult men and women. When presented with an image, women looked for longer periods of time at fewer places, while men’s eyes moved more frequently over the image.

[From Do Men and Women Take Different Photos? - - PopPhotoJanuary 2009]

In big generalities, men tend to think in terms of physical dimensions, technical aspects and composition, while women look for the story. Maybe that’s why my wife, though she has a little point-and-shoot and has less technical “skill,” takes better photos than I do.

If you work in a large company, or even a small one, you’re likely feeling the change in power balance at work.

History suggests that when our economy slumps, employers gain an edge in setting the rules of work, thanks to the basic economics of supply and demand.

“In good times, employers may be willing to put up with things,” said Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress. “These are bad times. There are 10 people who can take the job you have if you have any sort of extenuating circumstances.”

[From Working Dad: Work-life balance is suffering from economic stress]

When things are good, and managers are afraid of losing good and even mediocre players, parents have more freedom to be there for their kids. The corporation and the bottom line doesn’t really care though if your child has a runny nose or if you need to bond with your baby. In down times, without stating as much, it will demand more of each employee, only noting when you aren’t there, or don’t produce.

Count this as another effect of the growing recession. Moms and dads will have to work even harder to be there for the family, making sacrifices even if both have good jobs and want to keep them until we’re out of this thing, whenever that is.

Scholastic Inc., the children’s publisher of favorites like the Harry Potter, Goosebumps and Clifford series, may be best known for its books, but a consumer watchdog group accuses the company of using its classroom book clubs to push video games, jewelry kits and toy cars.

[From Watchdog Group Says Scholastic Is Selling Not Just Books to Children - NYTimes.com]

While we like a lot of books Scholastic publishes, and their program to provide books to schools, it’s hard not to be quite miffed when we receive what is basically a toy catalog about three times each school year. When I was a child, living in rural Wisconsin, the Scholastic book order was my big chance to buy my own books. My mom would let me buy as many books as I wanted, given my track record of reading them all. Nowadays, the Scholastic catalog is a mixture of real books, novelizations, and just plain toys. Like everything else about parenting now, the Scholastic catalog means you have to monitor and censor. You have to go through every page of your child’s choices to determine whether they are a good choice for your child. Inevitably, there are disappointments and disagreements about what is appropriate, and even about what counts as a “book.” We address the toy issue by saying we won’t pay for any choice that isn’t a real book. No longer also is there a feeling that this is a way for a child to choose his or her own books. All of these books are available on Amazon and other outlets.

Given this new report by The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, we hope Scholastic will get back to the roots. They have a good thing going with the nation’s schools. They shouldn’t take advantage of the situation by putting profits over books.

“I thought it would be good to have a baby”
“I didn’t think about how we could afford it”

Unfortunately, in this case, it’s a 13-year-old who has become a dad as reported by The Australian.

The British couple, only 12 when the baby was conceived, hid the pregnancy from their parents until 12 weeks.

So far, the kids have been very responsible parents and are trying very hard. Still, I can only imagine all the stresses on their lives as they try to take care of a baby while still children themselves.