Kick back and do a little reading

Another Father's Day come and gone - and with it goes the one time of the year where you can count on an abundance of coverage about fatherhood issues. There were lots of good stories in our pages and elsewhere. I wanted to point out some interesting reads for older parents, the best of what I could find from the Father's Day coverage. I should point out that I thought the overall coverage was good, with a little bit less of the cliched caricature of dads as the bumbling, emotionless, clueless shadow in the lives of their children.

Here are some stories that I recommend related to older parenting:

The Washington Post ran a feature by Philip Lerman, 51, whose son, Max, 5, is "on the spectrum" for autism, and how he is dealing with that. It's beautiful. Read it. Quoting:

"As I confronted the possibility that Max was On The Spectrum, the strangest thought occurred to me: If he is, then so be it.
I adored this boy whose main utterance sounded something like 'Joe Biden Go Baaden-Baaden,' this child who called everything "baw." Whatever he was, I would love him no less."

Lerman is the author of the recently released book "Dadditude: How a Real Man Became a Real Dad."

The Houston Chronicle's Claudia Feldman wrote about "A new age in fatherhood," with a subhead that reads: "Ready to teach and to learn, men in their 50s are reaping the rewards of having children and say it's worth the risks." Includes a bit of discussion about the "mortality issue," i.e. of knowing you'll be getting elderly just as your kids hit their prime.

And finally, Slate, the online magazine, wrote a story about fatherhood's effects on a man's body and brain under the headline :"Stretch Marks for Dads." Read the story and you'll find out that "evidence is accumulating that pregnancy and parenthood leave their marks on men's bodies. Women are not the only ones who are built for parenting, and recognizing that is good for fathers and the rest of us, too."


Let me know if you've seen a good story that we should add to this list.

Happy Father's Day, y'all

I hope y'all will check out this really nice slide-show we're running, consisting of 36 testimonials from readers about thier dads. Very good stuff here.

My first post when I started this blog was of a Father's Day column I worte a few years ago, which I am reposting for the occasion.

Enjoy the new ties, the cookouts, the ball games, or whatever makes the day special for you. I'm getting new tackle, and taking my son on his first fishing outing.


THE FATHER IN MY HEART
PAT GARBER

A few weeks ago, I found a picture of my Dad that I had never seen.
It has quickly earned a special place in my heart.
I don't value it for the quality of the photograph. It's far too overexposed for that. There's so much light coming into the camera lens that most of the details have been completely washed out. My father's face is almost completely lost in a bright flash of white that almost overtakes the whole frame.
But there's enough detail to show that he has his arms wrapped around me and my brother Scott as we stare, blank-faced, into the camera, as we pose by a tree.
The picture was taken near the home where we lived, on the corner of West End Boulevard and Jarvis Street, in August 1964. I was 14 months old, my brother was 2, and my father was 46.
Eight years after that grainy black-and-white photo was taken, my father died.
I have few photographs of my Dad. I like this one the best because it's the only one that I know of that shows the loving bond between him and me.
I know that bond was there, nurtured over countless trips to Tanglewood and the Nature Science Center that was once in Reynolda Village. My Dad, my brother and I did many things together, and I considered him my best friend.
If we had known he would be gone when I was just 9, I'm sure more pictures would have been taken. As it was, Dad was our family's photographer. He's in precious few of the family photographs that fill several freezer bags at my mother's house.
He was usually behind the lens, preferring to snap the picture instead of appearing in it. I still have the camera, part of the Kodak Retina Series of cameras, that he used in the last years of his life.
I'll be darned if I know how to use it. But I often wonder, as I look through its viewfinder, if we compose the world in the same way - as if I could look into this vastly changed world and somehow figure out some kind of universal truth that the two of us could see together that could be captured forever on film.
I'll never really know.
It's part of the mystery of losing a parent at such a young age.
Just as you could look at the picture and wonder about the ghostlike features that the sun erased 40 years ago, I can trace my life through time and wonder how things would have been different had my father been there for me beyond the nine years we spent together.
But I'll never really know.
I am a father, too. My son, Sean, is 3. Already, the pictures I have of the two of us could fill a freezer bag.

Don't be afraid to cuddle them newborns! Study finds babies soothed just as much by dads

It was a fluke of our daughter's birth that I got to hold our little newborn earlier and longer than my wife did - blame it on the pre-eclampsia and the prematurity. Those first encounters with the baby were somewhat intimidating, with her hooked up to all those tubes and wires. But despite the difficulties she had to go through to get into this world, I thought she was a remarkably calm baby to hold and was easily comforted. Desiree didn't get to hold the baby until the next day, so I was hoping that somehow a parental bond was being formed until she could recover enough to get to the NICU.

Turns out, I may have been helping more than I thought. A new study out of Sweden sheds some light of the importance of the father's touch when the mother is not around. (Full disclosure - the study focused on skin-to-skin contact. In my case, I was wearing a shirt. It's not like I was gonna go traipsing around the NICU like Tarzan when I held my baby.)

Anyway, back to the study. The authors studied 29 babies born by C-sections. The babies spent a brief amount of time with their mothers, then the next two hours with their dads. 14 of the fathers were asked to care for their babies on their chest, skin-to-skin. The others comforted their babies as they lay on a cot next to them.

The researchers found that the babies who were held by their dads cried less, settled down for naps earlier and were better prepared to breastfeed when their mothers returned than the babies placed in the cots were.

You can read more about the study on WebMD and Science Daily.

BabyQuest on MSNBC

There's a decent discussion about when is the best time to have a baby on msnbc.com as part of a special online series they're calling BabyQuest: The modern pursuit of parenthood. (A new story every week until July 5, on subjects such as "Will science render men unnecessary?" )

Here's a few excerpts from the exchange:

My wife and I met later in life and by the time we were ready to have children we ran into difficulties. After three failed IUIs and two failed IVFs we decided to adopt. We adopted our son from Russia two years ago and couldn't be happier.
— Jeff, Frisco, Texas

I had my first child three weeks shy of my 22nd birthday, and my son 16 1/2 months later. Sure, I was young, but it was the best decision I have ever made. I am thankful that by the time my kids graduate from high school, I will still be young (early 40s) and be able to travel and have fun. I would much rather have all the hard work behind me and be able to look forward to the days ahead with my husband.
— Catherine, South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

Also of note to dads, the site has a story today on the concept of women being "Momblocked." The idea is that confident stay-at-home dads are somewhat marginalizing their working-mother partners. I don't buy it, and even the story hedges a bit, noting that"it's still the norm for moms to act as the gatekeepers to fathers' involvement with their kids." But I could see where it could happen.

Would you take a fertility test if you could do it at home?

In news that may affect many older couples, the British company Fertell has announced a his-and-hers fertility test that lets users check for problems without having to go to a doctor's office. Much of Fertell's marketing is directed toward older couples - it's no accident that the testimonial on the front page of their Web site is from a couple, Emily and Nick, have the respective ages of 36 and 40. References to advancing parental age can be found through much of the product's site, understandable, I suppose, given that fertility declines with age.

To take the test, men have to produce a semen sample. Here's an explanation about how the test works from a press release from the company's site: "All the man has to do is produce a sample, push a button and twist a switch and he will be able to assess that he has enough sperm that can swim to fertilise an egg. He will get the results in about one hour. Fifty per cent of all cases of infertility are due to male factors and this test can indicate early on if there is potentially a problem with the man that indicates the couple should seek advice. This is particularly important given that many couples are choosing to defer childbearing until later in life.”

The female tests for Follicle Stimulating Hormone, better known as FSH. The male part tests sperm motility. Fertell has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for purchase without a prescription. Fertell's US web site lists a price of $99.99 for the couples test.

The company explains how the male test works here.

For me, I don't think taking the test at home would have much of an advantage over going to a doctor's office. I think I would just want answers, and wherever I thought I could get them, that's where I'd go.