“Those searching for a moving Father’s Day gift need look no further.” —Publishers Weekly Men like John Wayne and John Lennon, Nolan Ryan and Bruce Lee, Cesar Chavez, Christopher Reeve, and Miles Davis have touched the lives of millions. But at home, to their children, they were not their public personas. They were Dad. Maybe Davis didn’t leave the office at five o’clock to come home and play catch with his son Erin, but the man we see through Erin’s eyes is so alive, so real, so not the “king of cool” (he taught his son to box, made a killer pot of chili, watched MTV alongside him) that it brings us to a whole new appreciation for the artist. Each of these forty first-person narratives—intimate, heartfelt, unvarnished, surprising, and profoundly universal—shows us not only a very different view of a figure we thought we knew but also a wholly fresh and moving idea of what it means to be a father.
In this revised and updated copy of his best-selling book, Dr. David Stoop encourages readers to celebrate the positive influences their dads had on them and to make peace with their fathers for the difficulties and problems they may have caused. "Making Peace with Your Father" offers a comprehensive look at the role of the father, a study of father-absence, and a thorough description of the impact of abusive fathers. Readers will learn the 11-step process that gives hope and healing for relationships with fathers. This is a journey toward healing that all of us must take if we want to be whole whole.
Who is this that starts my life's journey to the place of uncertainty? It is he who loves and guides me into paths of the unknown; With arms of strength and hands of skill, Who is this that delivers me from the place of fear and rage? It is he who cares and forgives me on the road to peace. Who is this that leads me to the highway of victory? It is he whom I love, my Dad. - David Edward
The American family is changing. Divorce, single parents, and stepfamilies are redefi ning the ways we live together and raise our children. Many "experts" feel these seemingly inevitable changes should be celebrated; they claim that the "new" families, which often lack a strong father, are actually healthier than traditional two-parent families—or, at the very least, do children no harm. But as David Popenoe shows in Families Without Fathers this optimistic view is severely misguided. Examining evidence from social and behavioral science, history, and evolutionary biology, Popenoe shows why fathers today are deserting their families in record numbers. The disintegration of the child-centered, two parent family—especially in the inner cities, where as many as two in three children are growing up without their fathers—and the weakening commitment of fathers to their children that more and more follows divorce, are central causes of many of our worst individual and social problems. Juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and child poverty can be directly traced to fathers' lack of involvement in their children's lives. Our situation will only get worse, Popenoe warns, unless men are willing to renew their commitment to their marriages and to their children. Yet he is not just an alarmist. He suggests concrete policies, and new ways of thinking and acting that will help all fathers improve their marriages and family lives, and tells us what we as individuals and as a society can do to support and strengthen the most important thing a man can do.
In Forgetting Fathers, David Marshall weaves together the stories of his grandfather and great-grandfather with his own quest to solve the mystery of his family's past. Beginning as a search for his lost family name, Marshall attempts to understand the origins of his grandfather, who spent part of his childhood in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York. He also reconstructs the life and death of his great-grandfather, a Russian immigrant tailor who died at age thirty-six in a private sanitarium dedicated to the treatment of mental and nervous diseases. The narrative becomes a detective story that reflects on our ambivalence about origins, the relation between history and mourning, and the compulsion to search for life stories. Forgetting Fathers combines historical accounts based on records, reports, and public documents with autobiographical reflections and speculations. Included throughout are photographs, newspaper clippings, and facsimiles of original documents that provide a sense of both the texture of the times and the fabric of archival and genealogical research.
In this revised and updated copy of his best - selling book, Dr. David Stoop encourages readers to celebrate the positive influences their dads had on them and to make peace with their fathers for the difficulties and problems they may have caused. Making Peace with Your Father offers a comprehensive look at the role of the father, a study o...
The American family is changing. Divorce, single parents, and stepfamilies are redefi ning the ways we live together and raise our children. Many "experts" feel these seemingly inevitable changes should be celebrated; they claim that the "new" families, which often lack a strong father, are actually healthier than traditional two-parent families--or, at the very least, do children no harm. But as David Popenoe shows in Families Without Fathers this optimistic view is severely misguided. Examining evidence from social and behavioral science, history, and evolutionary biology, Popenoe shows why fathers today are deserting their families in record numbers. Th e disintegration of the child-centered, twoparent family--especially in the inner cities, where as many as two in three children are growing up without their fathers--and the weakening commitment of fathers to their children that more and more follows divorce, are central causes of many of our worst individual and social problems. Juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and child poverty can be directly traced to fathers' lack of involvement in their children's lives. Our situation will only get worse, Popenoe warns, unless men are willing to renew their commitment to their marriages and to their children. Yet he is not just an alarmist. He suggests concrete policies, and new ways of thinking and acting that will help all fathers improve their marriages and family lives, and tells us what we as individuals and as a society can do to support and strengthen the most important thing a man can do. David Popenoe is professor of sociology emeritus and co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. He is the author or editor of numerous books and articles, and as co-chair of the Council on Families in America, he was the primary author of its pioneering 1995 report Marriage in America: A Report to the Nation.
The author of Disturbing the Nest: Famiy Change and Decline in Modern Society reveals how the disintegration of the child-centered, two-parent family, and the weakening commitment of fathers to their children that usually follows, are a central cause of many of America's worst individual and social problems.
Introduces readers to the wisdom of the desert elders in the context of their daily lives, presenting their background (historical, cultural, and religious) and describing the environment of solitude, ascetic disciplines, labor, and interactions with other people that was the source of their wisdom"--Provided by publisher.
Inspiring portraits of gay men and their families from all across America. An evolution has quietly been occurring in the world of parenting. Recent surveys reveal that millions of children have found loving homes either by being born to, or adopted by, gay men. This book is a celebration of these remarkable new families. Gay Dads includes twenty-five personal accounts from men describing their unique journeys to fatherhood and the struggles and successes they have experienced as they raise their children. This is the first book to provide such an expansive exploration of this extraordinary new family unit. With beautiful black-and-white photographs of each of the families, Gay Dads is a moving tribute to familial love.
Many know the story of the Prodigal Son: how one wayward son leaves his father's home and seeks his own fortune only to return as a broken man, welcomed back by a thankful father.Author David Kennedy knows this story personally; try three times personally, as his three sons' journeys in life mirror much of the same principles and experiences as the biblical story. He recounts the difficult times and mistakes made as he and his wife Susan endeavored to raise their sons in a godly manner, and what God taught them in the process, in his new autobiography, A Bad Father.At its core, this book tells the painful story about losing priceless and fragile relationships, and the fight to get them back.Excerpt from Chapter 16: "That afternoon with Paul when I came face to face with all my failures as a father, I was indifferent to living or dying. The relationships with my sons, in whom so much of my identity lay, were already dead. And I had no way to resurrect them."Come walk with the author through a very personal journey of mistakes made, relationships lost, and relationships restored. David Kennedy is a businessman and entrepreneur, as well as a Certified Public Accountant and a licensed real estate broker. David and his wife of 35 years, Susan, have three wonderful sons and live in Colorado Springs. Although all three of their sons now live on their own, they still have two children at home: David's dog, Heidi, and Susan's rat-dog, Shelby.
An eloquent personal reflection on the fascination of family history and the desire to both discover and escape origins. In Forgetting Fathers, David Marshall weaves together the stories of his grandfather and great-grandfather with his own quest to solve the mystery of his familys past. Beginning as a search for his lost family name, Marshall attempts to understand the origins of his grandfather, who spent part of his childhood in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York. He also reconstructs the life and death of his great-grandfather, a Russian immigrant tailor who died at age thirty-six in a private sanitarium dedicated to the treatment of mental and nervous diseases. The narrative becomes a detective story that reflects on our ambivalence about origins, the relation between history and mourning, and the compulsion to search for life stories. Forgetting Fathers combines historical accounts based on records, reports, and public documents with autobiographical reflections and speculations. Included throughout are photographs, newspaper clippings, and facsimiles of original documents that provide a sense of both the texture of the times and the fabric of archival and genealogical research. One of our most gifted literary scholars, David Marshall in Forgetting Fathers has written an un-forgettable detective story born in a deeply felt, personal quest to solve the mystery of his grandfathers name. The result is not only an absorbing read; it is a profound testament to the human impulse to know who we are and from whence we came. For Marshall, that secret was locked a century ago in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York, and in his odyssey to findand turnthe key, Marshall becomes the living proof of Eudora Weltys timeless line, Remembering is done through the blood. Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University Forgetting Fathers is a truly remarkable piece of work. The pertinacity of Marshall as a reader, as a critic, as a theorist, impels him on his quest to learn all that he can about his past. The book is riveting. Jonathan Freedman, coeditor of Jewish in America From the Hebrew Orphan Asylum to the history of New York tailors, David Marshall weaves his Jewish family memoir with gripping details. An enlightening contribution to the growing body of research on the lives and institutions of twentieth- century Jewish immigrants. Mikhal Dekel, author of The Universal Jew: Masculinity, Modernity, and the Zionist Moment
The American family is changing. Divorce, single parents, and stepfamilies are redefi ning the ways we live together and raise our children. Many "experts" feel these seemingly inevitable changes should be celebrated; they claim that the "new" families, which often lack a strong father, are actually healthier than traditional two-parent families—or, at the very least, do children no harm. But as David Popenoe shows in Families Without Fathers this optimistic view is severely misguided. Examining evidence from social and behavioral science, history, and evolutionary biology, Popenoe shows why fathers today are deserting their families in record numbers. The disintegration of the child-centered, two parent family—especially in the inner cities, where as many as two in three children are growing up without their fathers—and the weakening commitment of fathers to their children that more and more follows divorce, are central causes of many of our worst individual and social problems. Juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and child poverty can be directly traced to fathers' lack of involvement in their children's lives. Our situation will only get worse, Popenoe warns, unless men are willing to renew their commitment to their marriages and to their children. Yet he is not just an alarmist. He suggests concrete policies, and new ways of thinking and acting that will help all fathers improve their marriages and family lives, and tells us what we as individuals and as a society can do to support and strengthen the most important thing a man can do.
A couple with children divorce. A court orders the father to pay child support, but the father fails to pay. This pattern repeats itself thousands of times every year in nearly every American state. Making Fathers Pay is David L. Chambers's study of the child-support collection process in Michigan, the state most successful in inducing fathers to pay. He begins by reporting the perilous financial problems of divorced mothers with children, problems faced even by mothers who work full time and receive child support. The study then examines the characteristics of fathers who do and do not pay support and the characteristics of collections systems that work. Chambers's findings are based largely on records of fathers' support payments in twenty-eight Michigan counties, some of which jail hundreds of men for nonpayment every year. Chambers finds that in places well organized to collect support, jailing nonpayers seems to produce higher payments from men jailed and from men not jailed, but only at a high social cost. He also raises grave doubts about the fairness of the judicial process that leads to jail. While Chambers's total sample includes 12,000 men, he interweaves through his text moving interviews with members of one family caught in the painful predicaments that men, women, and children face upon separation. To increase support for children at lower social costs, Chambers advocates a national system of compulsory deductions from the wages of non-custodial parents who earn more than enough for their own subsistence.
It is not uncommon to hear Christians argue that America was founded as a Christian nation. But how true is this claim? In this compact book, David L. Holmes offers a clear, concise and illuminating look at the spiritual beliefs of our founding fathers. He begins with an informative account of the religious culture of the late colonial era, surveying the religious groups in each colony. In particular, he sheds light on the various forms of Deism that flourished in America, highlighting the profound influence this intellectual movement had on the founding generation. Holmes then examines the individual beliefs of a variety of men and women who loom large in our national history. He finds that some, like Martha Washington, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson's daughters, held orthodox Christian views. But many of the most influential figures, including Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, Jefferson, James and Dolley Madison, and James Monroe, were believers of a different stripe. Respectful of Christianity, they admired the ethics of Jesus, and believed that religion could play a beneficial role in society. But they tended to deny the divinity of Christ, and a few seem to have been agnostic about the very existence of God. Although the founding fathers were religious men, Holmes shows that it was a faith quite unlike the Christianity of today's evangelicals. Holmes concludes by examining the role of religion in the lives of the presidents since World War II and by reflecting on the evangelical resurgence that helped fuel the reelection of George W. Bush. An intriguing look at a neglected aspect of our history, the book will appeal to American history buffs as well as to anyone concerned about the role of religion in American culture.
Meaning seems to shift from context to context; how do we know when someone says "grab a chair" that an ottoman or orange crate will do, but when someone says "let's buy a chair," they won't? Somehow, in spite of this slipperiness, we usually understand each other in conversations, and have straightforward ways of querying each other when we sense a gap in understanding. We seem capable of using ordinary language to communicate with as much precision as we are willing to take the time and effort for--through attention to interactive feedback, and the use of paraphrastic modification, specification, and explication. In Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers, Kronenfeld offers a theory that explains both the usefulness of language's variability of reference and the mechanisms which enable us to understand each other in spite of the variability. His theory is rooted in the tradition of ethnoscience (or cognitive anthropology), a tradition which promotes an ethnography of explicit methodology and mathematically precise theory while remaining responsive to the complexity of particular cultures. Kronenfeld accomplishes three things with his theory. First, he distinguishes prototypic referents from extended referents. Second, he describes the various bases of semantic extensions. Finally he details how we use the situational context of usage, the linguistic context of opposition and inclusion, and the conceptual context of knowledge about the world to interpret communicative events.
Gracious God, Thank you for helping us single fathers learn the lesson that acquiring new skills--in particular--is a required and ongoing part of being a single parent. All the manuals we read will never get us to the nitty-gritty advice about many practical realities. Little girls need their hair combed until they learn to do it for themselves. We are grateful, O God, when we can let go of the illusion that all parenting skills are innate. Amen. --sample prayer excerpt Pilgrim Prayers for Single Fathers is a collection of conversations with God based on heart-felt, real-life situations. Growing out of the author's experience as a single father and the experiences of other single fathers known to him as friends and parishioners, Farmer finds God's loving presence squarely in the middle of all the extra challenges of single parenthood. Whether life goes haywire, hopeful, or hilarious, he finds God's nearness as his source of strength and insight. Farmer, in forming his prayers as part of devotional moments for busy single fathers, intertwines Hebrew and Christian scriptures, other great documents of spirituality, and all sources of news and information in the modern media. Each entry begins with a letter addressing a specific issue and continues with a Scripture passage and prayer, concluding with an interesting or informative passage. The book consists of 30 prayers.
A collection of papers designed as a companion volume to the author's monograph "Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey" (1993). The papers deal with various aspects of how Philo's writings and thought were received at the hands of the Church Fathers.
The wisdom of the desert fathers and mothers lies in their experiences of solitude, prayer, community life, work, and care for their neighbors. Their goal was transformation of their lives through openness to the presence and energy of God in Christ. They taught by example and by sharing narratives and sayings that reflect the deep human psychological and spiritual aspects of their journey toward authentic human life. The venue for their transformation was the whole person 'body, mind, and spirit. They emphasized self-knowledge, humility, purity of heart, and love of God and neighbor. Far from being naïve, their sayings and narratives reflect honest struggles, temptations, and failures. They also demonstrate the disciplines of prayer and meditation that kept them centered in God as their only source of strength. The daily reflections in Desert Banquet introduce readers to a variety of these early Christian mentors and offer reflections on the significance of their wisdom for life in the twenty-first century. David G. R.Keller, an Episcopal priest, is adjunct professor of ascetical theology at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He is co-steward, with his wife, Emily Wilmer, of Oasis of Wisdom: An Institute for Contemplative Study, Practice, and Living based in Asheville, North Carolina (www.oasisofwisdom.net). He is the author of Oasis of Wisdom: The Worlds of the Desert Fathers and Mothers (Liturgical Press) and Come and See: The Transformation of Personal Prayer (Morehouse Publishing).
From Clement to Origen addresses the engagement of a number of pre-Nicene Church Fathers with the surrounding culture. David Rankin considers the historical and social context of the Fathers, grouped in cities and regions, their writings and theological reflections, and discusses how the particular engagement of each with major aspects of the surrounding culture influences, informs and shapes their thought and the articulation of that thought. The social and historical context of the Church Fathers is explored with respect to the Roman state, the imperial office and imperial cult, Greco-Roman class structures and the patron-client system, issues of wealth production and other commercial activity, the major philosophical thinkers in antiquity, and to rhetorical theory and practice and the higher learning of the day.
With popular hits like Dear God: Children's Letters to God and Growing Up Isn't Hard to Do If You Start Out as a Kid, psychologist Heller has proven that kids really do say the darndest (and wisest) things. In time for Father's Day, this delightful collection contains witty comments from children on the subject of fathers. 12 full-color illustrations.
An examination of the pedophile scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church assesses the implications of the crisis, explaining why the Church knowingly covered up decades of abuse and discussing how it has responded.
Once considered the black sheep of America's publications, The National Enquirer is celebrated on the eve of its 60th anniversary by Pope's powerful biography of its creators, the family patriarchs.
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