Menstuff® has compiled information on the issue of Father's
Day. Photo above is by Bob Willoughby from The
Family of Children.

Source: www.bluemountain.com/display.pd?path=35174&bfrom=2&prodnum=3027480&
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There are a few dads out there you might not think to acknowledge on Fathers Day. Here are a few who go the extra nautical mile for their offspring: seahorses, reef damselfish, and believe it or not, sea spiders.
Seahorse dads are famous for holding their young in a pouch until they are big enough to pop out and motor away. Elsewhere on a coral reef, damselfish males do the housekeeping needed to make a nest. After the females lay their eggs, the males guard them and keep them clean until they hatch. Sea spiders, an odd group with leggy animals the size of a dime, attach sacs of eggs to the dad's legs, where the embryos grow until ready to be released.
And there are more heroic dads to be discovered under the sea. All these creatures play a role in keeping our oceans healthy, and while we recognize some of these marine dads on Fathers Day, its important to ensure they are with us next year and for years to come.
On Fathers' Day, we get a chance to acknowledge the father figures in our lives -- for the pouch they gave us when we needed it -- and now perhaps give them a little something in return.
There are more collect calls made on Father's Day than any other day of the year. - AT&T. (Why don't you call your dad and foot the bill.)
Give Fathers
a Break
Father's Day
Presence
Saving Each Other's Lives
Father's
Day - Awareness
A Teddy Bear's Adventure
at the Dump
The dark side of dad
Will History Repeat Itself? You Might
Change It!
Happy Mother's Day vs. Happy
Father's Day - 2001
Happy Mother's Day vs. Happy Father's Day -
2000
Recognition of Mother's Day vs. Father's
Day
"Happy Father's Day,
Dad!"
Fathers' Forum: A support group
for dads
Forget the tie! Fathers Day
Presence
A Gift Beyond
Father's Day 1999
Mother's Day
1870
The Mothers of Father's
Day
The 5 Scariest Moms
in History
Happy "Bad Father's" Day says the Fox
Television Channel
Fathers Day or Demonize
the Father Day?
Snippets
Greeting
Cards
Newsbytes:
Related Issues: Talking With
Kids About Tough Issues, Adolescence,
kidstuff, children,
fathers, fathers
& sons, fathers &
daughters, single fathers,
step fathers, military
fathers and fathers stories
Happy Father's Day, anyway, dad!
Tomorrow I'll think fondly of Dad. Which is odd, because I hated him when he was alive.
Dad was an angry, hard-swearing, tattooed man's man. He'd been an Alaska bush pilot, but by the time I came along, he was a California travelling salesman, drinking himself to death. When I was two he got drunk and threw my empty crib across the bedroom. When I was 12, he challenged my brother to a fist fight. He routinely shouted at us in front of our friends. By the time I was 13, I wished he would die.
And then he did. I thought that my wish had killed him, and for the longest time I couldn't forgive myself. I was scared to death I would damage someone else.
But four decades on, I've forgiven myself for hating him. More difficult, I've somehow forgiven myself for the Dad-like fury I inflicted on my own family.
To my surprise, as I became kinder to myself, I formed a more rounded picture of Dad. His anger had its reasons. His father died young, leaving him with a stepfather who favoured his own kids. When Dad was 14, his preacher grandfather hauled him in front of the congregation and viciously denounced him for teaching other kids the Charleston.
Humiliated, Dad ran away from home and joined the carnival, growing up on the road with hardened carnies. In middle age, his sales job was crushing. He was a brilliant man with a Grade 8 education, reduced to knocking on doors and imploring merchants to buy advertising promotions like imprinted pens and squeeze coin purses.
But Dad's biggest problem was that he never got in touch with his own pain, never learned how to process his feelings. Like many men, he believed the lie that "Big boys don't cry," so he refused to seek out friends and instead turned his pain into anger.
The anger kept shameful sorrow at bay. Swigging vodka straight from the bottle, he forced us to cry his tears.
This was the Dad I hated. But a funny thing happened after I forgave him. A different Dad returned from the shadows, borne by a flood of memory. I found myself recalling the times when he didn't drink:
It was evening at the river. I was five, and Dad was still young and strong. We were camping in the California Coast Range. Although I couldn't swim, I had wandered down to the river after dinner and paddled an inner tube out to the middle of the big dark pool. I lay back in the inner tube, gazing at the cliff that loomed above on the other side of the water.
Suddenly I slipped through the middle of the tube, and I was in the water, struggling. I sank into the cold dark water. As I resurfaced, I could see Dad running down the beach, tearing off his shoes and plunging powerfully into the river. Then I was under again, swallowing cold water, sinking into blackness ...
Then I felt myself being pushed powerfully to the surface, as Dad rose like a sea lion below me. I gasped the air, and was saved.
But he had swallowed water, too, and began to cough and struggle himself. "Dad!" I cried in a panic. He sank below me, and I again fell back into the black waters, gulping and sputtering, stepping on his head. As we sank, the murky yellow light of the world receded into darkness, with no sound but my thundering heartbeat.
I felt his hands grip my calves and place my feet firmly on his shoulders. Then, as in the game we'd often played, he drifted down and bounced back up from the river bottom, thrusting me to the surface. And then his tattooed arm was around my chest, towing me to safety. Keeping my face above the water, he coughed, then murmured, "It's OK, Cal. It's OK."
Finally we staggered on to the sandy beach. As I stood gasping, shivering and crying, he hugged me to his heaving chest. Then he went to the trailer to get a towel and wrapped it around me.
Later, as he heated hot chocolate on the Coleman stove he did the unusual -- he sat me on his lap. After a while, he turned the Giants game on the radio, and we sipped hot chocolate while the sun sank behind the cliff.
At the end of his life, I think Dad, like me, had forgotten that day. He forgot his goodness. I wish that, when he ruminated on his failures, he had been able to remember the good things. I wish that, when he thought of his years of unemployment, his bankruptcy, the jalopies he drove, his failed marriages, his destructive anger, that he had been able to recall that day on the river. Most of all, I wish he'd had a kind father to remind him of the good things about himself -- his sense of humour, his charm, his ability to spin a story for a crowd, his compassion for the unfortunate, his intelligence, his ability to make a day's outing with a young boy into an exciting adventure.
I wish someone had told him that he did not have to be a Man of Steel, that it was OK to be sad. I wish he had understood that he was no different from any of us, a mixture of good and bad. I wish he had realized that he could be forgiven, and that he could forgive.
The fact was, he didn't have to die alone in the Country of
Resentment. There was room for him in the Country of Love. -
Source: Calvin Sandborn is a professor of
environmental law and the legal director of the University of
Victoria Environmental Law Clinic. He is the author of
Becoming
the Kind Father: A Son's Journey.
Will History Repeat Itself? You Might
Change It!
What we'll spend on Dad: $90 million. On Mom $105 million (+14%)
How many cards we'll send: Dad 95 million. Mom: 150 million (I don't think they included spending on cards or both parents are getting pretty cheap cards and nothing else. (+37%)
Percentage of adults who eat out on...Father's Day: 23%; Mother's Day: 38%. (+39%)
Calls on: Father's Day: 140 million+; Mother's Day 160 million+ (+13%)
Rank in terms of flowers sent: Father's Day: 10th; Mother's Day: 3rd
Number of Amazon.com books whose titles contain: "Father": 3,289; "Mother": 5,585 (+41%)
None of those stories covered how those very newspapers treat father's with less significance than mother's in their own newspapers. In 2000, these newspapers gave Mother's Day 23% more stories and over 40% more space than Father's Day stories. Check out the comparisons. Maybe you're newspaper is represented and you could point out this disparage before they lock up their Father's Day edition. Just ask them "How Do Dads Stack Up in Your Newspaper?"
Sources: National Retail Federation; Hallmark
Cards; National Restaurant Association; AT&T; Society of American
Florists; Amazon.com
Recognition of Mother's Day vs.
Father's Day
Happy Mother's Day
vs. Happy Father's Day - 2000 (5/14/00 and 6/18/00)
In order to cover small as well as large cities around the U.S., here's a list of the local papers from our 20 largest cities plus five papers from the next 80 largest cities and 5 from cities smaller than the top 100 plus 1 national newspaper. I'm told we may have as much as four weeks before we get some of the issues so we will add our analysis as the issues come in. You can help. Particularly with Mother's Day issue from the Atlanta Constitution and St. Louis Post Dispatch. From the broadcast side, you would think a news organization like CNN would be better. However, in checking out their Father's Day site, it hasn't been updated since June, 1996.
This comparison will be updated as missing editions arrive. As of 7/4/00 we have 22 complete comparisons of a possible 35.
LEGEND: A - Access; AL - Ann Landers; BK - Book Reviews; C- Comics; DA - Dear Abby; F - Father's Day Issue; FPB - Front Page Banner; FPS - Front Page Story; M - Mother's Day Issue; MM - Miss Manners; MMM - Million Mom March; P - Parade Magazine; TA - Total number of articles (excluding blurbs and book reviews); U - USA Today Weekend Magazine. Inches - Total inches of FPS, FPB and Plus articles. TA - Total Articles excluding FPB, A, AL, BR, C, DA, MM, P, and U. NA - Issue not available.
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Access Magazine |
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Parade Magazine |
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USA Today Magazine |
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Comics (Yes) |
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Comics (No) |
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Comics Not Published |
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Grand Total (20 direct newspaper comparisons to
date) Father's F - Avg Mother's M - Avg M to F AL C MM P Father's Day Mother's Day AL C P Father's Day Mother's Day AL Father's Day Mother's Day C DA Father's Day Mother's Day AL C DA P Father's Day Mother's Day Father's Day Mother's Day AL DA Father's Day Mother's Day AL C Father's Day Mother's Day C DA P Father's Day Mother's Day
Atlanta
Constitution
Boston Globe
Casper Star
Tribune
Cheyenne
Tribune-Eagle
Chicago
Tribune
Cleveland Plain
Dealer
Dallas Morning
News
Denver
Post
Denver Rocky
Mountain News
Detroit
Free Press Father's Day Mother's Day AL C MM P Father's Day Mother's Day AL C DA P Father's Day Mother's Day AL C U Father's Day Mother's Day AL DA P Father's Day Mother's Day AL C U Father's Day Mother's Day AL C Father's Day Mother's Day A AL C DA U Father's Day Mother's Day Father's Day Mother's Day DA Father's Day Mother's Day Father's Day Mother's Day AL C P Father's Day Mother's Day Father's Day Mother's Day AL C DA P Father's Day Mother's Day C P Father's Day Mother's Day AL C DA P Father's Day Mother's Day Father's Day Mother's Day AL C P Father's Day Mother's Day AL C DA P Father's Day Mother's Day AL C DA P U Father's Day Mother's Day AL C MM P Father's Day Mother's Day AL Father's Day Mother's Day AL C DA P Father's Day Mother's Day AL C P Father's Day Mother's Day Father's Day Mother's Day AL Father's Day Mother's Day F F - Avg M M - Ave M to F
Houston
Chronicle
Kansas City
Star
Lincoln Journal
Star
Los Angeles
Times
Marin Independent
Journal
Miami Herald
Minneapolis Star
Tribune
New York Daily
News
New York
Post
New York
Times
Omaha
World-Herald
Philadelphia
Inquirer
Phoenix Arizona
Republic
Pittsburgh Post
Gazette
Portland
Oregonian
St.
Louis Post Dispatch
Salt Lake City
Tribune
San Diego
Union-Tribune
San Francisco Examiner
& Chronicle
San Jose Mercury
News
Santa Barbara News
Press
Seattle
Times
Sparks
Tribune
USA Today
Washington
Post
Top 20 Metro Areas
A - Access - America's Guide to the Internet. Not, Not.
AL - Ann Landers: M: Two letters, one acknowledging all the work mothers do while putting down the father for not doing anything. The other about an adopted daughter who sincerely thanks her birth parents, whoever they are, who being responsible enough to see that she has a chance for a better life. F: Ann Landers printed a gracious letter from a former wife and Ann acknowledged this and added her own ungracious bit "Never mind that the SOB was not a model husband or father." M = 45"; F = 28"-42"
DA - Dear Abby: M: Lift your glasses high in honor of all mothers. F: Dad: A scratch of whiskers to fishing at sunrise. M: 18", F 38"
P - Parade Magazine: M: Front cover with Amy Brenneman, "Thanks Mom" continued inside with "Mom Told Me Stories." 1 1/2 p "Trying to Have a Baby?" F: Al Usner Jr. 2 p "From Father to Son" plus snippet "This Seaman Is a Family Man: He's Father f the Year. and Kids Before Cash" on dads wanting more time with kids versus more money. M = 304": F = 223".
U - USA Today magazine. M: "Money Smart: Can You Afford to Stay at Home? (76") Blowing Kisses" (21") F: "Kathy Mattea sings dad's praises" (23"), Lorrie catches up with Tim McGraw" (19") M 97", F 42"
Want to help? If we
don't have your local newspaper listed above, get ahold of a complete
copy for Sunday, June 18, 2000 (Father's Day). Go through each
section: front page, leisure, sports, editorial, Ann Landers,
everywhere they might do a story on Fathers. Cut them out and mail
them to us at: The National Men's Resource Center, PO Box 800,
San Anselmo, CA 94979. Or, you might like to e-mail a short
review of each story (probably under 50 words each) giving the title
and essence of the story along with the name of the newspaper, to
fathersday@menstuff.org.
Then, if you can find the Sunday paper for May 14, 2000 (Mother's
Day), do the same thing for any and all stories about Mothers and
send it to mothersday@menstuff.org.
A good place to start looking is your local library. And, if you copy
the stories and send them to us, we'll do the analysis and publish
the findings above. Thank!
Do Fathers Talk
with Their Kids?
Happy "Bad Father's" Day says the Fox
Television Channel
Father's Day - A time to give love and thanks to all fathers, grand fathers, great grand fathers; day for all fathers to celebrate fatherhood and contemplate their sacred duty to provide for the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual needs of their children and the other children of this world.
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