The Father Hood

It's official: Dads need a rebrand. The Father Hood celebrates the rapidly-growing tribe of hands-on dads who are discovering that fatherhood is the making of them. "The most important thing about being a dad is to be an example." Mark Wahlberg Welcome to The Father Hood. Where we celebrate the growing tribe of hands-on dads who are discovering that becoming a father is the greatest opportunity a man can have to be better than he's ever been before; stronger, wiser and more compassionate. But there is no instruction manual or benchmark for modern dads aside from one golden rule: keep showing up. With a mix of celebrity interviews - from Hugh Jackman, David Beckham, Osher Gunsberg and many more - as well as quotes and stats that capture the rise of the hands-on dad, The Father Hood is the guide to helping modern dads thrive and survive in the only job that really counts.

The founders of the groundbreaking website The Father Hood are here to help a new generation of hands on-fathers become the best dads they can be with this practical and inspiring playbook combining advice, celebrity anecdotes, quotes, and helpful statistics. Fatherhood changes you. It changes everything. Being a father today has never been more exciting, rewarding, or fraught. We are at the point of a massive generational transformation in which men are becoming both emotionally and physically present in their children’s lives as never before. Men love their children and aren’t afraid of expressing it. They want to be present and hands on in their kids’ lives, to be there for them while they are growing up (and beyond). They want to be better parents. The Father Hood is a celebration and hands-on guide modern dads want and need to help them survive and thrive in this, the only job that truly counts. Inside you’ll find interviews with celebrity fathers who are breaking the mold—family men like Mark Wahlberg, Ben Stiller, and David Beckham, who offer welcome and often hilarious anecdotal advice. Their insights are mixed with startling statistics, inspirational quotes, and poignant, universal lessons every dad can use. Written by three fathers who have nine children between them, this beautifully designed two color book with blue accents, illustrated with drawings throughout, captures the zeitgeist of modern dads who are redefining their roles in the family. Parenthood is challenging. This book will help today’s dads navigate their ever-changing, essential role raising their kids. Welcome to The Father Hood, where you can embrace it all.

Becoming a parent can be daunting . . . terrifying, in fact. This is especially true for dads. Where’s the road map? Well, you’re looking at it. This book from the editors of Fatherly, the largest digital brand for dads, is a one-stop source for fathers-to-be, empowering them to be the best parent they can be--with both confidence and joy. New fathers grapple with both practical and existential questions: Is my baby supposed to do that? How do I afford to make my family thrive? How does swaddling work again? Who am I, and what kind of dad will I become? Fatherhood is here to answer all of these questions and more. This comprehensive guide walks fathers through everything they need to know--practically, emotionally, and philosophically--over the course of the first year of a baby’s life. The content is divided by developmental stage: Pregnancy up to birth Infancy (the first 500 days) Toddlerhood (days 500 to 1,000) By offering data, anecdotes, and expert-driven analysis, the authors prep dads for what’s ahead, letting them know they’re not alone on their journey. Fatherhood is the book every father and father-to-be needs.

For too long, we've thought of fathers as little more than sources of authority and economic stability in the lives of their children. Yet cutting-edge studies drawing unexpected links between fathers and children are forcing us to reconsider our assumptions and ask new questions: What changes occur in men when they are "expecting"? Do fathers affect their children's language development? What are the risks and rewards of being an older-than-average father at the time the child is born? What happens to a father's hormone levels at every stage of his child's development, and can a child influence the father's health? Just how much do fathers matter? In Do Fathers Matter? the award-winning journalist and father of five Paul Raeburn overturns the many myths and stereotypes of fatherhood as he examines the latest scientific findings on the parent we've often overlooked. Drawing on research from neuroscientists, animal behaviorists, geneticists, and developmental psychologists, among others, Raeburn takes us through the various stages of fatherhood, revealing the profound physiological connections between children and fathers, from conception through adolescence and into adulthood—and the importance of the relationship between mothers and fathers. In the process, he challenges the legacy of Freud and mainstream views of parental attachment, and also explains how we can become better parents ourselves. Ultimately, Raeburn shows how the role of the father is distinctly different from that of the mother, and that embracing fathers' significance in the lives of young people is something we can all benefit from. An engrossing, eye-opening, and deeply personal book that makes a case for a new perspective on the importance of fathers in our lives no matter what our family structure, Do Fathers Matter? will change the way we view fatherhood today.

A group of former gang members come together to help one another answer the question “How can I be a good father when I’ve never had one?” In 2010, former gang leader turned community activist Big Mike Cummings asked UCLA gang expert Jorja Leap to co-lead a group of men struggling to be better fathers in Watts, South Los Angeles, a neighborhood long burdened with a legacy of racialized poverty, violence, and incarceration. These men, black and brown, from late adolescence to middle age, are trying to heal themselves and their community, and above all to build their identities as fathers. Each week, they come together to help one another answer the question “How can I be a good father when I’ve never had one?” Project Fatherhood follows the lives of the men as they struggle with the pain of their own losses, the chronic pressures of poverty and unemployment, and the unquenchable desire to do better and provide more for the next generation. Although the group begins as a forum for them to discuss issues relating to their roles as parents, it slowly grows to mean much more: it becomes a place where they can share jokes and traumatic experiences, joys and sorrows. As the men repair their own lives and gain confidence, the group also becomes a place for them to plan and carry out activities to help the Watts community grow as well as thrive. By immersing herself in the lived experiences of those working to overcome their circumstances, Leap not only dramatically illustrates the realities of fathers trying to do the right thing, but she also paints a larger sociological portrait of how institutional injustices become manifest in the lives of ordinary people. At a time in which racial justice seems more elusive than ever—stymied by the generational cycles of mass incarceration and the cradle-to-prison pipeline—the group’s development over time demonstrates real-life movement toward solutions as the men help one another make their families and their community stronger.

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Helen Fogarassy, editor-in-chief of the UNOSOM Weekly Review in Somalia during the 1994 crisis, describes the overwhelmingly positive effect of multinational intervention in the wartorn country. Based on her first hand observations, Fogarassy argues forcefully in defense of such humanitarian ventures, while simultaneously decrying the oversimplification of the Somalian situation by the world media. She demonstrates how our widespread perception that humanitarian missions in developing countries are doomed to failure is directly related to the images of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. While undeniably horrific, these pictures do not tell the full story of the intervention in Somalia, of the thousands of lives that were saved, and of the famine and social collapse that were ultimately averted. Fogarassy's provocative book is sure to make historians, political scientists, and policy makers reexamine the need for humanitarian intervention in other desperate countries.

Using an entirely new conceptual vocabulary through which to understand men's experiences and expectations at the dawn of the twenty-first century, this path-breaking volume focuses on fatherhood around the globe, including transformations in fathering, fatherhood, and family life. It includes new work by anthropologists, sociologists, and cultural geographers, working in settings from Peru to India to Vietnam. Each chapter suggests that men are responding to globalization as fathers in creative and unprecedented ways, not only in the West, but also in numerous global locations.