Minnesota Fathers & Families Network Blog

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December 3, 2010

Early Childhood Programs Get Dads Involved

Filed under: Early Childhood, Fatherhood — admin @ 2:36 pm

Across Greater Minnesota, the Early Childhood Initiative (ECI) is striving to get more children ready for success in school and life. The ECI sites are using a variety of strategies to improve parenting skills, expand early literacy development, promote childhood health screenings, and advocate for our youngest citizens.

The Minnesota Fathers & Families Network is proud to be a collaborative partner with the statewide Early Childhood Initiative. MFFN has helped train early childhood educators and child care workers about the importance of father-child engagement. We’re glad to see that nearly one-third of ECI coalition members indicated that they offer a lot of opportunities for fathers to be engaged. While there’s still work to do — this is a great start for promoting the wellbeing of Minnesota’s children, families, and communities.

Read the August 2010 report about the Minnesota Early Childhood Initiative, online here.

November 11, 2010

Sheriff honors fatherhood advocate

Filed under: Fatherhood, Violence Prevention — admin @ 9:54 am

Earlier this month, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, serving Minneapolis and its western suburbs, honored various citizens for their community service and heroism. The Minnesota Fathers & Families Network is proud to see among the honorees a strong advocate for healthy men and fathers.

V.J. Smith, of MAD DADS in Minneapolis, received the Award of Merit for his dedication to working with incarcerated men as a mentor and role model. His work on the streets of Minneapolis is helping to make a safer community for children and families. According to Sheriff Stanek, “V.J. has a big heart and he’s determined to reach out to people and help them return to the community as productive citizens.” Read more, here.

Congratulations, V.J., for this honor.

October 13, 2010

Women in Fatherhood

Filed under: Fatherhood, Messaging, Language and Discourse — admin @ 10:17 am

This fall, as MFFN travels around Minnesota for our 9th Fall Fatherhood Seminar Series, I’m reminded about all of the dedicated women who care about healthy fathers in every corner of the state.

Attendees at our training sessions include many women (and a number of good men, too) working in family services and the educare fields — these women are often some of the strongest allies for healthy fatherhood. I’m appreciative of their support for MFFN and their passion about promoting positive images of men in families.

Coincidentally, the national group, Women In Fatherhood, Inc., just shared their story about supporting fathers. Check it out, “Responsible Fatherhood: What Do Women Have to Do with It?“.

I’m proud to work in a state where we can count on strong women and men, working together to advance the field for the benefit of families, children, and communities.

- Paul Masiarchin

October 2, 2010

Advocating for kids and families

Filed under: Fatherhood, Public Policy — admin @ 8:22 am

This fall, Minnesotans have a couple of opportunities to show support for healthy kids and families.

First, on October 10, 2010, individuals and families are invited to join the 10-10-10 March for Children. It’s an opportunity to show support for public policies and decisions that enhance the health and wellbeing of our youngest citizens.

And then, on November 2, 2010, Minnesotans have an opportunity to vote for public leaders who are supportive of healthy children, youth, parents, and families. Have you asked your candidates about their stance on issues important to building a strong state for our children? View the 10-10-10 March for Children Fact Sheets for questions that you can ask your candidates.

This fall, we have a great opportunity to shape the future for our children. Join the March. Talk to your candidates. And vote in November!

August 30, 2010

Family law and healthy fatherhood

Filed under: Family Law, Fatherhood, Public Policy — admin @ 9:46 am

The Minnesota Fathers & Families Network is committed to advancing healthy fatherhood by working with professionals in various areas of nonprofit and government services including the field of family law. Family law ranges from marriage and divorce to paternity, custody, child support, and parenting time. In Minnesota, the family law system touches tens of thousands of families annually.

For MFFN, we have begun to define our strategy for engaging the family law system based on two principles of child wellbeing.

First, we know that, in most cases, child wellbeing is improved if both the father and mother are engaged in a healthy way. Thus, we believe that family law, when possible, should promote the involvement of both parents with their children.

Second, we know that, in most cases, child wellbeing is improved if co-parents have lower levels of conflict. Thus, we believe that, when possible, laws that govern families should promote solutions that seek consensus (win - win) and not ones that encourage conflict (win - lose).

Put together, we believe that — given a range of options — the best choice for a family is any option that lowers conflict while, at the same time, supports both parents to be involved with his/her child. Unfortunately, too many “simple fixes” for legal disputes fail to achieve both of these goals. Too often, family law decisions are unable to lessen parental conflict and in some cases exacerbate the conflict; in other situations family law decisions decrease the involvement of one parent (often the father).

Clearly, it often takes work to involve both parents with less conflict. We think it’s a goal worth striving to achieve.

July 6, 2010

Honoring Community Fathers

Filed under: Fatherhood, Male Socialization — admin @ 9:41 am

By Lowell Johnson

Who is your father? When most people hear this question, they answer with the name of their biological father, or sometimes their step dad. I contend that as important as primary fathers are in a child’s life, there are many unnamed men who are equally important to the healthy development of children in our community. These men are the community fathers.

What is a community father? Community fathers are all the men who show up for children at the variety of activities that kids participate in as they grow up. Some of these activities are organized, but other activities are spontaneous or informal, such as playing ball with neighborhood kids or taking a child fishing. Children are constantly learning and during these activities children watch how men interact with other people. They use this information to learn what it means to be a man, and hopefully a respectful human being.

Who are the community fathers? In one sense all men are community fathers since children watch all of us. This implies that men should be constantly aware of the model they unavoidably provide to kids. However, this does not mean that men need to be perfect individuals, because none of us are perfect. We only need to be ourselves, and try at all times to show respect for others.

Some men are very intentional about their community fathering, and it is these men who I would like to specially honor this Father’s Day. These are the men who researchers label as generative fathers. Generative fathers are men whose own personal development has brought them to the point where they believe they should “give back” to their community. Generative fathers have learned that they also personally benefit from showing up for the children.

These are some of the organized groups where you can see community fathers in action; Lakes Area Guys Network, Kinship Partners, all sports coaches, 4H, church activities, Timber Bay, Scouting, PTO/PTA activities, and a range of community service organizations.

Men who are ready to give back to our community can contact any of these groups to volunteer their time. Our children and our community need your help.

Lowell Johnson is a member of the Brainerd Lakes Area Early Childhood Coalition and a board member of the Minnesota Fathers & Families Network. This article is reprinted with permission by the author (June 2010).

June 30, 2010

A message about “father absence” – let’s be intentional in our language

Filed under: Fatherhood, Messaging, Language and Discourse — admin @ 3:01 pm

“Father absence” is a term you hear often. Usually it refers to the father being absent from the same household where the child lives. For example, “Children in father-absent homes are five times more likely to be poor. In 2002, 7.8 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared with 38.4 percent of children in female-householder families.”

But a father not living in the same household as the child does not mean the father is absent from the child’s life. In fact, much of our work at MFFN and in the fatherhood field is to say loud and clear, that a father not living in the home does not make him an “absent father”, invisible, or unimportant, even though our society often treats him that way.

Drawing attention to the importance of fathers by using “father-absent” terms can do a disservice to both fathers AND mothers. It fails to recognize the important role that fathers can play when they aren’t living in the home, and it often leads to blaming or shaming of single-female headed households. And we know that is not what many intend.

What most of us intend is to support fathers, no matter where they live or their family form. We want fathers to be supported in being healthy, active and involved fathers because they raise healthy children, build healthy families and contribute to healthy communities. We can recognize that it is usually easier to be a healthy, active presence in a child’s life when you are able to live in the same home every day as your child while simultaneously trying to make it easier to support fathers who don’t live with their children every day. Finally, we can–and should– support better systems, services and public policies for both types of fathers.

So, next time you hear the term “father absence” think: absent from what? A physical structure? Or a child’s life? Let’s not perpetuate the idea that the only way a father matters is by living in the same home as his child.

June 21, 2010

Shared parenting - A silver bullet?

Filed under: Co-parenting, Family Law, Fatherhood, Public Policy — admin @ 1:19 pm

For unmarried and divorcing parents, determing how to divide a child’s time between the two parents is often a gut-wrenching decision. Recently, MFFN made a policy decision to endorse a number of tools that would support parents in making this decision. We cite a variety of tools that could support the child, lower animosity between the parents, and enable both parents to be involved with their children in a healthy and active way (see more here).

MFFN does not support a legal presumption of joint physical custody because it has not been found to be the “silver bullet” to support the involvement of fathers in the lives of their children. For example, in Australia, parents that engaged in a child inclusive mediation often agreed to split time unevenly (with fathers often agreeing on less than 35% of the child’s time). Yet, these fathers expressed more satisfaction than fathers who didn’t have a child inclusive intervention (more here). We believe that families should be presented with various options and resources to facilitate positive parenting time decisions.

Currently, Minnesota does require a 25% minimum parenting time standard for most families. We believe this is a good start toward increasing healthy father-child involvement. And we think there are other effective tools that could be implemented to continue supporting families to make good decisions about co-parenting after divorce or separation.

June 11, 2010

A Good Opportunity To “Get Along”

Filed under: Co-parenting, Fatherhood, Public Policy — admin @ 12:27 pm

With that title, you might have thought I’m talking about our work around coparenting for parents. Actually, I’m talking about the fatherhood and marriage field. The President’s budget plan that calls for using $500 million dollars in fiscal year 2011 in a new Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Innovation Fund is a good opportunity for the fatherhood and marriage fields to assess their relationship to each other, and work to get along for the betterment of both. (For a nice explanation of the proposed Fund, see the posting by the Center for Family Policy and Practice, here.)

As a graduate student in public policy in the late 1990s, I remember the clear divisions between the “fatherhood” folks and the “marriage” folks. Unfortunately, despite a lot of good work, there are still some who want to divide along these lines, rather than unite to support a broader vision of healthy fatherhood and healthy couple relationships.

At MFFN, we subscribe to the notion that supporting fatherhood and marriage (and we would say, much more broadly, supporting healthy relationships, whether it directly leads to marriage or not) are not opposing priorities. Rather, in the words of pre-eminent researchers, “responsible fatherhood and couples’ relationship quality are closely linked rather than opposing priorities.” To quote: “qualitative, longitudinal, and now intervention research findings indicate that a man’s capacity to fulfill his role(s) as father is embedded in his relationship with the child’s mother.” In turn, for parents who live together, strengthening the parents’ relationship has been found to increase the father’s involvement in parenting. (For the full article, read “Policies that Strengthen Fatherhood and Family Relationships,” Knox, Cowans and Bildner, MDRC, here).

The President’s proposed Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Innovation Fund allows support for both fatherhood and healthy relationship support and education. Healthy relationship support and education supports healthy marriages. Like any relationship or marriage, the fatherhood field and marriage field may have points of disagreements. But let’s use this opportunity to find our points of agreement. Let’s show that we can get along, and support passage of the President’s budget plan.

Melissa Froehle
Policy and Program Director

May 23, 2010

Dads’ home activities proportionate to moms’

Filed under: Co-parenting, Economy, Fatherhood — admin @ 7:14 pm

A new study, based on 800 hours of video footage of dual-earner middle-income families, has been released by UCLA’s “Center on Everyday Lives of Families”. Among the findings are that moms still do more at home than fathers — but much of the difference is based on the fact that mothers return home first after work. The study finds that “during the time that fathers are home, they spend a proportionately equal amount of time involved in activities as mothers.”

The study also finds that fathers and mothers spend nearly-equal amounts of time talking with family members or on the phone (19% of time for mothers and 20% of time for fathers). This may help debunk a myth that men tend to be more silent or less expressive than women. However, the study shows that women still do most of the housework, according to the New York Times. Mothers spend 27% of their time on housework; dads spend 18%; and children spend just 3%.

The study reveals some fascinating information about stress levels in families, the benefits (or lack thereof) of providing allowances to children, and various other facets of modern middle-class American families.

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