Atomic Fusion

Imagine a father so strong and filled with character that he is the man of the house for both his daughter and his daughter's daughters. That's the story of Pamela Gwyn Kripke, who tells the tale of the dad she lost in the New York Times "Motherlode" blog.

The girls' father is on his fourth marriage and in the neighborhood. However, their grandfather — the one whose memory causes their mom to tear up almost every time it reappears — is the male presence in the house she cultivates.

In her childhood, Kripke always believed her father's morning wake up was a call for her to "up an atom." And so

"The phrase finds me when I need extra encouragement, which seems often, these days. It gives just enough of a jolt, and it makes me smile. It is also how we start our day in our girl house with the pink door. “Up an’ atom,” I call into each room. Time to get going.

Now there's a legacy.

Putt Putt Yuk Yuk

Ah yes, the universe has its jokes. The latest is that Tiger Woods new audiobook, something or other about golf, is timed for release on father's day. Of course, by that time if the various tabloids are to be believed, he could no longer be with his kids.

Drop Your Weapon

Can it really be true that one in five divorcing spouses (women, it seems from a recent article on why dads often get "the blame") admit to using the kids and custody as a weapon?

The only good news from that line of questioning is that if it is a weapon, it seems to be losing its effectiveness as courts are more likely to make sure fathers receive equal time with the kids and (in learning valuable lessons from unfortunate circumstances) second-time-around divorcers are smarter about making sure they get their time with their kids.

Stats on Richer and Happier

Statistics compiled by the Australian Institute of Family Studies suggest fathers are richer but not happier after divorce. Once again, however, it is the individual cases that really tell the tale.

For example, at least from the outside it is hard to think that the divorced Michael Lohan [Earlier: Wild or Too Mild?] and d-to-be Jon Gosselin [Earlier: J&K+8-K=A Better Idea]are happier, but perhaps not richer — as they now pitch a reality show based on their own scummaledivorcee adventures.

Also richer post divorce is the Melbourne pop whose daughter nabbed him a quickie divorce as he lay dying. We dare the accountants to prove his is also the happier life now.

Disentangling for Dadding

While it is complicated to be "the father" when one is not biologically or geographically completely in the child's life it is still important and necessary to DAD UP!

Among men showing the way are actor Jude Law (father currently of three with an ex-), who pledges to also be a big part of the life of the child conceived with last year's fling. There is also writer Gary Blitt who found himself in the ironic situation of not wanting to be a dad, agreeing to be a dad and then finding himself infertile ... before agreeing/encouraging the "adoption" of a sperm donor dad and finally finding himself more and more in love with his new daughter.

The reason it is important to have role models for difficult situations is so that fathers facing the seemingly intractable can have hope — no matter how hopeless the situation appears or how intricately woven the obstacles seem — that they will be able to find their way to happy fatherhood. Currently, poor baby William needs all his "fathers" to figure out how to live for him. In the British boy's case, there is the husband of the surrogate mom who needs to find his place; and then there's the brother of SM, who asked her to carry the sperm of his lover (and here is where it gets even more complicated) who he is trying to marry, assuming he and his lover can get divorces from the men they previously married, who were both "cuckolded" by an affair that all began over a shared love of dogs.

Complicated? Sure, but not without some hope if they'll all just DU.

Sometimes Pops Get Happy Endings, Too

Kids in real life and adolescents (and 20-somethings) in love get stories with happy endings, but dads rarely do. However, it does happen sometimes and at least a few of those times should be noted, if for no other reason than as balance to all the tales of daddy woes.

Jones Creek, Texas, dad and grandad K.M. Watson got a chance to look his baby in the eye, just 43 years after she was born. His teenage sweetheart, pregnant with his child, was sent away from him and gave birth to a daughter who would be adopted and whisked away eight days later. After years of search and both father and daughter starting other families of their own, they finally got a chance to meet up in an airport lobby. The result, as the father tells the story, "I just found my daughter,” he said, crying openly. “I looked for her for 43 years. I’ve got all my babies. I’ve got all of my children with me now. My family is complete."

Mizzou men will also be getting some good news, thanks to changes in state law regarding father's rights. Dads who want to stay in touch are given second (and maybe third chances) before being separated from their kids and DNA results will be accepted in new ways to let some guys off the hook who aren't ready to step up and take responsibility for kids who aren't biologically theirs. Happy endings, both.

Along those lines, changes to the law and in social attitudes have provided many more divorced men with a much more fulfilling time with their children than they ever would have had during the marriage that failed. And that is perhaps the most dream-comes-true ending of all.

An FD FU

Jane Allison sends out an early "screw you both" father's day greeting to her two dads. Not that one can be wholly unsympathetic to her reasons.

Allison's memoir, The Sisters Antipodes, explains the effects of her dads switching families when she was four. Was she hurt? Emotionally scarred for life? Can she write about how her dads thinking of themselves never found as much time as she needed for thinking about her? Yep to all.

Note to dads: beware the writerly child.

J&K+8 - K = A Better Idea

Assuming all the paparazzi-media brouhaha over TLC's Jon and Kate Plus 8 is true and the Gosselins [Earlier: Ultimate Fictional (Fathering) Championship] are goners, marriage-wise, "Could it soon be just Kate Plus 8?" is still not an acceptable lede. As noted more than once a particularly memorable episode of "real life" for the family of eight showed wife Kate criticizing no-prize Jon for breathing.

Is there any way American can be asked to vote to kick her off the reality island and have father OctoJon take care of the twins and sextuplets? If by chance any of the five daughters comes forward years from now to claim a parent was really the Zodiac killer who terrorized the San Francisco area years ago, for example, is there anyone who doesn't believe that she would be fingering Kate? (She is certainly the more annoying one in the eyes of Thing 2, a big J&K+8 fan.)

Hopefully, joint custody can be worked out — or whatever is best for the 8 — but the automatic assumption (and even after seeing her on television and knowing that she spends most of her time promoting herself through books and speeches?!) that the mom automatically should get the kids is somewhere between insulting to dads and just plain stupid.

Courting Disaster

From the Island Staten, between New York and New Jersey, comes a series of articles on the dire situation fathers often face when it comes to gaining custody (or even visitation) as a family breaks up. Dads sometimes do win, but there is nearly as large a cost to winning as to losing. If only we could go back to the good old days when dads were always in control.

This isn't to suggest that only Staten Island courts disfavor the father. The bureaucracy is to vast and and soul sucking and arbitrary about whether or not a man can keep his kids that it not only harms the good guys, it can make a man who names his kid Adolf Hitler [Earlier: Naming Rights], New Jersey's Heath Campbell into a nearly sympathetic character.

Time In

Time is ticking away. It can be ignored, but it can't be helped.

Moments and minutes with kids become memories. More moments and minutes are worth fighting for and savoring. But there is work to do in order to give them the best life, a conflict that when studied in Australia (as reported by The Canberra Times) showed that, "About 50 per cent of middle-aged men wanted to work fewer hours, she said, but were trapped into thinking that they needed to work long hours to have a good career and provide for the family."

It is true that dads may have more opportunities to spend time with their kids than many people think. Even divorced dads have the opportunities to spend more time with their kids than they sometimes take, although it is important that they be willing to work time with their children out in court with their former partner rather than spend more pleasant time sitting around beers with the boys complaining about not being with their kids.

On the one hand find the balance in your life. So that it can even make sense that you celebrate the surprising love you have with your daughter, as journalist Ed Gordon does, by heading off on a national tour away from her. On the other, remember the balance of your kids' lives as they want more time with you.

Of course, even as the hands on the clock keeps moving and taking time away from you and your offspring, there are still going to be moments when you just need to get away if only to enjoy coming back:

Teen Time

Love the child, not necessarily the behavior. Thus the mantra of the dad of teenagers, girls especially, but boys too.

From Thing 1 come the eye-rolls and exclamations that I neither know anything nor am capable of learning what's important whether it is about match, science, writing, clothing, music or what's good and what's dangerous in possible liaisons with potential boyfriends. From Thing 2 comes the sullen sulkiness that marks burning hostility to even the best of suggestion. No, screamed, shrill dramatic "I hate you"s and slammed doors. But I suppose I'll have to face those as well ... there are too many teen years left.

When I read there's a girl out there whose dad doesn't go to her soccer games and she wants him to know it hurts that he doesn't talk to her, all I can think is how to get in touch with the anonymous she and have her talk to my daughters. I'd love to talk with them — if only they could find the time and actual patience to listen to me and talk (quietly) back and only to me, not at the same time to their cell friends and IMfriends and textfriends and probably other electronic friends I can't identify.

I suppose it's good to learn that I am not alone, that every teenage girl (and boy) has within their job description the task of trying to grind dad into the ground and expecting him to listen up and respond in her best interest. But even as misery may love company, it's still miserable.

Natch, it could be worse. There are those dads who are in court fighting another adult related to their child to get time for their kids and those who have given up and have to be reminded what it is important.

But it's painful. I wonder how bad it will get when I look at these as "the good old days."

Children Children

Sixty-one years separate father Sir "the cute Beatle" Paul and 4-year-old daughter Beatrice Milly. Oh, and her mom, Heather, who he's in the process of divorcing. What will that mean for their relationship?

Sir Paul is said to want equal visiting rights concerning the child being pulled by both mother and father. And, as son James returns to the fold after spatting with Pa over his soon-to-be-ex, the children of his earlier marriage — adopted daughter potter Heather Louise; photographer, TV personality Mary Anna; and couturier Stella Nina — he seems to deserve some props as a pop.

But the world has changed since is other kids were young — the oldest two are older than Ms. Mills — and at least for the time being (although rumors do abound) he will be sharing his time with his young daughter with the benefit of oodles of money and some time on his hand, but not necessarily the support staff he had when bringing up her step-siblings.

** Hopefully they'll only grow closer as Sir Paul is more than 15 times her age now, but in 20 years he'll be just a tad over three times as old ... and in 100 he won't even be twice as old. they **

Big D

It was and wasn't Valentine's day when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a verdict awarding plumber Johnny V. $750,000 in exchange for loss of sex with Sandra V.

Oh, and there was a baby girl involved. But it wasn't his work with the pipes that was responsible.

And Ms. V. claimed she only stayed around as long as she did before beginning an affair with a local millionaire (did we mention the rich, older guy?) for the children. Who maybe JV didn't care about as much as he should have ...

...because it turns out that one reason to stay in a bad marriage is not "for the children" as so many people claim to. One reason to stay in a bad marriage — if you're not willing to do extra work on your relationship with your kids — is for you, as there is new evidence that divorce may distance dads from their teens.

Now, you may ask yourself what doesn't, but do you really want to end up as Texas father Bob, sire of Hilary and Haylie Duff, who was penalized another $100,000 in addition to the $20,000 he is already paying his soon to be ex- during the $1 million dollar proceedings, and also has to face the accusing faces of his daughters in support of their mom (who admits living off the celeb sisters for the last five years) during the trial?

** Dads divorce moms, not kids. **

Man Up

Ontario Provincial Parliament Member, liberal house leader and father of two Michael Bryant has his politics informed by a father who resigned as mayor of Esquimalt, British Columbia, because he found himself flipping up his rear viev mirror rather than watch four-year-old Michael chase after him when he left for work.

Contrast that experience with what former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey — who resigned under the shadow of a combined scandals of coming out of the closet as a gay man and having an affair with an unqualified political appointee — is teaching his five-year-old daughter Jacqueline by scheduling a birthday party (complete with ponies) without telling his estranged wife Dina, who has primary custody. Says a friend and critic, "He ought to man up and grow up and realize it was he who created this mess. What I would say to him is, "Live by the rules and shut your face.' Jim'll use Jackie as a pawn. "It's the pony. It's the party.' It's not about the pony, it's about him."

** And as a dad or politician, it just can't be about you. **

Some S/B In Custody, Others Should Have It

Dads are not well represented in the public eye by David Hasselhoff. But it is equally true Britney Spears doesn't do moms proud. The point is that while individual cases vary, why should men have to hoot, hyperbole and haul signs around in a circle to attract legal and judicial attention to what should be obvious: individual men can be as bad or good as individual women as a parent and, unless evidence shows otherwise, should be granted equal custodial rights in a divorce.

** And gentlemen, I have a dream that if we get that, maybe, someday, we'll even be allowed by the moms to head up a school bake sale... and maybe the sons of our sons will be in the running for the class mom position. I have a dream. **

Bad Dads and Divorce

"In a perfect world, there are no lawyers."

Who would expect such wisdom from backup-dancer/former-Mr. Britney Spears/unselling rapper/Super Bowl ad character Kevin Federline? Well, nobody. And they'd be right, but we wouldn't have such a perfect quote without him. His lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan, was responding to whether Kevin and Britney (Spears) should have stayed together for the sake of their children.

Maybe they should have stayed together for the children of others? If Kevin could somehow have become a good father, maybe the marriage and fall of Pop Tart Spears wouldn't have been a disillusioning factor for Things 1 and 2?

Fortunately, T1 and T2 have no interest in politics beyond the presidential horse race as (in other OMG!, what was and is the father thinking news) we also have the divorce battle update from former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey (shamed from office for financial shenanigans as well as an affair with a male aide) and his wife. Dina Matos McGreevey is looking for $56,000 a month in alimony for herself and the couple's 5-year-old daughter.

According to The Star Ledger report, the name calling is hot and heavy. McGreevey accused his ex- of wearing an "inappropriate and ill-fitting ball gown" on the Oprah show. The former first lady of the Garden State fired back that Mr. out-of-office-and-the closet is "a disinterested and irresponsible father."

** When complaining how low the bar for fathers is set, it sometimes helps to remember which ones get the headlines. **