Skilz: How to be charming. 

Lots more here. Don’t laugh. It worked great for me ‘n the Missus.

12 Things Your Partner Needs To Hear More Often. I ran this list by Mrs. B this morning. She (a) liked it, and (b) though I had most of ’em covered. So there!

Why is the State Arresting So Many Parents?

In Relationships, Be Deliberate – For milestones like moving in together, intent (rather than chronology) determines success.

Found this bit interesting:

One of the main findings was about how couples handle relationship milestones, like moving in together. Every relationship goes through milestones, or transitions, that mark how serious the relationship is getting. Going on a first date is one; a first kiss is another. Other milestones might include the “define the relationship” talk—the moment a couple says they are actually a couple—sex, engagement, marriage, and children.

In the past, these milestones tended to follow a straightforward order that began with courtship, passed the milestones of marriage, cohabitation, and sex, and ended with children. The structure and rigidity of courtship meant that couples had less freedom, but also that each milestone was ritualized with most couples following the same script. Men didn’t just propose to women, for instance; they first attained permission from the father of the bride-to-be. Couples moved through these milestones deliberately, in part due to societal expectations and in part because they knew that each step had life-altering consequences.

Now marriage comes at the end of whatever sequence people want to follow. About nine in 10 couples have sex before marriage, half of all women cohabit before marriage, and four in 10 babies are born to unwed moms.

The freedom to choose any relationship sequence has benefits, but it may also come at a cost long-term.

Not just out of sequence, but few milestones at all. A shame. Like any endeavor, greater effort means sweeter victory. I certainly won’t rob my future sons-in-law of the experience.

Besides, for a real man, it ain’t that tough.

Sexist, insulting and stereotypical: The Early Learning Centre (ELC), a UK-based chain of toyshops, courted controversy yesterday by choosing to insult one of its main groups of customers—Dads!

In a poorly considered attempt at corporate humour, the retailer, which operates around 300 stores in 20 countries, shared a branded meme on Twitter and Facebook suggesting that the only role that dads play in childcare is telling their kids where mum is.

Fathers across the UK reacted angrily to the suggestion that mums face a long list of demands from their kids (eg “I’m hungry, “I’m cold”, “she hit me”, “can I have?” etc) while the only demand that dads have to deal with is: “where’s Mum?”.

Tom, a father of two and primary school teacher from Worcestershire, who writes the blog Daddy Daydream, described the meme as: “very, very insulting to all those Dads who look after their families.”

Insulting your customers is stupid. Especially when….

According to a survey by Netmums, nine out of ten parents now think that TV dads do not reflect the contribution that fathers make to family life in the real world. Three out of ten went further and said the way dads are portrayed in the media is a “subtle form of discrimination”.

Fatherists. This sort of #misandry should not go unpunished. And it ain’t subtle.

Related: Harvard Business Review: Customers Demand and Deserve Respect

John Edward Gill: My Child is Missing Again. 

At ten a. m. Monday morning the phone rang. It was Roberta Berger, one of Estelle’s closest friends.

“John, I want you to know Margie is fine.”

“Where is she?”

“I can’t tell you. But she’s fine.”

Screw Mars and Venus: If we want to give relationship advice that really means something, we have to step outside the gender boxes and start thinking about the experiences of the people we’re trying to reach.

Related: Free to Be You and Me

NHS to fund sperm bank for lesbians: A new generation of fatherless families

Heterosexual couples will also be able to benefit, but the move – funded by the Department of Health – is largely designed to meet the increasing demand from thousands of women who want to start a family without having a relationship with a man. Critics last night called it a ‘dangerous social experiment’ that could result in hundreds of fatherless ‘designer families’. The former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, said last night: ‘It is the welfare of the child that must come first and not the fact that people want a particular kind of baby.’ 

Bishop Michael, who once chaired the ethics committee of Britain’s fertility watchdog, added: ‘This is social experimentation. It’s one thing for a child not to have a mother or father through tragedy, but it is another to plan children to come into the world without a father.’

More:

Ms Witjens rejected suggestions that children suffer adverse consequences from lacking a father figure. ‘There is no evidence to suggest that children are better off with or without a father,’ she said.

Hey, Ms. Witjens – Google much? Makes me wonder how she got along with her dad…

100 Days of How to Treat Men Right: Days 13 and “#14 Don’t bring a problem to him if you don’t want a solution.” Preach on, Sistahgirl!

Husbandry: Work/Life balance makes life easier over time.

One of the most important aspects of being a good parent and partner is being consistent and reliable. Doing well once can be a great thing. Doing well constantly so that your wife can rely on you is a much greater success. As a parent, “saving the day” is a small accomplishment compared to avoiding the need to do so. To use an analogy–it is better to never run out of gas than to constantly run out of gas within a few blocks of a station.

Read the whole thing. I learned this the hard way.

Explaining “mansplaining:”

But Ms Tannen says “the reason is not—as it seems to many women—that men are bums who seek to deny women authority.” Instead, she says, “the inequality of the treatment results not simply from the men’s behavior alone but from the differences in men’s and women’s styles.” (In everything that follows, “men do X” and “women do Y” should be read as on average, men tend somewhat more towards X and women towards Y, with great variation within both sexes.) In Ms Tannen’s schema, men talk to determine and achieve status. Women talk to determine and achieve connection. To use metaphors, for men life is a ladder and the better spots are up high. For women, life is a network, and the better spots have greater connections.

…which is why this makes so much sense.

From a word study on the term “husband” I came across this commentary:

HUSBANDMAN; HUSBANDRY [huz’-band-man, huz’-band-ri] – Husbandman, originally a “householder” or “master of the house,” is now limited in its meaning to “farmer” or “tiller of the soil.” In this sense it is the correct translation of the various Biblical words: ish ‘adahamah, literally, “man of the soil” (Genesis 9:20); ‘ikkar, literally, “digger,” “a farmer” (2 Chronicles 26:10 Jeremiah 31:24; Jeremiah 51:23 Amos 5:16 Joel 1:11); gubh, “to dig” (2 Kings 25:12); yaghabh, “to dig” (Jeremiah 52:16); georgos, “cultivator” (Matthew 21:33 John 15:1 James 5:7).

Since this is where we get our word “husband,” it’s no surprise the original meaning has been “limited” over time. The author continues:

It is a common practice in Palestine and Syria today for a rich man to own lands in many different parts of the country. He sets farmers over these different tracts who, with the helpers, do the plowing, planting, reaping, etc.; or he lets out his lands to farmers who pay him an annual rental or return to him a certain percentage of the crop. Much of the plain of Esdraelon, for example, was until recently owned by Beirut proprietors and farmed in this way. The writer while riding on the plain near ancient Dan, was surprised to overtake an acquaintance from Beirut (3 days’ journey away), who had just dismounted at one of his farms to inspect it and to receive the annual account of his farmer. The pride with which the husbandman pointed out the abundant harvest will not be forgotten. All the difficulties of the owner with his husbandmen described by Jesus are often repeated today.

Figurative: Jesus said “I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman” (John 15:1). He sows, cultivates, prunes and expects fruits from His church. In the parable of the Householder (Matthew 21:33), the wicked husbandmen were the Jews. The church is referred to as “God’s husbandry” in 1 Corinthians 3:9 (m “tilled land”).

He calls his Father “the husbandman” and the church “God’s husbandry.” While it is subject to abuse (Matt 21:33), in God’s eyes the role of husband, as well as a man leading a church, is a calling truly worthy of honor and respect.

Jesus always confronts us with The Ideal.