Monday, June 24, 2013

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of June 16, 2013

1. The New American Father, Pew Research: Social and Demographic Trends
A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that Americans expect dad to be more of a moral teacher and emotional comforter than a breadwinner or disciplinarian.

2. Parents and Children, Maybe I Do: Modern Marriage and the Pursuit of Happiness
“Security is the one thing (children) need and if there is that security of the parental relationship, that’s about the best gift those kids can be given,” he said.

3. Daddy’s Home, Slate
By contrast, men who don’t live with their children, either because they never married the mother in the first place, or got divorced, often don’t look much different than childless men. Three findings illustrate the point:. . .

4. The Distinct, Positive Impact of a Good Dad, The Atlantic
But there are at least four ways, spelled out in my new book, Gender and Parenthood: Biological and Social Scientific Perspectives (co-edited with Kathleen Kovner Kline), that today's dads tend to make distinctive contributions to their children's lives. . . 

5. Marriage Rate May Be Low, But More Weddings Predicted, USA Today
Cultural changes about whether and when to marry, the fact that two-thirds of first marriages are preceded by cohabitation and the recession's financial fallout — including unemployment and underemployment — fueled the wedding decline.

6. Five-Year Study Documents The Positive Impact Of Relationship And Marriage Education Programs In California, YahooNews
[Outcome 1 of 5] Both men and women reported positive impacts from RME attendance, with nearly three-quarters (74%) of participants experiencing increases in problem-solving abilities.

7. Marriage, the Job: The Hard Work in ‘Before Midnight,’ Amour’ and Other Films and Shows, The New York Times
Ben Affleck caught some flak earlier this year when, in the course of his Oscar-night thank-yous, in front of a billion of his closest friends, he referred to his marriage to Jennifer Garner as “work.” 

For more, see here.

Monday, June 17, 2013

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of June 9, 2013

1. Parental Relationships and Obesity in Children, The British Psychological Society
[W]hile children in a traditional two-parent married household have a 17 per cent obesity rate, this climbs to 31 per cent for young people living with cohabiting parents.

2. Unequal, Unfair, and Unhappy: The 3 Biggest Myths About Marriage Today, The Atlantic
Most husbands and wives make about equal total contributions to the paid and unpaid work needed to sustain a family, judge their marriages to be fair, and are happily married.

3. A Million Children Grow Up Without Fathers, Report Warn, The Independent
Since 1996, the number of people cohabiting has doubled to nearly six million, but cohabiting parents are three times more likely to separate by the time a child is five than married couples. 

4. Paper: Trends in Cohabitation, 1987-2010, National Council on Family Relations
The percentage of women ages 19-44 who have ever cohabited has increased by 82% over the past 23 years. In 1987, one-third of women had ever cohabited, and in 2009-2010, three-fifths (60%) had ever cohabited.

5. The Gay People Against Gay Marriage, BBC
But while favourable rulings will spark celebrations among pro-marriage supporters across the US, some gay men and women will instead see it as a victory for a patriarchal institution that bears no historical relevance to them.

6. The Sheer Complexity of Love, Positive Psychology News Daily
Fredrickson separates love as a frequent passing experience from commitment, truth, and trust. Commitment she sees as a special bond, an outcome of love. Love is fleeting, but on the upside, love is forever renewable.

7. Unmarried, With Children, Arizona Daily Sun
"Women and men who have children outside of marriage are younger on average, have less education, and have lower income than married parents," according to researchers at the U.S. Census.

For more, see here.

Monday, June 10, 2013

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of June 2, 2013

1. Breadwinning Wives and Nervous Husbands, The New York Times
[T]raditional views of gender identity, particularly the view that the right and proper role of the husband is to make more money than the wife, are affecting choices of whom to marry, how much to work, and even whether to stay married.

2. Marriage Advice: Sharing a Hobby is Good for Your Relationship, The Wall Street Journal
New experiences also can activate the brain’s reward system, flooding it with powerful neurochemicals related to pleasure and bonding—the same circuits triggered when a person first falls in love.

3. More Satisfaction, Less Divorce for People Who Meet Spouses Online, TIME
When it comes to playing Cupid, it’s still not clear whether online dating ultimately makes better matches. But given the large number of people who meet their mates this way, the good news is that at least it doesn’t seem to make matters any worse.

4. Uncoupling the Hookup Culture, The Sacramento Bee
Harvard sophomore Lisa Mogilanski put it this way: "Hookup culture is an unnavigable mush of vague intentions and desires. ... We can try to dress it up as being freeing or equalizing the genders, but I fear it only leaves us equally impoverished."

5. Kathleen Parker: ‘Father’ is the New F-Word, The Wichita Eagle
Contrary to the Hollywood version of single motherhood, a trend that began with Murphy Brown more than 20 years ago, single mothers are more likely to be younger, black or Hispanic, and less educated, according to Pew, and they have a median family income of $23,000.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/06/04/2830901/kathleen-parker-father-is-the.html#emlnl=Morning_Headlines_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/06/04/2830901/kathleen-parker-father-is-the.html#emlnl=Morning_Headlines_Newsletter#storylink=cpy

6. Marriage Research: Survey Finds Marriage More Important to Happiness than Salary, Owning a Home, The Huffington Post 
The U.K.'s Office of National Statistics recently surveyed 165,000 British people. . . They found that being married is 20 times more important to a person's happiness than their earnings and 13 times more important than owning a home.

7. Myths about Relationships, Leadership
Myth: A good relationship means that you don’t have to work at it.
Fact: “The strongest most enduring relationships take lots of hard work. . ." [O]ur culture, education system and parenting styles don’t prepare us for the fact that even good relationships take effort.


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/30/5457975/uncoupling-the-hookup-culture.html#storylink=cpy
For more, see here.

Friday, June 7, 2013

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of May 26, 2013

1. (Video) Oprah on Fatherhood & the Mistakes Single Moms Make, National Fatherhood Initiative
"It's difficult to be what you don't see. . . what kind of father do you want for your son? What kind of father do you want your son to be?"

2. Obama Opens Up About His Father's Absence, The Washington Post
“. . . one of the biggest challenges – I grew up without a father,” he said. . . I turned out okay,” he said. “But at the same time, I wish I had had a father who was around and involved.”

3. Couples' Thoughts During Disagreements Affect Relationship Satisfaction, Science Daily
"Among happy couples, when one partner is thinking a lot about disagreement or anger, the other instead may be thinking about how to understand his or her partner or how to resolve the conflict."

4. Will You Marry Me (And My Student Loan Debt)?, Courier Journal
He even recommends planning "money dates in addition to movie dates" to keep the marriage on a financial track. Couples need to understand how much debt they owe and plan a schedule of how they're going to make payments.

5. Almost No Couples With Children Who Stay Unmarried Stay Together, Study Claims, The Daily Telegraph
The report, which analyses figures from the Office for National Statistics, found that 93 per cent of couples whose relationships are still intact by the time their child is a teenager are married.

6. Battling Cancer Together, The New York Times
Nobody Can Read Minds Like Ms. Bantug, patients often expect their partners to know how they are feeling and what they may want, then resent it when unexpressed needs are not met.

7. The Lethality of Loneliness, New Republic
And as they delve deeper into the workings of cells and nerves, they are confirming that loneliness is as monstrous as Fromm-Reichmann said it was. It has now been linked with a wide array of bodily ailments as well as the old mental ones.

For more, see here.