Baby announcement protocol (or a lack thereof)

A friend recently gave birth to her first baby, and we heard about it in a series of phone calls.

The first call came from a mutual friend, who heard from the new mother's sister, who had been present in the birthing room at the hospital, from which, we are told, she had kept a circle of acquaintances acquainted with all sorts of bloody and embarrassing details for a period of hours. The birth of the baby was announced along with a disrespectful report of the mother's response to the pain and some serious complications. (The sister, in case you're wondering, is childless. And she was supposed to be there as coach. I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt and write off her tactlessness and sneering to disguised fear, but I'm not having much luck, since she's known for being snarky and uncharitable, to the point it's pretty much habitual with her...)

The second call came from the husband, announcing the birth of his first child.

The third call came from the husband's mother, who, upon finding that we'd already heard from her son, said something along the lines of 'That darned son of mine. This is the third call I've made where he's beat me to it.'

Uhm. Is it just me or should the father and mother have been given a fair chance to make the first round of calls? I kind of, sort of, feel like the sister and grandmother were trespassing a bit.

(Mother and baby are home now, and doing fine.)

The power of a personal letter

Sometimes it's really nice to get a letter that's written especially for you.

Exhibit A: f a i t h * i n * f i c t i o n: Amy Krouse Rosenthal Is Wonderful (make sure you check out the photo).

Related: Here's my thank you note to another writer, for what a letter from her did for some kids in my hometown.

Oh, good, I'm not the only one...

(Updated: The first link was bad. It should be fixed now. Sorry about the mix-up.)

... unhappy and concerned about assaults on the liberty of association.

I'm going to have to give this statement from the post some thought:

...such associations -- and in particular, such brotherhoods -- are what build civil society to begin with; not the family, as I've argued before, and as a glance at any pre-civil culture will verify...

And this one:

We conservative Christians are apt to uphold fatherhood and the family, without considering that fatherhood is a truncated thing without brotherhood. A soldier alone is not a soldier; a father alone may make a passable father for his family, but his scope of activity is severely limited. In his capacity as a brother -- as a man who naturally wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with other men, to get things done -- he is denied the battlefield...

Full post here.

The post is by Anthony Esolen. In it, he notes that he'll be expanding on the theme in a presentation Friday at the Eagle Forum Convention in Washington, D.C, to be aired by C-Span.

Fatherless and feeling like "throwaway people"

Via Gina Dalfonzo at The Point, Juan Williams writes about The Tragedy of America's Disappearing Fathers (Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2008).

Williams quotes author Walter Dean Myers, who sometimes holds writing workshops in juvenile detention centers, and so has listened to, as well as read, the tales of many young people who don't know their fathers:

When fatherless young people are encouraged to write about their lives, they tell heartbreaking stories about feeling like "throwaway people." In the privacy of the written page, their hard, emotional shells crack open to reveal the uncertainty that comes from not knowing if their father has any interest in them. The stories are like letters to unknown dads – some filled with imaginary scenes about what it might be like to have a dad who comes home and puts his arm around you or plays with you.

They feel like they've been thrown away, Mr. Myers says, because "they don't have a father to push them, discipline them, and they give up trying to succeed . . . they don't see themselves as wanted." A regular theme of their stories is that they feel safer in a foster care home or juvenile detention center than on the outside, because they have no father to hold together the family. There is no one at home.

Coming at it from another angle, Joe Carter over at The Evangelical Outpost doesn't know who his father is, but he knows who his Father is. (via Wittingshire)

Book note: The Expeditionary Man, by Rich Wagner

I haven't seen a copy of the book yet, but I was over on the Zondervan website looking something else up and noticed it there. The write-up looks interesting:

As a Christian man, how do you prioritize between what you are driven to do at work and church with what you are responsible for at home? Rich Wagner debunks the myth of a “balanced life” and shares a biblical model of becoming a hands-on leader of his family.

Description:

Your career is compelling. Your ministry at church is God’s calling. But do you realize how these outside activities capture your heart and steal your time and energy from your family? Adventure becomes what you want to do, while family is what you are supposed to do. Now author Rich Wagner offers a bold alternative.

In this personal and revealing book, the author challenges Christian men to harness their career ambitions and limit their ministries while their children are at home. Wagner shows how the pull of business success and the call to church ministries are compelling–even seductive. But if you allow your heart to be captured by career and church, you put your kid’s spiritual lives at risk. Far too many Christian children grow up with the vision of a loving Father in heaven, but live with the reality of an earthly father who seems more devoted to outside interests than he is to them. As a result, many children in Christian families today drift away from their faith as they become adults. Wagner reveals how accepting his challenge will not only result in spiritually healthy kids, but also give you the true adventure for which every Christian man yearns.

The author and his family are heading out on a coast to coast bike tour soon. See whythebike.com for more information on the book and the tour.

P.S. Certain of my friends and relatives should note that these folks plan to go up Mount Evans in Colorado as part of this tour. (I guess they do want this to be an expedition!) And certain others of my relatives are hereby requested to wave at them on my behalf as they go through Gunnison. Thanks.

A roundup of Catholic daddy bloggers

Danielle Bean and her readers are looking for Catholic daddy blogs to read.

Not quite clear on the concept

A neighbor came across the street to visit with my husband, who was working outside. A while later, his young son decided to join them.

'Uhm, did you look both ways before crossing the street?' my husband asked the boy when he got across.

The boy's eyes got big. 'No! I forgot!' he exclaimed, whereupon he ran across the street without looking, set up on the other side, carefully looked both ways, and came back, proud of himself for getting it right this time.

"I can see we need to work on this," his father said, once he recovered enough to talk.

Book note: Waterwalk, A Passage of Ghosts, by Steven Faulkner

James M. Kushiner recommends the true life father-son adventure Waterwalk.

From the publisher:

Tired, hungry, lost, lonely, fogbound, shipwrecked, unable to make their way in the darkness, Steven Faulkner and his teenage son Justin are having a great time. They are on an epic journey, retracing the historic 1673 route of French explorers Marquette and Joliet along the Lake Michigan shore to Green Bay, up the Fox River, then down the Wisconsin River to the mighty Mississippi. A poet with a sense of humor, Faulkner brings the majestic American heartland to life in one of the finest books ever written about a river journey. A modern travel classic in the tradition of Blue Highways, this book will appeal to anyone who has a sense of adventure.

'Happy Birthday' from a sorry father

I was over on the Death Roe site, and they had a link: "Click here to see what songs should be on every Death Roe Survivor's play list." So I clicked. And found that my computer didn't want to play them (a technical problem, my end). So I went to YouTube, and found one I wanted to check out: Happy Birthday, by Flipsyde. I'm not generally a fan of hip-hop (and this song's not exactly a ringing endorsement for chastity or the sanctity of marriage) but... Wow. Powerful stuff. Good stuff. My thanks to the artists who put it together.

From the Death Roe site:

This video debuted in April 2006 in the US after the song Happy Birthday made waves overseas hitting the charts at #4 in Germany, #3 in Sweden and was in the top 15 in Austria and Switzerland. In addition, Happy Birthday, was in the Top 10 downloads on ITUNES in Germany, Sweden & Denmark. Piper, the lead singer of Flipsyde wrote and sings this song to the baby he helped abort as a young man. Filled with introspection that only one who has truly realized the ramifications of the decision to abort, Happy Birthday should serve as a warning to young men and women seeking abortion as an answer. The reality of fatherhood lost is felt, as you hear Piper wonder out loud what his baby would look like, act like, and if the child could forgive him for what he has done.

Book note: Alexander, by Harold Littledale

I found another children's book I wish wasn't out of print. Alexander, by Harold Littledale, illustrated by Tom Vroman, Parents' Magazine Press, 1964, is an understated gem of a picture book. (spoilers follow) In short, a father is putting his son Chris to bed, and his son decides to tell him how bad "Alexander" was today, Alexander being a "red horse with green stripes." Alexander spilled his milk at breakfast, wouldn't play with others at the park, broke a jar of peaches in the grocery store, etc., etc., etc. It's clear pretty early that Alexander is really Chris in disguise, although his father doesn't let on that he knows this. Chris finally asks, "Daddy, what are we going to do about Alexander? He's awfully bad sometimes." To which his father asks Chris what he thinks should be done. Chris comes up with dire solutions, which his father gently vetoes, before noting that anyone can have a bad day once in a while, and predicting that Alexander will be a good horse tomorrow. The ending:

"And you'll be a wonderful little boy, too."

Chris giggled. "How did you know I wasn't very nice today?" he asked.

His father turned out the light in the hall. "Alexander told me," he said.

It's a humorous, gentle, but spirited look at a little boy's world, and I'll nominate the father for a Great Fictional Father award. For those of you who can't deal with it, I should probably mention that the father in this book puffs on his pipe while they're having this little chat. Otherwise, I can't see anything anyone's likely to find objectionable.

While we're on the subject, if you know of another Great Fictional Father in a book for younger children, please feel free to drop a note in the comments.

You don't have to be 'the father'...

... to be a good dad. Hats off to "Bob," and other men like him.

Give this man a Daddy Award

Daddyhood, in four minutes of music.