This book is a “must have” for fathers (and mothers) who want to build an engaged relationship between fathers and children. Dr. Pruett provides a global template for all aspects of preparation for and engaging in, fathering.

He also talks eloquently about the divide between mothers’ territory and fathers’ territory, about the need for all of us to open and engage in a continuing dialogue about how we can help each other, and about what we women can do to welcome fathers into the lives of our children (note: requires intentional relinquishment of ego).

This goes on the “best” list.

Venus: The Dark Side is a new book that addresses a phenomenon I’ve seen more and more frequently in my practice: predatory, dangerous, manipulative women who hide behind a cloak of “feminism” so they can abuse their partners, spouses and children. Not long ago, I was waiting for a hearing to begin in one of my cases where the opposing party personifies this kind of woman. I was chatting with an expert witness who was a psychologist and asked him if he was seeing more of this phenomenon in his practice. He dodged the question.

This book is well worth your while if you’re hooked up with one of these people. It’s even more worthwhile if you have a teen or twenties son. Get it. Read it. Pass it on to someone else who needs it. Give it to your boys. No need to perpetuate this nightmare into the next generation. These women maim and kill just like the men who have gotten so much more attention in our culture.

If you’ve gotten tangled up in the domestic violence vortex in the legal system, you may be required to attend “anger management” classes. Too often, these classes do little more than teach you to practice your anger. Anger has gotten a bad rap in pop psychology. There is rarely any recognition that it is simply a human emotion. It is true that when we react from anger, we often hurt the person with whom we are angry. Often, mental health professionals emphasize the reaction and ignore the validity of the emotion itself.

In his book, “Anger: Wisdom For Cooling the Flames,” (Riverhead Books, New York, New York 2001) Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh offers what I have found to be the most effective approach to anger in the field. Master Hanh offers practical techniques for learning to listen compassionately, even when it is difficult. He also suggests that instead of reacting from anger (including practicing your angry reactions by punching a pillow) or suppressing your anger (including going for a long walk and trying to think of bunnies and rainbows), we can sit with our anger with mindfulness. Master Hanh offers direct and truly helpful suggestions for transforming our anger by approaching it respectfully. A must read for anyone coping with the challenges of a bitter divorce and/or custody battle.

. . . my friend, Grant Griffiths, a family law attorney in Kansas (Kansas Family Law Blog ) features a terrific section on a number of excellent books for fathers.

I’m always on the lookout for books about fathering. The funny thing is, when I find a really good one, it applies to fathers AND mothers. My most recent “find” is “Covering Home: Lessons on the Art of Fathering From the Game of Baseball,” by Jack Petrash (Robins Lane Press, 2000).

I’ve never been much of a competitive sports fan, but as a child in Michigan in the 60s, I had to have SOME kind of exposure, because my home state then was the home of the Detroit Tigers who, if my childish memory serves me correctly, were pretty big back in those days. Jack Petrash has written a book that is a worthy addition to the library of any parent. I have to quote from the Introduction. Jack describes a video clip prepared by the National Fatherhood Initiative to encourage fathers to play a more active role in the lives of their sons. The clip was presented at the National Summit on Fathering in Washington, D.C. The clip, says Jack, shows, “a young boy . . . standing in an open, sunlit meadow, holding a baseball glove and a ball. The action moves in slow motion as the boy winds up and throws the ball. The camera follows the ball through the air . . . it lands in the grass and rolls to a stop. The boy runs after the ball, picks it up, winds up, and throws it in the other direction. Again, there is no one there to catch it. A voice says, “Four out of ten children in America grow up in a home without a father.”

Jack Petrash, a teacher, uses baseball analogies to explain to other fathers how important it is to: (1) commit to being actively involved with their children from before birth; (2) understand and adapt to the needs of children as they exist at various stages of childhood; (3) how to be an example . . . even when you make mistakes . . . especially when you make mistakes; (4) and how to adapt to all the changes and unexpected events in our children’s lives and still give our kids enough room to be who they are, not who we want them to be.

Note the personal pronoun, “we.” Because, personally, I wish I’d had this kind of advice years ago. My youngest child is almost 24. He’s an incredible delight. But he’s longed for and missed out on, a positive father his entire life. So the image evoked for me in Jack’s description of this ad hit especially hard.

This past summer, on Father’s Day, my son and I were sitting in the emergency room lobby of a huge hospital. My son had been struggling with some chronic health issues that left him with a lot of pain. Surgery was on the horizon, but we’d been through a string of doctors that didn’t have a clue how to help him. So, there we were, on Father’s Day, waiting for his name to be called.

I picked up the city paper and in the fluff section was a piece by a woman who had lost her father when she was about eight (8) years old. I read it, and before long, I was in tears. The man who was the best father (not including my own) I’d ever known, and the love of my life, was probably not going to make it much longer. He was dying of cancer.

When my son was in high school, he’d gotten beat up in class. Back then, I was working for this guy. The school called the office first and my friend and love took the call. Back then, he was just my boss, but he was waiting at the hospital when I got there, sitting by my son’s bed. And later, when things were more clear between the two of us, we were sitting together and my son was explaining some computer thing and this amazing man just sat there, listening, really listening, to my son. I’ll never forget the look on my son’s face. Never. And just a few weeks before, when my son and I had gone to see him in the hospital, and my son walked into that room, the face of this extraordinary man just lit up like a light bulb and he said to my son, “Wow! You look so GOOD!” Five words and a few nanoseconds and he’d done what my son’s father couldn’t or wouldn’t ever do in a lifetime.

All these memories were going off in my head while I read this article about fathers who didn’t make it, and fathers who weren’t there, and I was blubbering. Right there in this busy, hotel-like emergency room lobby. And my son asked me what was wrong, and I told him, and he said the sweetest, most painful thing I’ve ever heard, “Aw Mom, you did the best you could. You just never stayed for long.”

In his book, “Covering Home,” Jack Petrash talks a lot about staying. Just staying. Whether you are a father or a mother, and hopefully if your kids have both of you, that’s what matters. Just staying.

During my second year in law school I worked for a committee on gender equality in the legal profession. It was a terrific experience. I got to meet all these famous (in my state, anyway) judges and at least assist the judges who were doing some serious work on what I thought was a hot topic. It was fun to look back at the heyday of feminism (okay, so it WAS my youth, but an era can serve two functions, right?) and compare it to what was happening now.

In the process I ran across a book that completely changed my perspective. “Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male.” Susan Faludi. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. New York, New York. 1999 was the journey an ardent feminist took to, “explore the American male dilemma.” (594). Ms. Faludi took a journey that completely changed her perspective on men in America. The purpose of feminism, in the first place, she says, was to, “create a freer, more humane world,” for both sexes. (608). She argues that it is not an opposing gender, or race, or creed or economic class that pits men against women, but corporate greed and consumerism. She argues that women adopted the male paradigm of an enemy “out there” and pasted the “male dominance” face on the enemy when in fact, the same forces that oppressed women for years also oppress men. The difference for men is that they can’t use their own paradigm of an enemy “out there” to attack. Ms. Faludi asks a compelling question. Why can’t what has divided genders be the force that unites them?

I happen to think that it can. Men have an enormous and uniquely male capacity for nurturing, both their children, and one another as fathers. Women have an enormous and uniquely female capacity for protecting. Perhaps if we learned to support one another in developing what has, up to now, been undeveloped, we could . . . I don’t know . . . change the world? Well, our homes, at least.

In “The Collected Wisdom of Fathers: Creating Loving Bonds That Last A Lifetime,” (Conrad Press. Berkeley, California. !995). Will Glennon has put together the most fantastic parenting book I’ve read in ages. If I’d had this book when my kids were growing up, I’d have been a better mother, even though it is written by and for fathers. I loved it so much I gave it to some of my clients as a holiday gift. Will talks about the problems facing American fathers, how to change the “stereotype” of the absent father, and most important, how fathers can mine their own unique capacity, not only for protecting, but for nurturing. This one should have replaced Dr. Spock years ago!