Bravo to Bristol

Get married? Why bother?

That's the prevailing attitude of an increasing number of couples who consider marriage, if at all, only after a child arrives. USA Today spotlights Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, and their toddler son Tripp, as symbols of the new trend: child first, marriage second. Recent data shows they have plenty of company: "A record four-in-10 births (41 percent) were to unmarried women in 2008, including most births to women in their early 20s."

Perhaps unintentionally, the best illustration of the growing confusion about marriage comes from another unmarried mom, Davie Melton, interviewed by USA Today. She's conflicted. On the one hand, as "a Christian, I believe you need to get married." On the other hand, marriage "is a piece of paper nowadays, and I don't think you necessarily need it to be a good family."

So, is marriage good for children and families, or not? Does it really matter whether Tripp's parents, Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, get married?

In spite of the drama in Bristol Palin's young life, she knows that marriage matters. Bristol explained her reason for getting back together with Levi quite simply. "We were working on our relationship for Tripp." Her inclination to marry, while certainly intertwined with her feelings for Levi, is rooted in a basic truth: Children do best when they are raised by their married mother and father.

While I have no way of knowing whether Bristol and Levi's relationship will mature into a solid, committed marriage, I applaud their desire to give their son the benefit of being raised by married parents.

How to save your family from indifference towards marriage.

Like young Davie Melton, our culture delivers two contradictory messages about marriage. We know it's a good thing — the best way, in fact, to raise children. But when our own marriages struggle or our loved ones fail at marriage, it's easy to fall silent about the goodness that marriage brings. We pretend it really doesn't matter whether or not parents are married.

The research is clear, and we should say so. Married couples are healthier, happier, wealthier and live longer than divorced or single people. Even most unhappily married couples who stick it out (often because of the children) rediscover happiness within five years of their marital low point. Children raised by their married father and mother do better than children of divorced or never-married mothers on every measure of well-being. (See the Center for Marriage and Families or "The Case for Marriage" for research data.)

To help our children reject the lie that marriage is merely a piece of paper, irrelevant to raising a "good family," let's reaffirm our commitment to marriage itself, no matter how imperfectly we live it. Let's teach them that God really did know what he was doing when he designed families, starting with a lifelong marriage between one man and one woman.

Husbands and wives, show your children that your marriage matters: Make time for your spouse, and express gratitude for their commitment. Remind yourself of the good you have found in marriage; even difficult marriages may bring personal growth and the blessings of children. If you are in a rocky situation, get marriage counseling. I'm constantly amazed at how much time, work, effort and money people spend on perfecting and enjoying every endeavor under the sun — except their marriages. You can find great counselors at www.FamilyLife.com

Finally, if your own marriage has suffered the pain of divorce, don't give up. Stand firm behind the ideal of marriage, even as you strive to learn from your mistakes and transcend the unhappiness of the past.

And for Bristol, who "believes in redemption and forgiveness to a degree most of us struggle to put in practice," I offer my prayers and best wishes for a long, happy and committed marriage.

WRITTEN BY: Rebecca Hagelin with original article at The Washington Times available by clicking on the title of this posting

Torii Hunter Plays the Race Card

If you don't know him very well, let me clue you in on Torii Hunter. He is the centerfielder for the Los Angeles Angels in Major League Baseball. He is one of the most outgoing, engaging, personable players that I have ever seen interviewed in the game. Oh, and he is African-American.

That last part normally wouldn't matter a hill of beans to me. By the time that I was growing up in the 1970's, the civil rights battles fought over the previous few decades had left me a sporting landscape to accept as normal and to view and enjoy as a young fan that included players of every race, ethnic background, and nationality.

But in an interview conducted a few weeks ago and released by USA Today on Wednesday as part of a series on the state of baseball today, Hunter revealed a lack of his own understanding on racial issues that is surprising considering his obvious intelligence and his usually keen insight.

In Part III of what is a 5-part ongoing series of articles this week titled "Efforts to develop black talent in USA insufficient", Hunter opines that the public looks out at black faces playing in the game and incorrectly assumes that they are African-American when in fact they are Latino players. In his words "They're not us, they're imposters."

Hunter then goes on to attempt to make his point by referencing a particular star player. Speaking of his former star teammate Vlad Guerrero, Hunter states "Is he a black player? I say "Come on, he's Dominican. He's not black."

Folks, on this particular issue, Torii Hunter is simply wrong in his thinking and view point. Have you ever seen Vlad Guerrero? The man's skin color is as dark as the night sky. There is nothing at all wrong with that, of course. But let's not trivialize this discussion by pointing out who is and is not 'black' when the issue is obvious.

Would Torii Hunter then accept an argument, following along with his line of thinking, that I am not 'white', but that I am Irish because the majority of my familial heritage is from that country? You mean to tell me that Dominicans can't also be black? Does Hunter even know what 'race' is?

But it's not just that Hunter makes one slight off-the-cuff remark that might be blown out of proportion. He goes on to explain in detail that he, and in his words the majority of African-American players, believe that baseball intentionally tries to use Latino players as an "imitator and pass them off as us."

"It's like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper." In making comments such as this, and in actually thinking like this, Torii Hunter and any other player or fan who cares about the game who buys into this line of thinking is only doing the genuine issue a disservice.

The genuine issue is an apparent dearth of African-American players at the Major League level in today's game. It has been noted by everyone involved in the game, from baseball writers to fans to team management to the Commissioner's office that the percentage of African-American players has been in steady decline since the 1970's.

When I was growing up, I was able to enjoy a large number of outstanding African-American players. Joe Morgan, Willie Stargell, Vida Blue, Fergie Jenkins, Lee Smith, Bill Madlock, Billy Williams, Dusty Baker, Gary Matthews, Dick Allen, George Foster, Dave Parker and many more. Heck, I was even lucky enough to get to watch Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, and Willie McCovey play, albeit at the tail end of their lengthy careers.

But to look around today, you almost need a microscope to find an African-American player on your home team active roster in most towns. Here in Philadelphia, we have been blessed with a rarity in having two starting, star-caliber African-American players in the lineup for the past few seasons in Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins.

When the Major Leagues first overcame the 'color barrier' with the arrival of Jackie Robinson, a wave of ex-Negro Leaguers and emerging African-American talent swelled their representative ranks to the point where, by 1983, a little more than 1 in every 4 Major Leaguers was African-American. By 2006, that number had slipped from more than 25% to just 8.4% of players at the highest level.

Now that is certainly a number that, on it's face, would seem to indicate that something alarming has taken place. But has it really? Is Torii Hunter correct in his belief that baseball has a prejudice against African-American players? Hardly, and any fair examination of the issue would reveal that the problem is not as bad as it seems.

First of all, let's see where those jobs have gone. A small percentage have gone to Asian players. The fact is that there was almost no Asian presence in Major League Baseball 2-3 decades ago and earlier. Today with the opening and expanding of international competition, approximately 2.5% of players are of Asian racial origins.

The actual percentage of 'white' players has stayed pretty much the same, even gone down slightly. The majority of the jobs lost to African-American players have gone to ethnically Latino players. But while Hunter's accusation is that Major League Baseball has gone for the Latino players from other nations "because you can get them cheaper", the fact is that is simply not the case.

In South American nations such as those he highlights in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic as well as in other Caribbean nations such as Cuba and Puerto Rico, baseball is king and it is played year round. Kids are born and raised on baseball diamonds of the genuine and makeshift variety. They talk, eat, and dream baseball. And again, they play it all year long thanks to the continuous warm weather.

Here in America it is a fact that among the vast majority of African-American youth, baseball is a distant third to basketball and football in popularity. In his commentary, Hunter states "Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have (agent) Scott Boras represent him, and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?"

Well, Torii, for one thing, you can't find that kid from the South Side of Chicago playing baseball. Not for the most part. He is running the basketball courts indoors for the 9 months out of the year that Chicago is experiencing it's non-baseball friendly cold weather. The rare player that is talented enough and is interested enough in the game to be good enough to attract pro baseball attention does attract that attention.

Black Americans make up approximately 13% of the population in our country today. If you want everything to be exactly proportional to race, then you need to increase the Major League Baseball talent level of their numbers by just a few percentage points. That is hardly alarming when one considers that white players of any ethnic background make up just about 30% of NBA players and an even lower percentage of NFL players.

There is no rule, and it should not be expected, that every single sport is going to have an exact proportional number of players to the overall population. There are tons of factors, from the better weather in the Caribbean to cultural traditions here in America to expanded scouting in those places and in places such as Japan and Korea that the African-American population in MLB has dropped.

Baseball has not ignored this drop in numbers, however. In fact, it has specifically targeted the African-American community with it's founding of the RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner-cities) program, a program that it markets aggressively in it's television advertising.

Just last year, The Institute For Diversity And Ethics In Sport released a report titled "The 2009 Racial and Gender Report Card: Major League Baseball" in which it gave MLB a grade of 'A' for 'Race' and 'B' for 'Gender' as categories. The report noted that in 2009 the African-American player percentage increased for the first time since 1995.

The IDES report also stated that MLB began the 2009 season with 10 'managers of color' at the helm of their on-field operations. The report stated that, led by Commissioner Bud Selig's efforts, "MLB continues to have an outstanding record for Diversity Initiatives which include the third annual Civil Rights Game, Jackie Robinson Day and Roberto Clemente Day.”

The statistics do not lie. The percentage of African-American players in MLB is admittedly down over the past few decades. But people like Torii Hunter who resort to typical race-baiting comments whenever there is any appearance that black Americans might be getting slighted in some way do nothing but harm.

In fact, Torii Hunter and every single major African-American today who wants to see their racial population increase in the game would be better served in not pointing fingers elsewhere, but instead in getting out there on a regular basis in their community, directly inspiring with their presence and investing in that effort with a portion of the tens of millions of dollars that they are earning.

Major League Baseball and every other professional sport have one responsibility. That is to put the best, most entertaining product on the field, court, pitch, rink, or diamond that it possibly can. To suggest that any of them would ignore a source of potential talent is ludicrous. But then it has always been easier to point ones finger at others than to roll up your own sleeves and get to work, or to write your own check.

Sorry, Torii Hunter. You're a good guy, and you're usually a great ambassador for the sport of baseball. But this time you're simply wrong. Leave the race-baiting comments to the Al Sharpton's of the country, and get yourself and your fellow African-American players more directly involved in an organized, aggressive way within your communities if you want to have a real, positive impact.

New Daditude: Hands On, Pressure Off

Today's fathers may well take parenting as seriously as their mates, but unlike many moms, dads don't view it as a competitive sport. Instead, the new attitude of 21st-century fatherhood is hands-on and involved, but with a hint of playfulness.
"All of these social expectations have developed over decades about what moms are supposed to do. We don't have a new picture of what involved dads are supposed to look like," says Will Courtenay, a psychotherapist in Berkeley, Calif., who is on the advisory board of The Center for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Those who study fatherhood say today's dads are forging a new identity, as working women press for a more egalitarian home life, and telecommuting and workplace flexibility make it possible for dads to have more time with the kids. Also, dads today are no longer the stuffy or clueless fathers portrayed on TV.

"It's cool now to be an active, involved father," says Aaron Rochlen, associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin. "Overall, men being more active fathers is starting to become more of the norm and less of the anomaly."

As a result, there has been a real shift in the way men talk about fatherhood, experts say: Young dads (generally those in their early 40s and younger) say they know they're not perfect, but they don't worry about being judged.

Compared with pressure that many moms say they feel, "the bar is set pretty low for father involvement and father engagement," says Jeff Cookston, an assistant professor of psychology who studies fatherhood at San Francisco State University. He calls the current group of younger dads a "pilot generation" because they're trying to figure out the transition from dad as a breadwinner to the hands-on pop who doesn't shirk from diaper changes or carpool runs.

Psychiatrist Kyle Pruett of the Yale University Child Study Center in New Haven, Conn., has seen changes in more than 25 years teaching child development. When he started, his students were all girls.

"Now, we've had a couple of years where there were male majorities, including one year where the entire starting line of the hockey team came to the class," he says.

When he has asked guys why they took the course, Pruett says he has heard some version of "because I plan to be an involved parent and an involved husband."

And dads are getting plenty of online support, as fathers make inroads into the parenting blogosphere that for years was for moms only. There are now lots of websites devoted to dads, such as DadLabs.com, which posts four weekly short videos of advice and product reviews, and Daddytude.com, which calls itself "a journey with a not-so-perfect Dad." New books about fatherhood include Michael Lewis' Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhoodand Jeremy Adam Smith's The Daddy Shift.

Many of these dads write about their experiences with humor, which Smith calls "the male response to being uncomfortable."

"They're doing the dishes and taking care of the kids, but it doesn't match with that traditional male image, so they laugh about it. They giggle. They make jokes," says Smith, 39, of San Francisco. He is senior editor of Greater Good magazine and founded the blog Daddy Dialectic.

DadLabs (with the motto "We screwed up, so you don't have to") was created by three former teachers. As new fathers, they found existing advice boring and clinical or just for laughs. They also have two DVDs and a new book, DadLabs Guide to Fatherhood: Pregnancy and Year One. They're now in discussions with production companies about a cable TV show.

The three daddies

Known on the Web as Daddy Clay, Daddy Brad and Daddy Troy, the site's founders are Clay Nichols, 42, a father of three ages 10, 7 and 5; Troy Lanier, 42, a father of two, ages 6 and 4; and Brad Powell, 41, soon to be a father of three. (The first two are ages 6 and 3, and a son is due any day.) Nichols has expertise in playwriting and drama. Lanier has film experience. And Powell, who has an MBA, has been a business manager and fundraiser. Another father, Owen Egerton, also appears in video segments.

Nichols was a stay-at-home dad during his oldest child's first year a decade ago, when such fathers were a curiosity. He says he has "vivid memories of taking Wilson to a local coffee shop and getting a lot of well-intentioned but nonetheless patronizing comments from women. … 'You tell Daddy you want some socks.' 'You tell Daddy you need a hat.' They would offer their very helpful parenting suggestions to the baby."

Wives of the original trio all work full-time. One is a hospital chaplain and the other two work at the private school where their husbands were employed before starting DadLabs.

The dads say their entrepreneurial effort is starting to pay off — it broke even for the first time in January after they signed a sponsorship deal, which has been renewed through 2009.

All three DadLabs creators have advanced degrees and could earn more money at jobs with greater prestige, but Nichols says they've decided being present for their kids is more important.

"There's a loud voice in my head that says 'You need to be making more money. You need to be getting ahead. You need to be succeeding.' That is a voice that I argue with on a daily basis."

Tradition dies hard

But this new, hands-on vision of fatherhood is not universal, says Courtenay.

"You certainly see traditional masculinity of the 1950s still alive and very well in many men," including younger ones, he says. "It's not as if that's completely going away."

Researchers say there are distinct socio-economic, racial and ethnic attitudes about masculinity that translate into fatherhood perceptions. For example, men from the South, as well as blacks and Hispanics, have more traditional ideas about fatherhood and masculinity.

This is rooted in a male identity that teaches "boys to be in charge and make decisions and not admit weakness," says Andrew Smiler, visiting assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, N.C., who studies masculinity.

"Then we get this generation of guys who say they want to be more involved with their children's upbringing than their parents were, but they don't know how to do it," he says.

The result, Smiler says, is this more laid-back attitude about parenting: "It's harder than it looks and I don't know what to do or how to do it, but I'm giving it my best shot."

Actor Shaun O'Hagan, 39, of Santa Monica, Calif., has five to eight auditions a week and he has taken his son, Ryan, 2, with him on most of them since his wife went back to work as an accountant following her maternity leave. Sometimes his brother-in-law has gone along to help, but O'Hagan says he has often relied on those at the auditions to tend to his son during the tryouts.

Despite earning residual checks, O'Hagan says, the economic downturn in Hollywood took a toll on his career last year.

"I had a little bit of an identity crisis when jobs weren't coming and I was full-time with Ryan," he says. "I just wanted to roll up my sleeves and work, especially since I had a son. I wanted to be the dad who went out and earned a living for my family."

Things have improved, he says, but "I really did appreciate my time with Ryan. I was really able to — as my mother uses the phrase — 'soak it all in,' " he says.

A close father/child connection is beneficial for kids, according to a body of research that suggests children with actively involved fathers do better academically, socially and behaviorally.

Gary Berger, 34, of Madison, Wis., found himself overseeing the household and his three children (now 8, 6 and 5) when his wife of almost 10 years served in Iraq for about five months. The couple met in the Air Force.

"She got out of active duty while I stayed in. I deployed for Iraq in 2003 (he flew B-52s) and she was a stay-at-home mom then, but stayed in the reserves. Then last Sept. 2, she deployed to Iraq," says Berger, who works in marketing.

"I'm not worried about people saying staying home with kids is a woman's job. That's old attitudes," he says. "A real priority in fatherhood is raising good kids. Every other concern becomes secondary to that."

WRITTEN by Sharon Jayson at USA Today on June 10th, 2009

Behind the Angst at Notre Dame

It might be hard for alumni, sports fans and fundraisers to admit but, at the end of the day, not every educational institution matters. Few are unique; most are redundant and easy to replace.The University of Notre Dame, though, is different.

This is not merely because of past (and, we can hope, future) football success, a catchy fight song and savvy merchandising. Notre Dame matters because it aspires to be something different and interesting: a great research university that is excellent precisely because it is meaningfully and distinctively Catholic.

This project is not about nostalgia, heritage, school spirit or "branding." Instead, Notre Dame's aim is to achieve genuine excellence, and thereby to engage and improve the world through — not despite — its Catholic character. This character is to be pervasive, animating and enriching, not merely a decoration or garnish, a little "something extra" sprinkled on top of an otherwise standard-issue enterprise.

Notre Dame's project is challenging and vulnerable, but it's also exciting and important — and not just to Catholics. We all have a stake in its success. Conversations are made deeper and richer, and the diligent search for truth is helped by the presence of diverse, distinctive — sometimes dissenting — voices. Institutions, like individuals, provide these voices.

Peter Parker's Uncle Ben was right to say, "With great power comes great responsibility." Similarly, institutions that matter carry a burden. This is why Notre Dame's decision to honor President Obama with an honorary law degree is so controversial. Most graduation speeches, of course, are entirely forgettable hodgepodges of Dr. Seuss, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Starbucks-cup quotations.

This year, however, Notre Dame's commencement speaker on Sunday could hardly be more prominent or memorable. And yet, the choice has divided sharply not only the Irish Nation but Catholics generally and has prompted many of us who love Notre Dame and embrace its mission to ask: Is Notre Dame's decision consistent with the character and commitments that make it distinctive? That make it worth caring about? That make it matter?

To understand what the controversy surrounding Obama's invitation is about, it is important to understand what it is not about.

Most important, the issue is not, as some commentators have suggested, whether Notre Dame should welcome, engage, debate and explore a wide range of viewpoints. Of course it should. It was, after all, a central message of the Catholic Church's Second Vatican Council that "nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo" in Christians' hearts, and the same can be said for the work of a Catholic university. Such a university has nothing to fear from — indeed, it has the best possible reasons to welcome — inquiry, investigation, argument and testing. And so, no one could reasonably oppose inviting the president to Notre Dame for discussion and dialogue on immigration, education, health care — or even abortion.

The question on the table is not whether Notre Dame should hear from the president but whether Notre Dame should honor the president. A Catholic university can and should engage all comers, but in order to be true to itself — to have integrity — it should hesitate before honoring those who use their talents or power to bring about grave injustice. The university is, and must remain, a bustling marketplace of ideas; at the same time, it also has a voice of its own. We say a lot about who we are and what we stand for through what we love and what we choose to honor.

The controversy at Notre Dame is not about what should be said at Catholic universities, but about what should be said by a Catholic university.

It is also a mistake to frame the controversy in terms of academic freedom. Obviously, this freedom, properly understood, is central to the mission of any great university.

Even so, no one is proposing limits on what can or should be discussed, debated, taught, studied or written by students or scholars. The American Association of University Professors is right to insist that "the opportunity to be confronted with diverse opinions is at the core of academic freedom," but wrong to imagine that this principle requires a university to be indifferent to the messages it sends through the honors it confers.

No university is entirely neutral; every university makes decisions about what to affirm, through its policies, as good or true. One can (and should) affirm the right (and duty) of scholars at Catholic universities to be true to their scholarly vocations while still asking whether Notre Dame is being true to itself.

Next, some have suggested that it threatens the separation of church and state for Catholic bishops to express regret and criticism regarding Notre Dame's decision. This suggestion is badly misplaced. A Catholic bishop who calls on a Catholic university to be true to its Catholic character is exercising, not undermining, religious liberty.

Finally, the reason some say that an authentically Catholic university — even one that appreciates fully President Obama's appeal and the historical significance of his election — should not honor him with a ceremonial law degree is not because he rejects "Catholic" views on abortion. The worry, instead, is that Notre Dame will send the wrong message and say something that is inconsistent with its Catholic character and with its commitment to human rights by honoring — at this time, anyway — a president whose record so far on abortion and embryo-destructive research is glaringly in conflict with that commitment.

The Catholic view on these matters, after all, is that there is no specifically or narrowly "Catholic" view. The church affirms that human life is sacred, and that every human being, at every stage of development, should be welcomed in life and protected in law. This affirmation rests on the same foundational principles of human dignity and equality that animate the Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, principles that were celebrated not only by Pope John Paul II but also by Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln.

The president's error is not failing to submit to "Catholic" authority — why should he? — but aggressively and consistently promoting policies that are unjust because they deny the basic equality of every human being.

To doubt that a Catholic university should honor Obama at this time, and to worry about the message such an honor sends, is not to engage in partisan or "single issue" politics or to deny that there are many things to be celebrated and admired about our new president's life, campaign, election and vision. Indeed, these things make it all the more regrettable — tragic, really — that he is so badly misguided on such a fundamental issue of justice.

WRITTEN by Richard W. Garnett for USA Today and published on May 11th, 2009

R.I.P. Tony Snow

There is plenty of coverage across the Internet and on television news programs on the death of Tony Snow, but to just let it pass without an entry here would be wrong. Tony Snow was that rare modern-day newsman who was accepted and respected by the mainstream media even though he did not subscribe to their usual liberal school of thought. Born in 1955 in Kentucky, Snow was raised in Cincinnati by his father, a school principal, and his mother who died of colon cancer when Snow was just 17 years old. He graduated from Davidson College in 1977, and began work as a newspaper editor in North Carolina for The Greensboro Record in 1979. His editorial career eventually led him to take over the editorial page at the prestigious The Washington Times from 1987-1991. Throughout the 1990's he worked as a regular columnist at USA Today, made numerous television news appearances, and also was syndicated to over 200 newspapers throughout the country. He took a sabbatical from 1991-1993 to work in the administration of President George H.W. Bush as a speech writer and media assistant. In the mid-90's, Snow took over as the regular substitute host for The Rush Limbaugh Show on radio, and in 2003 began The Tony Snow Show on Fox News radio. Snow had become one of the leading conservative voices in America, making numerous Fox News appearances and often substituting on television for Bill O'Reilly, but his professionalism and fairness gained him the respect from both sides of the aisle in Washington and from his media colleagues across the ideological spectrum. In April of 2006, Tony Snow was named as the new White House Press Secretary, the main face and voice of the administration of President George W. Bush, a position that he held until being overwhelmed by the same colon cancer that had taken the life of his mother 35 years earlier, that would eventually take his life yesterday. Tony was an avid musician who played the flute, trombone, piccolo, accordion, saxophone, and guitar. He was a part of a cover band called Beats Workin' and got to play publicly with members of Jethro Tull, the Doobie Brothers, and Steely Dan. Tony Snow is survived by his wife of 21 years, Jill Ellen Walker, two daughters and a son. Not many come along like Tony Snow, who combine class, intelligence, humor, and a general overall good-natured demeanor that comes through no matter what your opinions of his political views. During a time of severe political partisanship in America, the loss of men like Snow and Tim Russert, who passed away a few weeks ago, is a serious blow to American journalism, and a loss for us all.