Excellent TIME magazine cover story:
Why Marriage Matters, by Caitlin Flanagan:
Few things hamper a child as much as not having a father at home. "As a feminist, I didn't want to believe it," says Maria Kefalas, a sociologist who studies marriage and family issues and co-authored a seminal book on low-income mothers called Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage
.
"Women always tell me, 'I can be a mother and a father to a child,' but it's not true." Growing up without a father has a deep psychological effect on a child. "The mom may not need that man," Kefalas says, "but her children still do."
This story from the New York Times about Tiger Woods' fatherhood is really amazing. It covers a whole host of issues (marriage, divorce, parenting, father absence, deployment) in a very thoughtful way.
If there is one thing you can conclude from the article, it is that Tiger Woods seems to love being a father. There are several quotes from him that reveal his love for daddyhood. For example:
"I love to teach, and to be able to teach Sam, and as soon as I can, start teaching Charlie a few things, that’s fun. I live to be able to do that."
Perhaps the most interesting question the story raises is how Tiger is going to avoid his own father's mistakes. His father, Earl, had a family before he had Tiger, and, due to his long military deployments, he "lost" that family to divorce. Now that Tiger is away for long stretches playing golf, how will he handle his own work/family balance dilemma? Big question ...