Where is the love? is an opinion article by National Review writer Patrick F. Fagan currently running on the CBS News website. He bemoans the rising number of out-of-wedlock births, and the concommitant number of single-parent 'families' this is creating. According to Mr Fagan, '36.8 percent of our children were born out of wedlock, an increase of 1.1 percent over 2004, following a rise of 1.0 percent over 2003. Through much of the 1990s and early 2000s the rate held steady or at least hovered around 33 percent.' He goes on to mention that the rise is greatest in the Hispanic portion of the population, something which strikes us as surprising considering the strong ties to church traditions held by that demographic group.

What does it all mean? Says Mr Fagan: 'These results declare that the U.S. citizens continue to build a culture of rejection and isolation from each other, especially in the isolation of children from their fathers and mothers from their husbands, two of the most fundamental relationships in any society....' Indeed. It would seem that the answer to his question, 'Where is the love?' might be that it's being reserved by each individual for her/himself alone. The concept of placing others' interests ahead of our own seems to be dying a painful death.---JTS (30.11.06)

Things look different when viewed from a different place or time. The triumph of modern feminism has taught us in the 'west' to see things in a way far different than do people in other parts of the world. Ghana is a case in point. The African country is presently in the throes of discussions about its new Domestic Violence Bill, and an article in the Ghanaian Chronicle by reporter Nathaniel Yankson (Domestic Violence Bill will not criminalise fathers) shows starkly just how different are the attitudes there than, say, in the U.S.

For one thing, the attorney general is quoted as saying that 'once you are married, you are presumed to have the consent perpetually for that, so you cannot press charges of rape against your spouse.' For another, the remarks urging women to do their part to keep the domestic peace--remarks attributed to an unnamed female attorney--could not have been published in the Los Angeles Times without her office being bombarded with vindictive...and possibly other things a bit more solid. Perhaps that's why, even in Ghana, she chose to withhold her name from publication. Hmmm. Perhaps things aren't quite as different there as I first thought.--JXS (30.11.06)

An important commentary is being created by readers on The Telegraph.co.uk in response to columnist Lesley Garner's "Lifeclass Extra" column on fathers who've been denied seeing their children. Are we guilty of ignoring fathers' rights? is the question asked in the follow up, and to date there are well over a hundred comments posted. Surprisingly, there are almost none of the rabid anti-father rants one often finds on these sorts of open commentary sites; one wonders whether the message is finally getting through, or if 'The Countess' and her ilk have decided to lay low on this one for some reason. If you'd like to contribute your point of view to the discussion, it certainly won't hurt bolster public opinion in favour of the cause in the UK.--JTS, 30.11.06

One of the great mysteries of psychology has always been why mothers abuse their children. After all, goes the accepted wisdom, mothers are supposed to have some mystical maternal bond with their children which surpasses all other instincts, including that of self preservation. So why is it that, according to government statistics, more mothers abuse and kill their children than do fathers? Well, if researchers at the University of Chicago in the United States are correct, it's because their mothers rejected or abused them during the first months of life.

In a study entitled, “Early Maternal Rejection Affects the Development of Monoaminergic Systems and Adult Abusive Parenting in Rhesus Macaques” (published in the current issue of Behavioral Neuroscience), Dario Maestripieri, Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago reports that when baby rhesus monkeys endured high rates of maternal rejection and mild abuse in their first month of life, their brains often produced less serotonin, a chemical that transmits impulses in the brain. Researchers were able to correlate this with observations that abused females who became abusive mothers in adulthood had lower serotonin in their brains than abused females who did not become abusive parents, too. It's an interesting read, and may help explain some of the 'mystery' of maternal child abuse. What it won't explain is why the great bulk of the population still cling to the false media image of all mothers as warm and fuzzy nurturers. But that's a job for the media watchers, not the social scientists. Or is it...?--JTS

When one goes looking for differences in parenting style between men and women, one has a variety of research to choose from...but most of it is relatively recent because until a generation ago, stay-at-home-fathering just 'was not done.' Or if it was, we didn't talk about it in public. The prejudices against men as parents are both the result and the cause of that; it's one of those 'chicken-or-egg' questions, in the view of some social theorists. This week, Anne-Marie Owens of the National Post reports in the Ottawa Citizen on a new book coming out of the University of Toronto which explores some of the different ways men see their role as primary care-givers. Do Men Mother? Fathering, care and domestic responsibility, by Andréa Doucet points out how men's parenting techniques tend to foster independence and self-sufficiency in their children, whilst mothers are more wont to try to make the child feel better instead of letting them learn from life's bumps and scrapes.---JTS

The ultimate in husband-wife relational problems may have finally been identified. Women Who Are “Allergic” to Their Husbands and Other Gender-Related Research, an article currently running on the Newswise medical research website, discloses some conclusions and recommendations given at the Plenary Session of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) meeting in Philadelphia recently. It looks like women who suffer from vaginal itching after intercourse should 'desensitise' themselves to their husband's semen by engaging in more frequent unprotected sexual contact...with their husbands, of course. (Either that, or the semen has to be washed first. No details on how to do that were provided, unfortunately.) Failing successful desensitisation or laundered sperm, it is recommended women carry an Epi-pen® in the event that a game of hoochie-coochie turns into a deadly episode of anaphylactic shock.

What has this to do with anything? Not much, I suppose...but it does strike me that men have already been accused of just about everything else, so it shouldn't be surprising that we're now considered a life threatening allergen.---JXS

Asheville, North Carolina is a typical, pleasant, mid-southern town in the eastern United States. Its social problems, too, are typical...and typical of not just its region but of those found in almost any nation where fathers are systematically marginalised from their children. Rick McDaniel of the Asheville Citizen-Times writes of a local initiative designed to address the problems of children who have been cut off from their fathers. In his article, Play written and performed by children some of whom don't have dads, McDaniel writes of the W.C. Reid Center's new production of a play written and performed by children about what it's like to grow up without a father. The play, entitled Daddy, where are you? will be presented all this week.---JTS

Saving our daughters, one dad at a time is Carrie Lukas' column in the current number of National Review Online. Lukas is the vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women’s Forum and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism (Regnery Press). Politically incorrect she may be, but her ideas are shared by many, including Dr. Meg Meeker, author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know. An interesting book review.---JTS

Yet another series of articles about how hard it is for mothers to collect child support is running in the press, this time in the Shelby Times Gazette of Tennessee in the United States. Reporter Brian Mosely pulls out all the emotive stops in his one-sided view of the problem, Forcing fathers to support their children, which is running in three parts this week. Read it if you like; chances are good you won't read anything you haven't seen before.

The problem with these sort of stories is not that there isn't a problem worth exploring...it's that they rarely examine the issue to any depth whatever. Child support is one of the thorniest and most comlex issues in the field of domestic relations and as a result, few reporters or social commentators ever really try to deal with it in all its prickly substance. It's easier to talk about 'deadbeat dads' who work under the table and never pay, or about mothers who spend the child-support money drinking shooters in their favourite lounge and then deliver the children for their access visits to the father unfed, unwashed, and clothed in hand-me-down rags from the church basement. It's easier by far, but it doesn't solve the problem...nor help the children. Isn't it a lovely testament to our human ability to muck things up when there are two sides to the story, but neither of them is correct?---JTS

Updated to November 30, 2006--Compiled by John T. Smith and John X. Smith