2nd Child 1st

I've been reading a book called "How to Succeed and Make Money with Your First Rental House" by Doug Keipper and Sean Lyden (www.firstrentalhouse.com) and they had an amusing quote relating having children to buying your first rental house:

"I was petrified when we brought our first daughter home from the hospital. And the second daughter, well she was a walk in the park - I highly recommend having the second child first - you are much calmer!!!"

It's just about like what my dad told me once, "If I had known how great grandchildren could be, I'd had them first!"

"Do Men Mother?"

Andrea Doucet, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, has just written a new book called "Do Men Mother?" (http://http-server.carleton.ca/~adoucet/) about how the roles of fathers are changing in areas of child care and domestic duties.

The publisher, University of Toronto Press, writes, "Using evidence gathered in a 4-year in-depth qualitative study...Doucet's research examines such key questions as: What leads fathers from earning to caring? How do fathers navigate through the 'maternal worlds' of mothers and infants? Are men mothering or redefining fatherhood?"

I'm excited to read her book because it examines how dads are capable of being primary-care providers and how that is similiar, and different, from mothers. Doucet writes, "In asking the ‘Do men mother?’ question, I indicate where gender similarities are in evidence,
where gender differences ignite ... and where gender is muted and fathers become parents in seemingly ungendered ways."

You can read the first chapter of her book for FREE by going to the website listed above.