Taking your kids to Fast food restaurants, Good? Bad? Make up your mind!

A Manhattan father, in the middle of a divorce and custody battle, is in a fight this week over a decision he made regarding dinner with his son.  David Schorr is a corporate attorney turned consultant with degrees from NYU and Oxford University and has actually filed a lawsuit against the court appointed shrink for defamation because she told the judge deciding the case (between him and his estranged wife) that he is unfit because he refused to take his son to McDonald’s for dinner last week.

Schorr has had partial custody of his 4 year old son for the past two and a half years. The boy threw a tantrum when Schorr told him they could have dinner anywhere but McDonald’s or no dinner at all. Being stubborn, the child chose “no dinner” and after repeatedly trying to change his son’s mind about getting something to eat, to no avail, he dropped him off at his wife’s place where the boy tattled on his father causing the wife to phone the shrink.  In the suit, Schorr’s parenting skills are coming into question because of this incident.  The custody trial resumes in December when the judge will decide if Schorr is fit to parent his son.

Really?  Are we going to say his parenting skills are bad because he’s refused to feed his child greasy fast food?  Or is it because he failed to bow to his child’s temper tantrum?  Maybe it’s because he brought him back to Mom without dinner?  Is it some kind of abuse NOT to take your child to McDonald’s??  COME ON!

Does this Dad deserve a bad wrap for this? What do you think?

Men in Distress, Crisis TV

A new TV show series on Lifetime aired their first episode yesterday, called “The Week the Women Went”. Did you watch this? It’s a reality type show where TV cameras descend on a whole town in South Carolina and tape what happens when they remove all the women over 18 yrs old and leave the men to fend for themselves and their children for 1 week.

Now, I’m not a huge reality fan and I don’t believe for a second that none of this program’s pandemonium is pre-planned but it is VERY entertaining none the less.

The men have to take care of everything from the toddlers beauty pageant and running their wives businesses to the everyday get-the-kids-fed-bathed-and-to-sleep that every mom deals with all the time. Some have babies, some are dealing with school aged children and some have teenagers giving them problems.

It’s funny to see expressions on the husband’s faces that can only come from dealing with unreasonable children and toddlers. They are fish out of water and many have the glazed over eyes already and we’re only into the first day! It promises to be a rollercoaster series indeed.

To see Lifetime’s official “The Week the Women Went” page;

http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/the-week-the-women-went

On a side note: I was appalled to see one dad giving his 3 year old daughter coffee (simply because she asked) and mentions that they (parents) do this all the time and that she loves It! Stay tuned to the post, “Should I be giving my child coffee (or any other adult beverages)?”

Are real Dads getting angrier?

Now that dads are starting to get more hands-on with raising the kids, are they "feeling the burn" of all the weariness that Mom's have dealth with for years?  We're seeing more disgruntled dads emerging in culture, from Adam Mansbach’s children’s book, Go the F**k to Sleep,  to the big screen with the new movie, The Change-Up where Jason Bateman's character is a father of three and compares his kids to raising little heroin addicts.  Is art imitating life here? 

Not from what I can see.  I know several Mom's who would be thrilled if dad would actually help out with the kids.  Maybe the real dads I know are worried their lives would look like the dads on the screen if they did.  Sure they help out topically when asked (grumbling under their breaths), but I don't know too many dads that really get in there and get dirty with it. That's not to say those dads aren't out there and kudos to those that do, but lets not expect too many brownie points for doing what hard working Mom's have been doing for decades.  As for being angry about it dads, well, they're your kids too and you have to present a united front when raising children or they'll walk all over you. Now you know why Mom needs a glass of wine sometimes to take the edge off.