Fathers & Princesses / Male-Friendly / Takes Two to Scandal / On Tiger from Sturgis - 12/12/09

[Smartmarriages]

- FATHERS & PRINCESSES
- MEN-DAD-FRIENDLY MARRIAGE ED GUIDE
- TAKES TWO TO SCANDAL
- ON TIGER FROM STURGIS

Feel if we keep on with this male/tiger-bashing the least we can do is open
with some really nice Male/Daddy friendly stuff.   - diane

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- FATHERS & PRINCESSES

Of Princesses and First Ladies
The Washington Times
Dec 6, 2009 

By Roland C. Warren

Disney's latest animated film, "The Princess and the Frog," will be released
Friday. The film already has received a great deal of attention largely
because it features Disney's first-ever black princess, Tiana.

After screening "The Princess and the Frog" and reflecting on its
significance, I was reminded of something I am fond of saying and truly
believe: "A good father helps his daughter find her prince without kissing
all the frogs." 

Indeed, James, the father of Disney's new princess, is presented in the film
as the driving force behind the values and character that allow the
rags-to-riches princess to live by her principles, achieve her dreams and
find her prince. 

James, voiced by Terrence Howard, works hard every day to support his
family. He and his wife (voiced by Oprah Winfrey) work together to encourage
their daughter to dream big despite her materially poor surroundings. Their
love and example pay off, and throughout the film, Tiana and her mother
reflect on James' positive legacy in their family.

Sadly, Tiana's experience has become far too rare in the black community,
where the marriage rate is near a historic low, the out-of-wedlock birthrate
is at a historic high of 70 percent and two-thirds of children live in
father-absent homes.

Given these troubling statistics, Disney should be applauded for presenting
an image of a married, black father who motivates his child to achieve great
things. Given the film's strong fatherhood theme, the National Fatherhood
Initiative is working with Disney to market the movie to dads and their
families. 

While stories like Tiana's have become too rare in the black community,
there are still plenty of examples of how strong black families, headed by
married parents, can help their daughters accomplish great things.

Indeed, James reminds me of another black father whose daughter found her
equivalent of a modern-day prince ‹ Fraser Robinson III, father of first
lady Michelle Obama.

Mr. Robinson suffered from multiple sclerosis, but he went to work every day
at Chicago's water plant, allowing his wife to stay home, and saving enough
money to send both of their children, Michelle and Craig, to Princeton. Mr.
Robinson died in 1991, only a year before Michelle married Barack Obama, but
it is clear that his legacy lived on.

Most of us have heard the story of how Mrs. Obama and the president met, so
I will not revisit it here, except to point out that Mr. Robinson's
influence seems to have played a significant role in the course the couple
took. The book "Michelle: A Biography" recounts that when Michelle started
bringing up marriage with Mr. Obama, he was unsure of the institution's
value. But Michelle, who had spent her life watching her happily married
parents build a stable life for her and her brother, continued to engage him
on the issue until he proposed.

In a video produced about Mrs. Obama during the president's campaign,
members of the Robinson family reveal just how important Mr. Robinson's
influence was in his daughter's life. Craig Robinson, Mrs. Obama's brother,
sums it up best when he says, "My father was in his 50s, and my sister would
still sit on his lap and put her head on his shoulder as she used to do when
she was a kid. And that Š in one picture epitomizes their relationship."

At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Mrs. Obama referred to her
father as the family's champion, hero, rock and provider. And Mrs. Obama's
mother, Marian, in the video mentioned above, gave this moving assessment of
the legacy Mr. Robinson left for his daughter when she said, "I hope America
gets to know the girl we raised and the woman she became. Š I wish my
husband could see this day, but every day I get to see a piece of him in
her. And for that I am so proud and so blessed."

Good fathers, like Mr. Robinson and James, are the first men to pursue their
daughters' hearts. When they do it right ‹ by pursuing their hearts in their
daughters' best interests, not their own ‹ it shows their daughters they are
worthy of receiving love. Without this modeling, too many girls spend their
lives kissing a whole lot of frogs and never find their prince.

And that's no fairy tale.

€ Roland C. Warren is the married father of two sons and president of the
National Fatherhood Initiative (www.fatherhood.org). He can be reached at
rwarren at fatherhood.org.
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-  MEN-DAD-FRIENDLY MARRIAGE ED GUIDE

Helpful resource includes sample posters and guides to make your
programs/classes more male and dad friendly.

Note: this is a long url - be sure you have all of it (ends with a g)
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.healthymarriageinfo.org/docs/eng
agingmeninme1.pdf&ct=ga&cd=IONDdUx403Q&usg=AFQjCNFLP-PjY2h59HJ94sJHjTkbXdqXB
g

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- IT TAKES TWO TO SCANDAL

> Diane
>  
> How interesting that with the Tiger Woods scandal our celebrity-saturated
> culture and media seem to be focusing exclusively on the ³male transgression²
> side of things.
>  
> I¹ve seen nothing regarding what must be an absolute host of women doing their
> ³gold-digger² thing, seeking any and all relationships with powerful and
> wealthy men in complete disregard for the men's wives, children, families.
>  
> Clearly, both sides are exceedingly selfish, in their own ways‹both totally
> unfaithful to relationship commitments.
>  
> Could you be sure and share the other side of things, should any
> journalist/author be so bold as to paint the entire canvas--let¹s just be
> honest that this is far more than exclusively ³bad boy² behavior, OK?
>  
> Roger in Wichita

Yes, agree.  And you can be sure we've addressed it on these pages many
times....the sisterhood side of this wretched coin-- or, rather, the
apparent lack of sisterhood, which is so baffling and so painful. We've had
way too many opportunities to wonder about this. The women that had affairs
with Woods, Sanford, Clinton, Edwards, John-plus-Eight, (etc etc - the list
being way too long), ALL knew full well that these were married men with
children.  Today I saw that coverage is beginning to emerge that addressed
this (wonder at how these women can do these things) but at the same time
today's jokes are also getting cruder - more racist, more misogynist, and
way more depressing.  But, yes, to agree with you....we do need to keep in
mind that women are doing this to women and to children and we need to make
addressing that somehow part of the solution and what we say and write about
it.  And, teach our daughters. -diane

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- ON TIGER FROM STURGIS

Marriage Matters: ³Eeny, meeny, miny, moeŠ²

By James and Audora Burg
Sturgis Journal
Sat Dec 12, 2009

Sturgis, Mich. - 

Audora has been wearing her Jane-colored glasses again. They are left over
from a recent escapist immersion into 1995 BBC production of Jane Austen¹s
³Pride and Prejudice² ­ all five delicious hours of it.

The work is a study in relationships as presented through seven marriages.
Attitudes about marriage as expressed by fictional characters introduced in
1813 may seem quaint, or perhaps irrelevant, to the sophisticated moderns of
late 2009.

But some truths are timeless, for good or ill.

Consider the novel¹s famous opening line: ³It is a truth universally
acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in
want of a wife.²

The gold-digging reality cut in both directions, and in Austen¹s context,
lacked the social censure of today. It was a simple fact of life set during
England¹s Georgian era.

Then there are the truths that should be timeless but take on the corrupting
tarnish of human debasement. By story¹s end, although two genuine love
matches are made, there is also a marriage of economic convenience forged
and a lust-motivated debauch converted into a poorly-conceived marriage with
a dim future.

The outcomes pivot on the question of character: those of good character, of
high moral standing, fare better than those of base instinct and
poorly-developed moral character.

Now, back to the future. After unrelenting headlines this past week
trumpeting character flaws of a prominent sports figure, Audora is ready to
flee to Austenland, where feminine virtue is exalted and duly rewarded,
where scoundrels are finally revealed and brought lower. And where none of
it is meant to be real.

It¹s far too discouraging to dwell on the tawdry of life as related in
nauseating fashion in the daily news cycles (³eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch
a TigerŠ²), where men and women behave like rutting beasts, thereby
destroying any semblance of a moral code. The cold, hard reality of
compulsive conquests, of self-indulgent displays of entitled linking up,
seems less real, less believable, than that of Austen¹s fictional realm.

But truth is stranger than fiction, we¹re told.

The modern female has been conditioned to regard this sort of attitude with
cynicism: ³Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chanceŠ and it is
better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom
you are to pass your life,² proclaimed one Pride and Prejudice character.
Several chapters later, she entered marriage as a matter of financial
security.

We are meant to pity her. Such calculated acceptance of one¹s fate seems
cold. The story¹s heroine, Elizabeth, wonders about this, musing, ³What is
the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent
move? What does discretion end, and avarice begin?²

These fictional questions could fairly be posed to the Norwegian wife of one
now-infamous golfer.
 
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