Author Archives: T.B. White

About T.B. White

lives in the New York City area with his wife and two daughters, 6 and 3. He is a college professor who has written essays about Media and the O.J. Simpson case, Woody Allen, and other areas of popular culture. He brings a unique perspective about parenting to families.com as the "fathers" blogger. Calling himself "Working Dad" is his way of turning a common phrase on its head. Most dads work, of course, but like many working moms, he finds himself constantly balancing his career and his family, oftentimes doing both on his couch.

The Return of Dad’s Magic Shoulder

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When my daughters were babies I used to marvel at how quickly they often responded to their being nursed, how soothing it was, how comforting, and how they drifted into sleep. This was not always the case, and my wife will tell you of many nights feeling, well, attached. Dads of course don’t have that capacity, and yes more than once I would cry out exasperatedly about not coming with mammary glands. The bottle is not the same as it might have been in another time, when few children were being breastfed. But dads do have something to compensate: a … Continue reading →

“Show Me the Money” – teaching kids the value of a dollar

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I have had to learn, the hard way, about money. I still don’t really understand it all that well. My parents gave me an allowance when I was a kid, but I don’t think I ever connected it all that much to things I wanted. When I was a teenager, I had a modest income from a job, but I never worried about not having money to buy stuff that teenagers buy – records, movie tickets, fast food. When I went to college, my parents gave me an ATM card – they were pretty new then – and put money … Continue reading →

Lawn Mowers, Dads, and Weighty Matters

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Looking through some old musings, I came across this story from about two summers ago. My father inadvertently taught me a lesson about my health and what I need to do to really stay in shape – but you know, some days Dad really does not have a clue! I used to mow my parents’ lawn all through my high school years and in summers home from college. Not too bad, boring stuff, calluses on the hands, a little sweat. Until I went to college I was thin, and then put on weight that I still carry, sadly. Part of … Continue reading →

Sometimes you wanna play up da stereotypes!

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Let’s talk ethnicity here. I’m Italian-Polish American. My wife is Italian-American. All of our parents were born in the United States, so we’re not entirely connected to the “old country.” Our own self-images are formed in part by experience, in part by those representations of Italian-Americans in films and television. The most common stereotype is of course the Mafioso, the well-dressed men with the crooked noses and pinstripes who offered special kinds of insurance plans for small businesses. There are many other popular images, more comical ones like Chico Marx’s playful halfwit, or the jovial overweight “nana.” I also love … Continue reading →

Does My Five-Year-Old Really Need to Know about HIV

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We’re pretty direct and frank in our discussions with our children. The only euphemisms we use are related to “number 1” and “number 2” – no, we don’t use those terms, but you get the idea. We use the clinical terms for pretty much everything else. It’s important not to attach any shame to such discussions, and we do a decent job of this. We received an announcement about the AIDS/HIV education our children will be receiving. There are apparently two phases to the lessons the children receive – in all grades, K through 8. The first is explaining what … Continue reading →

Stupid Stereotypes of Panicky Husbands

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I was watching Kiki’s Delivery Service with the girls tonight, and at the end, the baker who befriends Kiki finally has the baby, and there is that little scene where she says it’s time to her husband, and he starts to panic and trip over himself. This is a common image in pop culture: the dad-to-be who freaks out when it’s time. It doesn’t matter if he’s been to classes like Lamaze for childbirth. It doesn’t matter how much he’s prepared himself. It doesn’t matter if he’s managed to memorize the phone numbers of all the important people, or placed … Continue reading →

“She Had It Coming To Her”

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– Blaming the victim for her own murder — I have paid some attention to the media chatter about Imette St. Guillen, the young graduate student who was murdered here in New York City ( I used to teach at the college where she attended, in a different department). There are many angles to cover, but since this is a blog on Fatherhood I’ll just stick to one topic. Recently, some talk radio idiots were arguing that it was her fault for allowing herself to get drunk and be out late. Scarily enough, some of the pig-heads of Fox News … Continue reading →

A Memory of Smoking — and How One Mom Stopped Her Teen

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This is not my story; it is one a colleague of mine told me. I am not sure if I would have done what her mother did, but it worked! When she was about 12 or thirteen my colleague and her girlfriend took up smoking. And naturally, her mother found out. She saw the half-smoked pack of cigarettes in her schoolbag. I guess every parent has to face this scenario, finding something in your child’s backpack that doesn’t belong there as far as you’re concerned. Cigarettes, condoms, drugs, weapons, Barry Manilow CD’s – whatever it is, there’s that moment when … Continue reading →

“My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad”

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Remember that phrase? Every son wants his father to be tough. Sons define themselves in relation to fathers. Fathers are important role models for their sons, and yes, I imagine that some of the rhetoric from the various fatherhood web sites I saw (which I’ll get back to working on and posting, I swear!) has some validity – children without a strong presence of a father can suffer greatly. But of course, if by “strong” we mean “can beat up” people – including the child’s mother, to say nothing of the child – then that’s probably a presence we can … Continue reading →

Respect My Authoritah!

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How to get your kids to respect your authority if you are an anti-authoritarian — My wife and I both share this problem: we like to question authority, challenge it, reject it — and in my case, mock the stuffing out of it. My favorite cultural icons are iconoclasts: those whose life’s work seemed devoted to challenging all our preconceptions about society and how it’s supposed to function. I am not referring to political figures here, like Jefferson, or King, or Ghandi, though my political views often find me in clashes with my parents. I am here simply referring to … Continue reading →