As usual, we asked each other about the best and worst parts of our day. The conversation became incredibly silly. The 7-year-old claimed he’d seen a shark in the toilet at school (a lemon shark, to be exact). He hadn’t, but my 5-year-old, following suit, claimed his bottom had been bitten off by a toilet shark that day too. I reminded him that he’d have trouble sitting if that were true....

It’s not that men aren’t interested in babies. We are. They just have to be ours. This story was submitted by a Fatherly reader. Opinions expressed in the story do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fatherly as a publication. The fact that we’re printing the story does, however, reflect a belief that it is an interesting and worthwhile read. A few months before my son, Zack, and his wife, Allie, had their first child, I watched as someone handed a baby to Zack....

Jordan is the father of a 3-year-old, as well as Director of Exercise Physiology at Johnson & Johnson’s Human Performance Institute, where he’s responsible for the development and execution of the corporate fitness programming. Professional athletes, military Special Forces, and Fortune 500 CEOs have all come to him to work things out. Jordan says the key to building muscle endurance lies in isometric contractions — the tiny twitches that occur when the muscles tense without changing length....

“Stuck with the kids tonight, huh?” the store employee asked as I walked in with my two small daughters. We were shopping for my wife’s birthday and, having seen a shirt in the store window, popped in to see how much it cost. Maybe it was because it was late. Or because I was tired. Or because I was just trying to get in and out of the store and wasn’t expecting the question, but immediately I wanted to snap back, “What the f&*k is that supposed to mean?...

“The positive effect of the family background of children conceived through artificial reproduction techniques ‘overrides’ the risks of related poor health impairing their cognitive ability,” said coauthor on the study Melinda Mills of the University of Oxford, in a statement. “The findings support other studies showing that on balance such fertility treatments do not impair a child’s higher thinking skills.” READ MORE: The Fatherly Guide to IVF More than five million children have been conceived through IVF since the first successful artificial fertilization in 1978, and scientists have been tracking the development of these children ever since....

“The way that custody is evaluated by courts has changed over the decades, and the cases in which the mother had sole custody instead of the father… that has changed drastically,” says Kevin Kelly, an associate law professor at Seton Hall University’s Family Law Clinic. There are two types of child custody. There’s legal custody, which is control over decisions around a child’s wellbeing, such as education, religion and health care, and there’s physical or residential custody, which is principally defined by where the child sleeps at night....

Neuroscientist Robert Provine, author of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation has made a career of studying how and why people laugh. In his research, he found some important neurological factors to laughter that might help parents trying to get a kid to laugh. First off, laughter isn’t necessarily about what’s funny. Also, it occurs autonomously and without effort. And finally, it’s a behavior deeply rooted in relationships, which is also why it’s contagious....

Despite the support of many people who rallied around Levs, still fewer than 15 percent of American employers offer paid leave to spouses of new mothers. Levs, the author of All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses — And How We Can Fix It Together, in which he discusses the state of parental policies, has parlayed his expertise beyond journalism. Now, he’s advocating for The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act....

But no matter the reason a kid ends up taking karate lessons, one thing is certain: Signing up for martial arts classes can be absurdly confusing. Not only is there an endless number of schools from which to choose (Aikido, Jiu-jitsu, Krav Maga, the list goes on), each of which emphasizes different skills and priorities, but every dojo and sensei has its own style. Plus, the pricing packages are questionable, if not dubious, and are often presented using a strong-arm sales pitch....

The timing is fortuitous: Attacks against Asian Americans have skyrocketed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which Trump dubbed the “Chinese virus.” At the same time, small glimmers of hope and progress breakthrough: Nomadland‘s Chloé Zhao just became the first Asian woman to win the Golden Globe for best director. Tran is very aware that context matters, and she’s all for “the idea that we are celebrating a part of the world that is not often celebrated on this scale....

“So my cousin and his wife got an email from their sons teacher,” user @_lyddz tweeted on February 13, along with a picture of the note. “He didn’t do his hw so she asked him to write a paper saying why he didn’t do his hw and this is what she got…” The letter, which has already been retweeted almost 60,000 times, explains that Eddie chose not to do his homework over the weekend because “it’s a stress-free time to go out with friends, watch TV, and play games....

“Our research revealed that parents are powerful vehicles of ethnic prejudice transmission towards their children,” co-author on the study Giuseppe Carrus of Roma Tre University in Italy told Fatherly. “Not only through their explicit communications and actions, but also through their unaware and unconscious beliefs, stereotypes and automatic behaviors.” That’s not to say kids aren’t sort of racist all by themselves. Studies have identified prejudice in children as young as three years old, and even infants seem to prefer faces that match their own ethnicities and people who speak their own languages....

In the episode, Bell is chatting with Scandal actress and new mom Katie Lowes about some of the bizarre things that can happen during breastfeeding, including infections and clogged-up ducts. Bell told Lowes that when she was breastfeeding her kids, she suffered from mastitis, a painful inflammation of the breast which is caused by a build-up of breast milk. The mother of two could typically manage the pain with antibiotics but during a trip to Atlanta, Bell found she couldn’t get a hold of a doctor to refill her prescription....

The bill bans transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams in all public and some private elementary schools, secondary schools, and colleges in the state. There is no record of any trans girl or woman competing in school sports in the state. Although the bill is the “Women’s Fairness in Sports Act,” the bill says that students must play as the “biological sex” listed on their birth certificate, which also bans transgender boys and men from playing on male sports teams....

Together with her son, friends in New York, friends (and fans!) in the Dominican Republic, and family members in Florida and Kentucky, Lucy brought her sweet song celebrating togetherness alive. “For this music video, I really wanted my heritage represented in the most genuine way,” said Lucy. “From Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico and all the stops in between. THIS is my community!” The video is as sweet as the message it shares....

Yes, you heard that right. A Super Bowl upset victory, one for the books as one of the most intense and exhilarating Super Bowls in American history, might have saved thousands of San Franciscans from contracting COVID-19. But how is that possible? By the time Super Bowl Sunday rolled around, and super-fans packed the Miami, Florida Hard Rock Stadium, San Francisco had already confirmed its first few cases of COVID-19, and at least one confirmed case of community transmission from a man who had been to Wuhan, China and passed the illness to his wife....

Both markets have seen unpredicted changes over past few years. Homeowners markets that used to be quite affordable skyrocketed in price due to pandemic moves. In other places, it became cheaper to rent than buy due to rising mortgage rates — even if buying might be a better long-term investment. But long-term investments, though great, require a lot of cash on hand. Fixr.com visualized whether it’s cheaper to buy a home or rent in various metros....

The most obvious thing that many people pointing out that Mario already has a pretty iconic voice so why exactly did we need to do stunt-casting for an animated movie? It’s like if James Gandolfini had been hired as the voice of Homer for The Simpsons Movie. Others said that if you are going to stunt-cast, you should at least pick someone who could really make the role their own....

For normal dads, this shift in fatherly figure standards can be intimidating. After all, while you move further away from the best shape of your life with each skipped work out and late-night donut, these demigod dads are like muscle-bound versions of Dorian Gray paintings. But while it can be easy to see all of this as discouraging, there is a silver line that is unexpectedly found lying in the subtext of the Instagram account of none other than Mark Wahlberg....