Like many dads, Chef Frank Proto, the Director of Culinary Operations at the Institute of Culinary Education, loves making pancakes. When asked to contribute a recipe for “The Dad Special”, he was happy to serve up his take. “The Dad Special” is a celebration of food, family, and fathers who cook. Featuring chefs, celebrities, and kitchen crazy dads, this collection highlights meals — from family secrets to quick kid delights — meant to honor time spent at the table....

Teaching kids how to tie their shoes can sometimes be a frustrating and arduous process. And because most parents don’t want to be a Bean Dad and gaslight their children into learning how to do it completely on their own, the process requires lots of personal engagement. Typically speaking, parents actually want to offer helpful guidance on how to make the transition from velcro sneaker to their kid’s Converse as easy as possible....

The events of that day, and those that unfolded over the next two years, serve as the foundation for Brooks’ new book Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear. Part memoir, part deep-dive investigation into the current state of modern parenting, Small Animals explores how parents today, unlike those of previous generations, have been thrust into a hyper-competitive culture of fear and anxiety. From stranger abduction and chemicals in food to economic instability and the fear that their children won’t get into the right schools, parents have never been more afraid....

Here at Fatherly, we’re big proponents of toys that do the least, so imaginations have to work that much harder. But we’re also fans of toys that let kids have a good time. And that’s why we dig Brio’s remote control car. The controller has four big buttons: Forward, reverse, turn right, and turn left. So when your kid presses the button, something happens. Cause-and-effect in action. Added bonus: When toddlers (and this toy is meant for kids ages 2 and up) hold a toy car, or push it along, they are, unbeknownst to them, working hard at hand-eye coordination, manual dexterity, and visual tracking, which is the ability to follow an object with our eyes as it moves across our field of vision....

More pragmatic parents talk about the need for better time management. These are the parents I admire and hope to emulate when baby Cleo, my first, arrives next month. But these are also the parents whose pronouncements trouble me because I know they’re right and I know that my time is about to become more valuable, and I’ll have to treat it that way. Which means that I’ll miss the singular joy of being profligate with my athleisure-wearing hours, of pursuing a semi-passion with no eye toward marginal value or betterment of any kind....

In the now-ultra-viral TikTok video, the toddler is sitting in the car, strapped in her car seat, and her mom, Colette, is getting ready to drive off. Outside the car is Camille’s Pop-Pop. She has a special bond with her grandpa, and the two have the sweetest exchange saying goodbye to each other through the window. They share a few “see you later” after a playdate, blowing air kisses and waving....

The “leaked” images, which naturally found their way onto Reddit, show a number of potential spoilers regarding future MCU projects, including blurry looks at the Hawkeye spin-off series and the upcoming Ms. Marvel series. However, the major spoiler is found in what appears to be images from Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, as it looks like Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch is joining the sequel. In fairness, we kind of knew this, cause Elizabeth Olsen basically told us here at Fatherly....

Why? It all has to do with exposure to words. The right words. New research shows the kinds of conversations that parents and kids have — dialogue that they found differs depending on socioeconomic standing — change the course of a child’s academic career. Here’s what those high-achieving conversations look like. The False Hopes in Having More Words For a long time, experts believed it was the sheer quantity of words children were exposed to that dictated linguistic skills and later academic achievements....

If you missed this moving, and amazing tribute concert, you need to stream it, ASAP. But, get ready to set aside a little bit of time. This mind-blowing event is almost six hours long! In his introduction to the concert, Dave Grohl called it a “gigantic fcking night for a gigantic fcking person” and he was not messing around. Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert Streaming Although the concert was streaming live for free on YouTube over Labor Day weekend, it’s not anymore....

You know what Magna-Tiles are. And, if you don’t already have any for your kid, you really should. In some ways, Magna-Tiles (and similar brands) are like LEGOs for toddlers and preschoolers. It’s the kind of toy that encourages building, thinking, and the notion that it’s very okay if you have to rebuild something, too. (Also, Magna-Tiles hurt less when you step on them.) But, the new “Beatles Collection” for Magna-Tiles is truly great....

Looking back, a lot of dads wish they asked themselves a few more pressing questions before they became fathers — questions that, they say, would’ve helped them understand themselves a bit better. That’s why we asked a handful of men to look back and tell us what they wish they knew about themselves before they became parents. Self-interrogation, we realized, is crucial to understanding what trouble areas might arise and how parents can best account for them....

“One day my friend and I woke up early and snowboarded Loveland Pass, then on the way back down stopped to go whitewater rafting,” Derek says. “We got back to Boulder and did an epic mountain bike ride, then went out on Pearl Street that night. I thought if I can do all this in one day, why not live here?” So, at age 29, Derek decamped to Boulder, got a bartending gig, and spent his days on the slopes and bike trails....

“When children walk in on their parents having sex, the father isn’t usually strangling the mother or ejaculating of her face, which is what they’ll see in porn,” Gail Dines, a professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Wheelock College in Boston, told Fatherly. So what is dad to do when his small child wanders into his online porn collection? Experts agree: lie, boldly, and feel no shame. A parent should never admit that the porn belongs to them, Dines says, because a child stands to gain nothing by knowing what his or her parents watch in private....

“The most ambitious discussions about having second children occur during a date night, in between the first and second bottle of wine,” the authors write. “But, then there are the toys, the sleepless nights, the constant barrage of ‘why?’ questions and the plethora of sticky handprints.” What Type of Parent Are You? TAKE THE QUIZ! It’s like they know me. The researchers plumbed 16 years of panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, which followed 20,009 individuals....

But why? Sure, it’s helpful to have markers along the way and 40 is a mid-point many of us have drawn, a line of demarcation between our younger and older selves. And, yes, for some the date is just that, a date. But for many men, a sense of dread encroaches as they creep closer to 40. However you feel about the age, it is a great place to reflect on what you’ve learned, and jettison some of the more insidious notions that may have taken root in your 20s and 30s....

But who is Amy Coney Barrett, and what are her fundamental beliefs? She’s a person who is in the Charismatic Christianity community, what does that mean? Will her religious background influence her decision-making on the court? The answer is likely yes, based on her public statements, and her judicial record. What Is Charismatic Christianity? Charismatic Christianity, which is otherwise known as Spirit-filled Christianity, is a belief system believed by several different denominations of Christianity including Pentecostalism, the overall Charismatic Movement, and the Neo-charismatic movement....

So it’s not surprising that pregnant women might have a nesting instinct before giving birth. But is it a real thing or just legend? And is building a crib as big a pain in the ass as everyone says? Yes. And … yes. Nesting And Evolution One of the first studies to ever take on the question of nesting was conducted in 2013 by researchers at McMaster University (where the education hasn’t been super-sized since 2004)....

50. Sint (2010) Typically, Santa is a kind old man. In Sint, he is an evil, murderous ghost bishop whose sole mission is to kill as many people as possible, earning him last place on our Santa rankings. 49. Santa’s Slay (2005) Instead of bringing toys to kids around the world, this Santa, born of a virgin birth orchestrated by Satan, has an insatiable desire to murder people in increasingly grotesque ways....

Some guys might love and be turned on by staring at big boobs. Plenty more love breasts that are average in size. Though there’s no right or wrong predilection, what men find attractive about breasts may reveal surprising things about other parts of their life, from financial security to fatherhood. In fact, how a guys get turned on by boobs could make the difference between him being poor, hungry, or healthy, research suggests....

Why are so many generally pleasant men so unpleasant at home? The answer, according to Professor Ryan Martin, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, has to do with men’s desire for power, both over themselves and over their own emotions, as well as a lack of introspection. Martin thinks of one client who would cry and say he didn’t want to be a tyrant like his father, but couldn’t help it....