Series: The Pocket Idiot's Guide | Publication Date: May 4, 2004
From the home pregnancy test to handing out cigars-and beyond...
Dads-to-be often worry more than they let on about the emotional, financial, and physical changes that come with their partners' pregnancies. Here, expectant fathers can find information related to pregnancy, childbirth, and baby care, including training to be the birthing coach; how to understand what's ahead for mom; sex during pregnancy; baby-proofing the home; how to prepare for the baby's arrival; getting used to an infant's schedule; and preparing for the unexpected.
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The book covers everything from understanding what's happening during pregnancy to getting your home ready for the new arrival. -- Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN, July 18, 2004
About the Author
Joe Kelly is the founder and president of the national nonprofit organization Dads and Daughters, and the author of the book by the same name. He was awarded the 1995 Parenting Achievement Award from Parenting magazine and is the proud father of twin daughters, Mavis and Nia.
Journalist, activist and father Joe Kelly co-founded Dads and Daughters (DADs), the first national advocacy nonprofit for fathers and daughters. DADs provides men the tools to be better fathers and advocates for our daughters. DADs also publishes the award-winning newsletter Daughters. Kelly is a primary media source on fathering healthy daughters, appearing on NBC's Today Show, NPR's Talk of the Nation, CBS's Early Show, MSNBC, Lifetime, Fox News Channel and Voice of America, as well as in Time, People, New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Parenting and dozens of other outlets. He has written for Parents and Mothering magazines, among others, and is an expert for Mothering.com. Dr. Mary Pipher calls Kelly's best-selling book Dads and Daughters "an essential aid for the fathers of adolescent girls." It is based on his conversations with thousands of fathers across the country, more than a decade of speaking and writing on the subject, and 25 years experience as the father of twin daughters. In 1993, Kelly and his wife Nancy Gruver founded the groundbreaking international publication, New Moon: The Magazine for Girls and Their Dreams. Edited by girls 8 to 14 years old, New Moon is the only child-edited publication to win the prestigious Parent s Choice Foundation Gold Award multiple times. Gruver and Kelly won Parenting magazine's 1995 Parenting Achievement Award. In 2004, Kelly was named the Women's Sports Foundations Title IX Father of the Year and won the national Eating Disorders Coalition s Activist of the Year award. In 2001, he was iParenting.com's Dad of the Year. He belongs to the National Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families, Center for Family Policy and Practice, and serves on the board of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. Kelly's leadership on girls' issues, fathering, and media activism puts him in wide contact with fathers, girls, families, teachers, and other professionals who work with girls. He speaks and teaches frequently on fathering, media and marketing's impact on children, and successful strategies for raising girls and boys. Kelly has spoken before the National Association of Independent Schools, National Association of Science and Technology Centers, American Association of University Women, National Eating Disorders Association, and dozens of other conferences. He also has testified before the Congressional Children's Caucus, President Bush s blue ribbon Title IX commission, and the Food and Drug Administration. Kelly and Gruver live in Duluth, Minnesota. Their adult twin daughters, Mavis Gruver and Nia Kelly, live in California. A New Jersey native, Kelly, 51, is the author of the play This Horse of a Body of Mine, co-editor of four nonfiction books for girls, and was an award-winning journalist for Minnesota Public Radio. He has a BS in philosophy and journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Superior.
This review is from: The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Being an Expectant Father (Paperback)
After finding out that I will become a father soon, this was the first book that I read to hopefully begin to prepare for this major life transition. To the author's credit, it is relatively comprehensive and covers a lot of important topics, if only in brief. Since most of us who are becoming dads for the first time are presumably rather uninformed about many things, it is helpful that he covered so much ground. The index provides a simple way to refer back to appropriate sections, as needed. And the book is manageable and accessible for anyone, in contrast to many of the encyclopedic pregnancy tomes written for new moms.
Having acknowledged the helpful content, there were several weaknesses that prevent this book from being nearly as helpful as I would have liked. First, the author was trying so hard to be folksy and informal, presumably to accommodate male readers who might not be naturally inclined to read even slightly academic books, but I found this writing style to be rather unprofessional and more distracting than engaging.
He was also very clear at the beginning to declare that this book was intended for every sort of father, whether married, unmarried, gay, or adopted. But this attempt to write a book for every possible permutation of fatherhood (repeatedly acknowledged by random inclusive disclaimers throughout) made it seem rather annoyingly generic.
Ultimately, I'm glad to have read this book and expect to refer back to it as my wife progresses through pregnancy. It's certainly not a classic piece of literature, and I feel like it could have been much better, but it remains a helpful resource that I would recommend to other expectant dads.
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This review is from: The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Being an Expectant Father (Paperback)
awesome book. my husband was so immature and didn't understand what was going on with my body until I bought him this book. Suddenly he turned into an understanding mature guy. i really thought we were going to divorce if he kept on going. and the book got to me in a very timely manner!
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