So says this piece. Add your grain of salt in the comments.

Despite the long push for more equality in parenting duties, new research suggests that mothers and fathers may actually get along better when parenting roles are divided along more traditional lines -that is, when fathers back off caregiving duties, such as feeding and bathing, and put more effort into playtime.

Researchers at Ohio State University looked at 112 middle-class couples with four-year-old children. Researchers looked at how involved fathers were in play activities and how much they took part in caregiving.

They also observed parents working together to help their children perform certain tasks, such as building toy structures or drawing pictures.

Families in which fathers were more involved in play activities had more of what researchers called supportive interaction between the two parents.

In contrast, more of what is described by researchers as “undermining behaviour” was seen among families in which fathers do more of the caregiving.

Undermining behaviour was seen in statements such as “that’s a stupid idea” made by one parent to another, or taking separate approaches to helping their children.

It is unclear why the study yielded the results it did, but Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, a professor of family science at Ohio State University and one of the study’s co-authors, suggested parents may be subconsciously bothered when parenting roles conflict with their pre-conceived ideas.

From the mother’s point of view, it could be a function of “maternal gatekeeping,” she said. “For mothers, maybe, it’s hard to give up some control to the father. That could be a total social effect, but there could some sort of biological underpinning to it.”

The sex of the child did make a difference in the study’s findings.

With boys, the father’s involvement in play proved to be even more beneficial to the parents’ relationship.

On the other hand, fathers’ caregiving did not have a notable negative effect when it came to girls.

“Maybe fathers just feel more confident to participate in rearing their sons,” Prof. Schoppe-Sullivan said.

“If the mother is doing something with the son that he doesn’t like, the father feels like he should say something, or he has more of a role. Whereas with girls, it may be that the father lets the mother do more what she feels is best.”

Anne-Marie Ambert, a retired professor of family studies at York University in Toronto, said it makes sense that relationships would be good between couples where the father plays with the kids.

“Mothers are probably very appreciative when fathers

play with children, because it does take the children off their backs,” she said.

“Also, it’s very good for the children; the children are more active.”

She said it is less clear why having fathers involved in the caregiving would cause problems.

“You would think that caregiving from the father would make mothers much happier.”

A longish but extremely touching piece on why we have children. Get a cup of coffee, settle in, and enjoy.

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Andrea adds: What a piece.

We have no choice but to give ourselves for our children, but we learn that in giving ourselves we receive our selves. In the frailty of this little form that called such an immense love out of me, this bundle of winsome life and running legs and embracing arms, I share in the quintessentially human condition of loving recklessly what is fragile, fleeting, and at risk. There is nothing for it; I cannot help myself. Even at thirteen months, my daughter was sweet and vulnerable and of immeasurable sacred worth. She was not perfect, but she was everything that was good in me, and yet so much better, the highest art I had created, my only true thing in a counterfeit world. She was my little girl.

ProWomanProLife is three years old today. Happy Birthday to us!

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Andrea adds: Not to put a damper on the birthday celebration, but it is hard to uncork the champagne when your founding coincides with a reprehensible, sad and heavy moment in Canadian history, both for women and their unborn children. January 28 is the 23rd anniversary of the Morgentaler decision. However, onwards and upwards, there are more and more of us (by this I mean ProWomanProLife types, and pro-lifers in general) and we are all actively and gracefully (I hope) pushing toward an end to abortion in Canada. Maybe I’ll have a beer after work, after all. (I’m not sure three years warrants champagne. Or even a fine wine. But on many occassions I actually prefer beer. It’s the time spent in Germany…I’m officially digressing now. Happy Birthday ProWomanProLife! Thank you to our readers, and thank you to those who quietly and faithfully do their part in the struggle.)

Re Andrea’s post from yesterday. Just heard on the radio something about a contest to kill coyotes that didn’t sit well with the authorities because it offers a prize for the best kill (here’s a news story about it, in case you’re curious). The news reader explained that you can’t benefit from killing an animal, even if it’s a pest.

Wish they had a rule like that for killing humans…

p.s. coyotes really are a pest.

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Deborah adds: Tell that to the folks at the University of Victoria. Even the hippies there are okay with a rabbit cull.

… how much I like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie? First and foremost because he’s got guts and isn’t afraid to stand for what he believes in. Also because he is taking on public sector unions (not the most PWPL-esque topic so I won’t elaborate here). And then there’s this. To be this openly pro-life in such a “blue” state and still be popular is very encouraging indeed.

You will, I trust, forgive the pun:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been charged with murdering one woman and seven newborn babies at his rogue clinic, called the Women’s Medical Society, in West Philadelphia. Though it’s too early to predict this case’s full political impact, it’s certain that anti-abortion groups will use it to push for further restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. But the legislation pushed by these anti-abortion conservatives is what has forced women into such life-threatening situations. Poor women throughout the United States cannot afford safe abortions and in consequence sometimes make extremely dangerous choices.

“Because of the Medicaid ban on abortion funding and state restrictions, poor women in the state and in Philadelphia really face horrific choices about what to do if they have an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, or a pregnancy that poses significant health problems,” says Rose Corrigan, a professor of politics and law at Drexel University. “So what I’ve seen is that women often shop around for abortion services. Women are so poor that a few dollars really make a difference.”

An update on this horrible and upsetting story we mentioned a few days ago.

“His entire practice showed nothing but a callous disdain for the lives of his patients,” said the nearly 300-page grand jury report, released Wednesday.

The panel also had scathing criticism for Pennsylvania state health and medical regulators, saying they had numerous opportunities to shut Gosnell down over the years but ignored complaint after complaint about filthy conditions and illegal operations.

In all, prosecutors said, state officials failed to inspect the clinic despite repeated complaints from 1993 until January 2010, when a federal drug raid investigating heavy painkiller distribution at the clinic shut it down.

Repeated complaints about safety standards at an abortion clinic are not enough for the authorites to bother with. But illicit painkiller distribution can shut down that clinic in no time flat.

Somebody’s got their priorities in the wrong order.

I didn’t know anything about him before breakfast this morning, but the more I learn about Herman Cain, the more I like. The former CEO of Godfather Pizza is thinking of running for U.S. President and among the many reasons why I like this idea very much is this:

In a new interview, Cain tells American Family Radio’s “Focal Point” program that he is pro-life and opposes the agenda of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s biggest abortion business.

“I absolutely would defund Planned Parenthood — not because I don’t believe in planning parenthood, [but because] Planned Parenthood as an organization is an absolute farce on the American people,” he said.

Cain, who is African-American, accused the abortion business of engaging in a racist agenda.

“People who know the history of Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood, they know that the intention was not to help young women who get pregnant to plan their parenthood. No — it was a sham to be able to kill black babies,” he added.

He told the program that proof of the agenda is seen in the fact that  “75 percent of all Planned Parenthood facilities are located in black neighborhoods.”

The invaluable folks at Mashable.com produced a handy list of parent-friendly social networks. How to find advice, parents who’ve been through what you’re now going (seems to be a lot of 2-year-olds refusing to eat out there…), or simply to find new friends who are up to their ears in crayons and diapers just like you.

Wow.

“Smart, fair-minded, hard-working good men make all sorts of mistakes in divorce. Executives and professors and doctors make the same mistakes as plumbers and truck drivers,” according to Joseph Cordell in The 10 Stupidest Mistakes Men Make When Facing Divorce. The lawyer and his wife run a bustling St. Louis law practice specializing in men’s divorce. “You can’t make a mistake we haven’t seen,” he writes.

Apparently, one of the worst mistakes is not censoring what your new girlfriend writes on Facebook.

When men ask his firm, “What can my girlfriend put up on Facebook about me and our relationship?” Cordell says their answer is: “Nothing. Not a word. Not a single photo. Nothing.” He goes further, telling men to buy a new computer at the first sign of marital discord. “The cost of a new computer is cheap compared with the cost of an incriminating browsing history.”

Sigh. I suppose “trying to work out a way to save the marriage together” would be too boring and simple.

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Véronique agrees: I always thought that if people spent half as much time and energy working on their marriage as they spend working-out their divorce, the divorce rate would be significantly reduced.

Yes, marriage can be challenging. And yes, everybody has a good reason why everybody else should have worked on their marriage but they couldn’t. Marriage is like riding a bike: you have to keep it going or you fall. And it takes two to tango: it takes two people to make a marriage work and it takes two to ruin it. But people are fooling themselves thinking that the end of the marriage will mean the end of their problems, especially when children are involved. Divorce with children means that you will be in almost daily contact with your ex-spouse over child-rearing and finances, the two leading causes of divorce. So why not seek help and learn to make it work?