It was his grandfather who taught him how to use a super-8 camera when he was just nine. Shortly before he died, Dana Glazer pointed a movie camera at him and shot hours of footage of him telling stories of his life. Now his own 3 year old can dangle his feet off a chair and watch his own great-grandfather spin tales out of his computer. "We are moving into a strange blend of real and virtual memories" Glazer notes, "and once they are gone, they are gone" Dana's fear of losing these memories is why he's been running around his Hoboken, New Jersey apartment with his Panasonic HVX200 High-Def. clocking 250 hours of footage of his own two kids.

Tired of "doing things too Hollywood and depending on having people saying yes" Glazer has just started a three year project on an ambitious documentary titled The Evolution of Dad. "Not much of the 250 hours of the footage will be in it" he says "In fact not much of me will be in it ether." Instead, Glazer plans to show something akin to a Michael Moore film or the indy hit Supersize me,, "I want something with a a little grit, edge and a little progressive, not a groupy movie about dads, but how this country and corporate America impacts fatherhood and how it can be be improved on." 

In a written proposal about the movie Glazer writes, The aesthetic approach of the film will be a blending of traditional cinema verite, stock footage, home movies, on-the-street interviews, as well as time-lapse photography akin to the films Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi. The overall intention is to create a film that is mythic, personal and profound. 

We begin with a collage of images of fathers from our collective consciousness. JFK walking with his son. Ward Cleaver (From Leave It To Beaver.) Atticus Finch. Dustin Hoffman (in Kramer Vs. Kramer) Darth Vader. John Lennon. Mike Brady (The Brady Bunch) Will Smith (in Pursuit of Happyness) Don Corleone (The Godfather). 

Glazer will be using his website as a home base to slowly build interest in the movie. By Father's Day he hopes to have enough images sent to him by dads to show off on the site. Over the next few years he will start showing short clips that will make it into the final movie. When the film is completed he will offer the DVD for purchase which could lead to a theatrical release. If you'd like to get involved you can contact him here. For further updates you can check his blog.

No doubt this is a challenging project but given his past work and achievements, this promising director is one to keep an eye on.

Forget the mommy/daddy wars - Yesterday Linda Hirshman has launched this high brow food fight  with Rebel Dad (Brian Reid) at the TPM Cafe. Brian's crime?  He  spent under three years at home with one baby.....Once the second baby came Rebel took his rebellious self right into full time work in public relations, leaving his former lawyer wife with a newborn and a kindergartener.

Although this fight has history,  Hirshman's latest comments lead you to believe he practically abandoned his kids, when in my opinion he ranks pretty high on my involved-father-o-meter.  

After she was done bruising up Brian she spotted Daddy Dialectic's Jeremy Smith on the other end of the playground and started poking him with her stick:  Dialectical Smith didn’t even stay home a year, but lived exactly the life the mommy activists dream of. He posts: “You know, my wife and I tried [both working part time] (she . . . is fortunate to have a unionized part-time teaching job that provides full health care) and I must say that it was extremely difficult to maintain . . . I'm interviewing for jobs. For our family, it might better for one of us to work full-time while the other stays home . . . I'm sort of thinking that maybe it's my wife's turn to stay home.” A few hours later: “Well, for us the issue is resolved: yesterday I accepted a full-time job . . . Poof! I'm no longer a stay at home dad and now it's my wife's turn to stay home -- actually, she's still thinking about whether she wants to go back to work. I hope she doesn't; I want her to have time with the boy.” Poof. I’d hate to be the woman with the desk next to Dialectical Dad, taking family leave while he minds the workplace. 

Geez Linda! Brian and Jeremy have both presented  fair arguments, regarding your basic creed of choice feminism and you have to get into a verbal fist fight.  Now I have been home for the last 14 years, with 2 boys while my wife works as a school teacher... does that make me a better father or am I being more fair to my wife than Brian or Jeramy? Well for my family I am, and for their families yes,  we all have a parent at home, which is the best family balance you can have. 

It's important that when couples decide who's staying home to do diapers,  they make the best choice for them and their kids, not for any social agenda or statistical conclusions that's created. Yes it is taking a long time to achieve the equality that you are reaching for. And if we get there great,  but lets concentrate on getting at least one parent to stay at home first, not which sex stays home.

(Note: With a seven month old and a four year old on his lap Robert Johnson of Wyoming sat down at his computer and wrote the first guest post on athomedad.  Originally submitted as a "rant" on the message board, he agreed to share his perspective on dads and masculinity.)

There are difficult days, and because it is always fun to create or add to stereotypes, most men can not handle being at home with the kids all day let alone weather the difficult days. I know because I worked in a number of male dominated environments and saw how lazy, mostly emotionally lazy, my compadres are. This distance runs the same gamut through the oil field labor hands to the career motivated professionals. Yeah, there are exceptions, but like I said, I am adding to and creating stereotypes here. 

 The brother-in-law the other day was lamenting how busy he is at the bank every day. I reminded him I worked in banks, was a specialist in department consolidation during the big bank mergers of the 90's, and knew how hard bankers worked most of the time. He forgot. He was using the "work" exhaustion to cover why he wasn't very patient with my nieces. We live in a small city where, like most places, the male is driven by their status in the community. Here it manifests itself in the young professionals in the board hunt. There are numerous boards and civic organizations all layered in a pseudo hierarchy that represents your importance to the community. The bonus is the members to got to make a difference, add to the community, make things better, contribute to society, do good work. 

 The down side is the younger "boys" have to build their chops. To do this they must multi-board so they can make the jumps to the higher status organizations. The multi-board makes them a stranger to their families because of the number of outside obligations connected to each board. They are living up to their maleness to compete and be a big dog while almost shunning their families. Then they parrot in interviews, "Yes, the most important thing to me is family and especially my kids." (the ones who run to the door to the see the familiar stranger before he runs off to another board meeting). I've witnessed male teachers, feeling the strain of proving their masculinity, coach all three school seasons, join less status boards, and join or start clubs focused on their personal interest. All proving that despite their dedication to the next generation, they can still be manly by avoiding their families. 

When I worked in the oil field, the focus was on embracing as many hours as possible because of the overtime pay-- the same pay most of them used up at the local strip club they used to avoid their families. The thing I noticed in all of these environments is how little the male wanted to work at connecting with either his wife or his kids. They all said the same thing, their wife and kids were the most important thing in the world--. The same guys who wouldn't think of cracking a parenting book, believe that authoritarian parenting is the best, actually brag about spanking, complain their wives are too indulgent, and want the home and nurturing work done so they can build their status and bank. An emotionally easier path because there is no investment of self, only an investment for self. If the societal push of real but minor sex differences is to cater to an illusion of self sacrifice and the myth of providing for the family then we can assume there will always be a high divorce rate, a trend in kids leaving their communities when they enter the workforce, and the continued breakdown of families. 

I am glad there are a lot of books to justify this "difference" because it must make some people feel better-- mostly men-- who are usually too emotionally lazy to build the real future (had to toss in some corn). Now I need to clean up a blow-out, fill a sippy-cup ,and reload the diaper bag so I can fill up the truck, get the oil changed, go to the library, and have the ski stuff ready so my wife and the oldest can go to their skiing lesson after school today. I love this job but... boy am I tired. 

(If you would like to guest post on athomedad drop me  a line)

  The Inside Poop

• The KCDADS have been invited to voice their opinion on the a new Children's Museum during the planning stages. The 36,500 square-foot museum which will focus on literature is slated to open by the summer of 2009. Source: Al's KCDADS blog

•  I've seen thousands of clients, and almost every time I've seen a stay-at-home dad seek alimony, the wife--she's usually a software executive--goes ballistic. - Carol Ann Wilson, a certified financial divorce practitioner speaking out on women and alimony. Source: Forbes Women Increasingly Paying Alimony

Fathers are like having a day-old helium balloon around the house

Gawker take note,  Jerry Seinfeld was spotted  here over the weekend and offered his  glimpse of fatherhood. "Why would you want someone in your house who craps in his pants while looking you in the face and even smiling about it a little?" Fathers, he concluded, are like having a day-old helium balloon around the house:  "It's just hanging out, floating somewhere between the floor and the ceiling. The rest of the family has to decide, 'Do I play with it, pop it? Why is it even here?' "  Source: steve barnes, times union, (albany, ny)

I'm always grateful when the media values fatherhood with headlines like Matador's chances of fatherhood hurt by goring.  One of his wounds involves the scrotal area and eviserates both testicles.  Geez, let the man have his testi-pain first then he can worry about fatherhood. 

Vasectomy video