The Single Father: A Dad's Guide to Parenting Without a Partner (New Father Series)

Rating:
Summary: Difficult subject, helpful book
Review: As a single father (never married to my child's mother), I've looked at as many books as I could find to get assistance in being a good father under the circumstances. I've only bought two - Live-Away Dads by William Klatte, and this one.

Mr Brott's book is informative, interesting, easy to read and easy to understand. Contrary to so many books on this subject, I didn't get any sense of anti-anything or anti-anyone posturing. Instead, I got the sense that Mr Brott values children and believes that they need fathers in their lives. His book is designed to encourage fathers to accept and embrace their relationships with their kids, despite limitations or changes in their circumstances. The thrust of the book is that the father-child relationship is important and necessary, and he suggests that fathers pursue and protect those relationships. To that end, he offers suggestions and advice about how to do so (from the big subjects, like meeting someone new, to the small, like setting aside space in your place for your kids, even if they don't live with you). I found it extremely helpful, if for no other reason than I felt less alone.

He seemed to me to be saying that preserving your relationship with your kids doesn't have to be to the exclusion of anyone else, and doesn't have to be a destructive process, which it all too frequently is. Would that more people agreed.

Rating:
Summary: Difficult subject, helpful book
Review: As a single father (never married to my child's mother), I've looked at as many books as I could find to get assistance in being a good father under the circumstances. I've only bought two - Live-Away Dads by William Klatte, and this one.

Mr Brott's book is informative, interesting, easy to read and easy to understand. Contrary to so many books on this subject, I didn't get any sense of anti-anything or anti-anyone posturing. Instead, I got the sense that Mr Brott values children and believes that they need fathers in their lives. His book is designed to encourage fathers to accept and embrace their relationships with their kids, despite limitations or changes in their circumstances. The thrust of the book is that the father-child relationship is important and necessary, and he suggests that fathers pursue and protect those relationships. To that end, he offers suggestions and advice about how to do so (from the big subjects, like meeting someone new, to the small, like setting aside space in your place for your kids, even if they don't live with you). I found it extremely helpful, if for no other reason than I felt less alone.

He seemed to me to be saying that preserving your relationship with your kids doesn't have to be to the exclusion of anyone else, and doesn't have to be a destructive process, which it all too frequently is. Would that more people agreed.

Rating:
Summary: Some useful information, but a lot of anger at mothers
Review: I took a look at this book to see if it might be something Icould recommend to my son's father, now that we're separated. Whilethere is some good parenting information, there are also some serious problems. Brott clearly isn't completely over his divorce yet. Little digs against mothers crop up even when he is discussing unrelated topics (for example, when he is discussing becoming a stepfather, he feels compelled to claim that mothers are more likely to abuse children than are stepfathers (he gives no reference to back up this bizarre claim). He condemns giving the mother sole or primary custody for various reasons, but supports *fathers* getting sole or primary custody--in his discussions of custody, he fails to focus on the children's best interests, but instead emphasizes the father's rights. Ditto his discussion of child support--he seems to think that mothers use child support payments to indulge themselves, without considering that adequate child support is what is the children's best interest. Furthermore, his proposed visitation schedules for breastfeeding infants are ludicrous--for example, for a one month old, breastfed, he suggests at least 3 hours a day, plus 8 to 12 hours on the weekends--a schedule that is highly likely to prevent breastfeeding from being successfully established. He also claims that extended breastfeeding (past 1 year) is merely a ploy to interfere with the father's relationship with the child. He also suggests giving "tastes" of food to very young babies (newborn to 6 months), apparently unaware that early introduction of solids can increase the risk of allergies developing. One good thing about this book is that he has included lots of information for gay fathers throughout, but I suspect that there are other books for gay fathers which do not have the problems of this book. I decided not to recommend this book to my son's fathers. Instead, I gave him a copy of _Helping_Your_Kids_Cope_With_Divorce_the_Sandcastles_Way_, which includes a wealth of balanced, compassionate, realistic advice for divorced parents of both genders.

Rating:
Summary: The most practical guide I eveer seen
Review: I'm adopting a 9 year old boy, and even I'm not in any of the categories this book describes, every page of it had become very useful. I live the same ups and downs, the same joy and the same frustration, so, I'm practicing every advice the author wrote, with extraordinary results.
For the first time since I took the decision of becoming a single father, I found an empathic word and a shoulder to cry in this book.

Rating:
Summary: The most practical guide I eveer seen
Review: I'm adopting a 9 year old boy, and even I'm not in any of the categories this book describes, every page of it had become very useful. I live the same ups and downs, the same joy and the same frustration, so, I'm practicing every advice the author wrote, with extraordinary results.
For the first time since I took the decision of becoming a single father, I found an empathic word and a shoulder to cry in this book.

Rating:
Summary: A "must read" for divorced and separated fathers
Review: This book isn't written just for men who have custody of their children. The term "single father" refers to any father who isn't living with the mother of his child, regardless of where the child is residing.

The strongest area of this book is its practical advice on how to take a constructive approach to solving common problems following a divorce. Often there are forces at work which tend to push divorced fathers out of their children's lives. This book helps the reader confront each of these forces instead of succumbing to them.

Armin Brott makes it clear that there is nothing more fundamental to our happiness and success in life than our family relationships. Fathers will benefit from reading this book, but the children whose fathers read this book will be the real winners!

Rating:
Summary: This book is worth the money spent
Review: Wow! This book is worth the money spent and then some. The author defines `the single father' as any man who isn't living with his child's mother. Illustrated with cartoons, this is an indispensable resource for single dads about the joys of fathering. It helps to give dads the knowledge, skills, and support they need to become actively involved fathers.