The youth-based initiative, Young & Potential Fathers (YPF) is promising and ambitious in addressing one of the most pressing issues affecting the black community today: absentee fathers and poor parenting skills.

For those who loved but felt that they were not loved in return by their fathers, for those who are reliving their past with their actions or inactions toward their own children, this is for you.

The cost to the child of a father absent in the physical most of the time, though he is present in the heart, soul and mind… is it ever enough?

Sooner or later, and usually at the most inappropriate time (at a funeral, in front of Grandma, etc.), some version of The Question will emerge from your child’s lips. It’s almost a rite of passage into Black Daddyhood

We all know that a baby changes your life forever, but what happens when you throw a second one into the mix? Swaymag.ca editor and new mother-of-two shares her experience.

The group acknowledges the vital role fathers play in securing affordable child care. However, this task force will focus specifically on mothers, and how insufficient child care keeps them from returning to paid work or continuing their education, Blackstock said.

Father-hunger. It’s bone deep. And despite the passage of time, the psychic trauma caused by fatherlessness often manages to envelop the lives of the children of missing daddies like a toxic mist.

Children and youth spend the equivalent of a full work week on videogames, television and Facebook, says the 2011 report, released Tuesday. For the fifth straight year, it awards a failing grade for physical activity and screen time.

“Medications, both prescription and over-the-counter, are involved in two-thirds of unintentional poisonings in children under 14,” says Pamela Fuselli, Executive Director of Safe Kids Canada, “but household cleaners, garden chemicals, personal care products, plants and art supplies are other common causes of poisoning.”

“The first few months of motherhood are especially stressful,” Kim said. “But at the same time, our study suggests the mother’s brain goes through changes so the mothers can focus their energy on their own infants and find more positive meanings in their experience and in turn develop emotional connections with their infants.”