First, We Kill Off the Parents, Starting With Dad

Over at the BBC, Andrew Martin, presenter of the documentary “Disappearing Dad,” looks at the world of fiction and realizes that, when it comes to fathers, there are really only two kinds: bad and dead. In fact, I have a perfectly good relationship with my dad; it’s just that if a father does play his paternal …

Why Science Makes Motherhood Impossible

From the Times’s Motherlode blog: Researchers at Pennsylvania State University videotaped 39 mothers while they put their infants and toddlers (ages 1 month to 24 months) to bed, and also gathered questionnaire data about how the mothers were feeling at each bedtime and how the babies slept each night. Physical actions — holding a baby …

Women: Is There Anything They Can’t Do Better Than Us?

There are few things more male in this world than beer. Why, just ask men—they’ll tell you. But it turns out, according to the Wall Street Journal, that women are better at tasting beer than men are: [T]he British company SABMiller PLC decided several years ago to reach deeper into its employee pool to find …