When his daughter, Samantha, was younger, Jim Swisher arranged a four-day work week to spend an extra day with his girl. Samantha is now 8, but daughter Abby is just 2. So, Jim Swisher, a mild-mannered juvenile social worker from White Marsh, really got serious.
"I switched to the night shift this year, so I can have a bigger hand in raising my kids," says Mr. Swisher, 43, as he plays with Abby at the Montessori School's Saturday Toddler Program in Lutherville, where there's not a mother in sight.
"I couldn't imagine my father coming to school with me," he says. "But I am determined to be here."
Welcome to the Fathers' Movement. Men aren't burning their remote TV controls yet, but many are taking a more active role in their children's lives -- a change likely to have a profound impact on how they grow up.
Fathers are skipping golf to take their kids to performances of "The Nutcracker." They show up on class trips with startling regularity, can change a diaper , and have watched "Aladdin" at least a hundred times. Some have even learned how to start a play group by reading the At-Home Dad newsletter.
Bookshelves and parents' magazines are lined with books and articles on fatherhood -- everything from Dr. Benjamin Spock's updated views of a father's role to the advice in The Father's Almanac to "make sure you give your kids an after-bath ride in a towel swing."
"It has become fashionable to become a certain kind of father," says William Mattox of the Family Research Council in Washington, a research and advocacy group that follows family trends. "Dads today can score points for doing anything their mothers used to do. If you show emotions, you really score points."
Only two generations ago, fathers barely knew the name of their child's elementary school -- much less volunteered to be Snack Dad at nursery school. The old dads were considered mainly financial providers. Some coached Little League, but few could recite "Goodnight Moon" by heart.
The new dads want to be emotional providers. Some still coach Little League, but others know how to sing lullabies.
Oddly enough, the increased involvement of fathers is coming at a time when more children are growing up without one. According to the latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, about a quarter of all American children live with a single parent -- usually their mothers.
The disappearance of fathers from so many American households is widely viewed by policy makers and children's advocates as a social and economic crisis. Even liberals, who once snickered at former Vice President Dan Quayle for his Murphy Brown-bashing episode, now acknowledge the stabilizing influence of fathers on their children's lives and the importance of preserving two-parent families.
Deadbeat dads are pilloried and pursued. Republicans even advocate withholding welfare benefits from women who refuse to identify the father on a baby's birth certificate.
But the public preoccupation with deadbeat dads has overshadowed a much different trend -- fathers spending a lot more time with their children.
Some of this has happened by necessity. With the number of stay-at-home moms dwindling every year, caring for children has become a joint responsibility shared by wives and husbands.
In fact, more and more men are caring for their children. In 1991, one of every five pre-school children were being cared for by their fathers while their mothers worked, according to the D.C.-based Population Reference Bureau. American Demographics magazine predicts if recent trends continue, one in three households will have a male homemaker by 2000.
Economics aside, the value system of many fathers has also changed.
"It's an American preoccupation" for some dads to worry about the amount of companionship they're giving their kids, Dr. Spock wrote in "Dr. Spock on Parenting."
It has become cool for fathers to be involved. Remember last year's story about Houston Oiler David Williams? The football player skipped a game to be with his wife, who had just given birth. He was hailed for his decision (and also fined $120,000 by the team).
The involvement begins in the delivery room, where fathers were once banned. Today, an estimated 90 percent of fathers are present when their children are born.
The result is on display in the Towson home of Jeff Malat, where nine fathers and their daughters have gathered for a meeting of the Seneca Tribe of the Shawan Nation in the YMCA's Indian Princess Program. (The YMCA offers a similar program for fathers and sons called Indian Guides.)
Though the Indian Princess/Indian Guide program has been around since 1926 at YMCAs across the country, its popularity has boomed since 1980.
In Towson's Shawan Nation, more than 175 dads in 30 tribes participate in this father-daughter program, which features camping trips, cook-outs and other field trips.
At 8 p.m., the girls, who range from 6 to 11, gather on the couches next to their dads.
Chief Mike Cavanaugh calls the meeting to order. Jennifer Malat, 7, beats a tom-tom, then Chief Mike asks the group what an Indian Princess is. "It's a girl with a dad like mine," the girls recite. And what's our motto? "Friends Always."
Each girl takes a turn giving a "scouting report" and mainly loose baby teeth are reported. The group moves to the living room, where it's time for crafts: men with small needles sewing and threading beads for Indian pouches. No TV with a football game on. Times have changed, as they say.
On the stairs, on the sidelines, is the lone mom. Stacey Malat. Out of the loop, but responsible for the cookies and coffee. She watches the dads and daughters do their Indian Princess thing. It makes her smile.
"It's new territory for men," she says. "We are all sorting of making our new way."
But the concept of the "New Father" is nothing new, some say. Before the Industrial Revolution, fathers in rural America were always home because they worked on the family farm -- and their children worked alongside them. But then men started working in factories and in offices, and they became strangers to their kids.
"The 'New Father' is really the old father," says psychologist Dr. Brad Sachs, director of the Father Center in Columbia. Since 1988, the Father Center has helped new fathers make the transition into parenthood, Dr. Sachs says. The fact there's something even called the Father Center is a sign of the times.
With some fathers becoming more active in their children's lives, professionals warn against something called parental androgyny -- men mimicking the skills and habits of the mother. "The goal is not for men to be more like their wives," Dr. Sachs says.
Indeed, men and women have different approaches to child raising.
"Fathers are more physical. They tend to rev their kids up and bring them down. They intuitively know how much to push them," says Dr. Gary Klein of the Infant Child Studies program at the University of Maryland.
"Boys get an idea what a man is like from their fathers. And girls need fathers to learn how to develop relationships with other men," Dr. Klein says.
At the university, he sees many young boys who come from homes with absent fathers. Frequently, the boys are too aggressive, out of control, and have been mislabeled hyperactive, Dr. Klein says. The mothers are typically overwhelmed trying to raise kids without fathers.
What happens to some of these fatherless boys when they grow up?
"You read about them in your paper all the time. They end up on the streets . . . senseless murders for a leather jacket. . . ." he says.
Many fathers are motivated by a desire to be better parents than their own dads.
"Men are driven by that -- working through a conflict in their own life involving their fathers," Dr. Klein says.
Growing up, Tom Furman, 32, of Hampstead, spent a lot of time with his father. His parents separated and his father went out of his way to spend time with his son, Mr. Furman says. When he and his wife had their daughter, Caitlin, Mr. Furman says he was determined to play a major role in the child's life.
"The bond is much stronger, and I think she is more well-rounded," Mr. Furman says, playing with Caitlin, 3, at the Saturday Toddler Program at the Montessori School in Lutherville.
He brings her to work with him at a brick supply company, where she chats with the customers and dabbles with the computer. She's become quite a good lacrosse player, says Mr. Furman, a sports nut himself.
"I was concerned there would be too many dolls or something," he says.
Mr. Furman's friend, Robert Brown, comes by with his 2-year-old boy, Michael. In Mr. Brown's case, his father was in the Army and away from home quite a bit.
"He was there for all the sports, the typical male things," Mr. Brown, 32, says, combing his son's hair with his hand. "But no, he would not have been here."