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According to the Department of Labor, the period from May 1 to May 30 has turned out to be the largest-ever monthly increase for some food items prices of all time, on-track with a May 12 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which said that the price jump in grocery store costs was the largest jump since February 1976. Due to increased demand and shoppers buying so much food at grocery stores, many major food retailers have actually cut back on promotional flyers and sales....

Come Halloween, my six-year-old son — who hasn’t seen the movie because he’s literally scared of everything – will want to dress up as T’challa. I know this because I know him and also the unstoppable force of Marvel marketing. I also know this will make me uneasy because I know myself and that I have mixed feelings about this — well, maybe not that mixed. One of the most astute things I’ve read about the film came from Van Jones, the author and CNN contributor who wrote, “This film is a godsend that will lift the self-esteem of black children in the US and around the world for a long time....

But for expensive as home renovation projects can run, there are ways to cut costs. That’s why we reached out to Jason Pickens, the Brooklyn-based bespoke furniture designer, former contractor, and host of HGTV’s See J. Work who knows how to tackle home improvement projects on a limited budget. Fatherly recently spoke with Pickens from his workshop in Florence, Alabama, to get his top tips for saving money on home renovation, redecorating, and repairs....

Flybrix Flybrix’s “crash-friendly” DIY LEGO drone kits come with everything needed to launch a 4-, 6-, or 8-propeller drone with limited aviation knowledge and no tools, making it the perfect holiday gift. But, you’re more than welcome to help your kids out if you want. The Legos, propellers, motors, circuit board, even the pilot are in the box; just plug and play. You can even use the bricks already scattered around the house to build a giant jumbo drone and/or finally get that LEGO Millennium Falcon off the ground and on its way to Alderaan....

With more homes being purchased for more money than they would have before, paired with low mortgage rates – it became a seller’s market. But things are shifting again as the market levels off, home sales have dropped again, but house prices and mortgage rates are soaring. Last month, the National Association of Realtors report showed existing-home sales dropped to the lowest number in a year this past February. Interest rate hikes spiked, and growing price tags pushed first-time and middle-income buyers out of bidding wars for a place to call their own....

“That moment changed the course of the life,” says Milos, the executive director of Genital Autonomy America, formerly the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers. “If circumcisions were being performed in hallways instead of behind closed doors, they would stop tomorrow.” Milos, who is regarded as a grandmother of the “intactivism” movement against circumcision, favors a visceral argument against the procedure to a logical one. She is far from alone....

This story was submitted by a Fatherly reader. Opinions expressed in the story do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fatherly as a publication. The fact that we’re printing the story does, however, reflect a belief that it is an interesting and worthwhile read. I continued to look for age-appropriate ways to teach both of my boys about peaceful protest and standing up for others. My own kids’ preference for fried chicken created an interesting opportunity to do just that....

What Is A Fidget Spinner? Fidget spinners are essentially low-friction ball bearings. That’s it. When two objects press against one another, friction prevents them from sliding smoothly. If you try to slide a block of wood across a wooden floor, you’ll find that it eventually stops sliding thanks to the friction between these two objects. But if you roll a wooden ball across that same floor, even though wood is still meeting wood, the ball meanders along as friction takes a vacation....

Of course, it’s not just societal pressure. Parents who grew up with siblings might want their kid to have a sister or brother, too. Now that they’re seasoned parenting pros, why not have another? Siblings always have someone to play with, and they can look out for each other as they grow up. Those upsides might bear out in real life. But they also might not. Expectation doesn’t always dovetail with reality, and having a second child has a unique and much bigger impact on finances, marriage, and the family dynamic than a lot of people realize....

Our daughter Paige does not share our love for feeling the burn. She doesn’t like team sports and there isn’t a competitive bone in her body. Running, walking and riding a bike are, in her words, “booooriiiinggg.” She would happily sit on the couch and watch TV, make lip balm and facial scrubs, draw and craft, all weekend long. After school she’s tired and just wants to chill and then there’s dinner to make and eat, homework, and all of a sudden it’s time for bed....

The first thing I saw when I woke up was my son Jackson. He was standing inches from my face dressed in his happy skeleton Halloween jammies and holding his favorite pumpkin blanket. Waiting for me to open my eyes, he immediately asked, “Can we go to Home Depot to get that pumpkin?” It was 7:30 a.m. On a Tuesday. In April. Okay, it wasn’t April but it may as well have been....

Today, individually insured middle class families spend about 15.5 percent of their income on health care — not counting what their employees cover in premiums before their pay even hits their paycheck. Meanwhile, the wealthiest Americans actually receive such great tax exemptions for their health care spending that they receive a surplus of .1 percent to .9 percent on top of their income. “Overall health expenditures throughout the whole economy will go down, due to the efficiencies of a single payer system,” says Matt Bruenig, lawyer, policy analyst, and founder of the People’s Policy Project, a think tank that studies single-payer healthcare....

But just how much do kids cost? Sadists at the United States Department of Agriculture crunched those numbers in 2017, so that you have all the data you need to mourn your savings account in style. They found that Americans spend about $15,000 per kid, per year—mainly for food and housing but, increasingly, for child care and education—on top of the astronomical expenses of giving birth in a hospital. By even the most conservative estimates, the average American family spends $300,000 to raise one child from birth to age 17....

“Adults tend to burn both ends of the candle and live pretty sleep-deprived lives,” says Michael Goodstein, M.D., a pediatrician based in Pennsylvania. “Babies, on the other hand, auto-regulate sleep like they do food.” In other words, if they need it, they’ll get it, and if they don’t, they won’t. In terms of sleep requirements, the average human infant falls somewhere between the owl monkey and the tiger, at an average of 16 hours a day....

If you’re anything like me, there’s plenty of stuff to work on in the personal development department. It makes sense that we decide to attack at least some of those things when the new year begins. As with any goals, the best resolutions are those that are big enough to make a positive impact on our lives, yet realistic enough to accomplish. Here are a few that you might consider....

Speak to any parent about sending their kids back to school right now and you’re likely to get some version of uneasy angst. It’s easy to understand why: With COVID and particularly the Delta Variant looming large, and some districts refusing mask mandates, the decision of whether it’s safe to send a child back to school is marked by unknowns. There are no easy answers here. But parents have one good path: learn how to cope with the guilt and ambiguity, take control of the certainties, and model the correct ways to discuss and express emotions with your children, says Dr....

Friendship, in many ways, determines who we become. And who a child ends up befriending — and how they befriend them — is within a parent’s control. When it comes to the development of children’s social skills — their relationships with peers and friends, their capacities to resolve conflict and their abilities to concentrate — parents are essential and fathers play an outsize role. Think of dad as the provider of social opportunities, the guy who gets the party going....

In theory, we all agree on this. But where are the lines drawn? How can you tell when you’ve slipped from Boy Scout to Doomsday Prepper? How do you know if you’re teaching your kids to be thoughtful and self-reliant, or creating mini-balls of crippling neuroses? The world – especially right now – isn’t exactly helping matters. Coronavirus is public enemy number one. But then there’s also the fact that climate change has nature erupting into fits of destructive insanity, healthcare is still a privilege rather than a right in far too many places, and school shootings are a bi-weekly occurrence....

So unless you are a truly excellent delegator of tasks, you might be entering more meetings underprepared than you used to. While you have a better idea of big-picture problems and how to avoid them these days, you might miss the small stuff you would have caught as a younger go-getter. So it goes. And then there are times when you just blow it. Life happens. Kids take the priority....

When we tell our sons that a man should know how to repair his own car, are we teaching a life skill or, promoting “self-reliance through mechanical skills”—a telltale sign of unhealthy male role norms? When we buy our boys trucks instead of dolls, are we simply choosing a toy that we think they’ll like, or are we teaching them that even paltry symbols of femininity detract from their masculinity?...