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Two recent studies suggest that children lose weight during the school year, and gain weight in the summer due to increased consumption of sugary drinks and decrease structure when it comes to meals, activity, and sleep. It’s possible similar variables cause summer weight gain in adults. There’s evidence that people generally sleep less during the summer, due to increased daylight exposure and just being too hot to sleep comfortably, and sleep deprivation increases the production of cortisol — a stress hormone that drives sugar cravings, swelling, and overall weight gain....

It’s not possible to say as a whole since every relationship, and man, is different. Some married men may be promiscuous because they’re unsatisfied, sure. But, as a rule, men don’t cheat because they’re unhappy. Men cheat because they think they can get away with it, and, perhaps more importantly, because they’re willing to let themselves get away with it. It’s also interesting to note that, strangely, cheating is a behavior that can make it hard to be a good father and husband, but also a behavior that isn’t actually correlated with familial love or care....

Now, I always felt that the first birthday party was unusually dumb. The baby has no idea why everyone is congregating for this party because of course it doesn’t: the baby has no concept of parties or birthdays, let alone time. Sure, the baby knows the people assembled, and she can discern that there is something unusual happening. But you can’t tell me a one-year-old child understands that this collection of people gathered to celebrate her....

“We came over to see if you wanted to play,” the boy said. And, just like that, my two were folded into a quartet and the four slipped into a rollicking game of chase. READ MORE: The Fatherly Guide to Socializing Kids I never wanted to live in Ohio. I was content with the urban weirdness of Portland, Oregon when my first boy arrived. I didn’t plan to give in to my wife’s pleas to move back to her Rockwellian home....

Maybe it was all the parenting guides I devoured before my kids were born. Maybe it’s just what I heard growing up. But I’d always been taught to fear the ‘Terrible Twos.’ Two was supposedly the year when your beautiful, obedient baby transitioned into a rebellious, snarling barbarian. When it came to my kids, though, 2-years-old was surprisingly pleasant. Their newfound mobility and ability to communicate far outweighed the few behavioral snags we encountered....

Was holding your child back a year in school a good or a bad idea? My oldest daughter, who we affectionately call Bean, held herself back in fifth grade. It had been a really tough few years. She had been diagnosed with severe ADHD and an anxiety disorder. Her teachers and I were worried. Bean was small for her age and very immature. Her behavior was always excellent, but most of the girls her age were starting to explore things like makeup and boys....

“Movies like Hidden Figures, Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff are great,” John Rocco tells Fatherly. “I love those movies. But with this, I wanted to tell the entire story. Not just one aspect of it.” Out this month in bookstores and online retailers, Rocco’s beautiful book, How We Got to the Moon, does just that. It proceeds from the premise that the reader might now know anything about how rocket technology was developed, might not remember the origins of the space race in the 1960s, is maybe fuzzy on the specific history and the hundreds of people who made it happen, and would like to become an armchair expert overnight....

For a number of very obvious reasons, this isn’t ideal. It leads to lots of lonely nights and weekends and some missed opportunities to just enjoy one another’s company for more than an hour here or there. But, we make it work. Because, as the saying goes, the juice is worth the squeeze. This isn’t to say we don’t get frustrated by these natural circumstances and have conversations about how to build a better world....

Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia held a survey that asked nearly 1000 American women between the ages of 18 and 70 to share their feelings about beards. They were given 30 images of 3 different men with different looks. Those same 3 men had photographs in a pile with a full-beard look, a clean-shaven look, and photo altered images to make them men appear more “feminine” and more “masculine....

“What’s surprised us about our research is that many women think they’re having a physical climax when they’re not,” Nicole Prause, the psychophysiologist and neuroscientist behind the study, told Fatherly. From a physiological perspective, Prause says, there’s really no difference between an male and female orgasm. They each consist of about 8 to 12 contractions that start 0.8 seconds apart, and ultimately exercise many of the same muscles. Yet, heterosexual men orgasm 95 percent of the time, while heterosexual women, at best, get there only 65 percent of the time (for most women, it’s closer to 50 percent)....

The Boys Can Be Princesses, Too Project showcases a photo series of boys who also love to dress up as princesses. “I’m thrilled to introduce you to Princess Calvin, Princess Teddy, Princess Elias, and Princess Tobias,” photographer Kitty Wolf shares on Facebook. “May their joy and laughter shine throughout the world with these photos. Take a look at these beautiful photos of little boys playing princesses with their favorite fairy tale friends!...

Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) uses an old gangster movie called Angels With Filthy Souls to scare off Marv (Daniel Stern) when he attempts to break into Kevin’s house. Like many people, Rogen thought that Angels With Filthy Souls was a real movie. It’s not a real movie. It was a fake movie created by the Home Alone filmmakers. Captain America himself was shocked to his core about this news. “IT’S NOT?...

Jurassic Park (1993) A crazy rich guy named John Hammond figures out how to bring dinosaurs back to life by cloning them. He decides to open up an amusement park/zoo full of those dinosaurs located on an island called Isla Nublar. When he previews the park for two dino experts, two children, one fringe math theorist and a lawyer, things go horribly wrong and tons of people die. The park is abandoned, and everyone assumes the dinosaurs will die too because they won’t receive a special chemical injection that was keeping them alive....

Three years ago, Jurassic World, the fourth sequel to Steven Spielberg’s 1993 classic Jurassic Park and the first film in a new trilogy, raked in money at the box office despite a thin plot and some ragged performances from child actors. There’s a simple reason why. People like dinosaurs. Specifically, kids like dinosaurs because kids tend to, for psychological reasons, like exaggerated monsters. Dinosaurs are exaggerated and were real, which makes them doubly appealing....

Hitting theaters this weekend, The Lego Movie 2: The Next Part, is a direct sequel to the original movie that spanned the “Everything is Awesome” song, and various big-screen Lego movies, too, most notably, Lego Batman. And while The Lego Movie 2 improves are various things for the first movie (maybe it’s better) it doesn’t beg for a sequel. And that’s mostly because there is no post-credits scene teasing what’s to come....

Even better, it can reduce anxiety, teach creative storytelling, and help kids focus and learn empathy, all while mentally exhausting the entire lot. My kids have gotten so tired from playing that they ask to stop to do their homework. It’s like being tickled ⏤ sometimes you just have to yell ‘uncle’ and pull yourself together. “No Laughing or Screaming Allowed” can be played with as few as one parent and one child, or as many as five kids, and requires no materials or supplies, except stories....

The USPS just launched its annual Operation Santa program. For those who don’t remember, Operation Santa began as an initiative where kids mailed their letters to old Saint Nick and the Postal Service sent back a response. The program was specifically created for families in need that may be struggling to get their kids everything they are asking Santa for. But back in 2017, the program expanded, allowing people in New York City to “adopt” letters to Santa, meaning that they would send a response to the kid who mailed Santa, and they’d also get the kid in need some small gifts that they asked for....

Why is The Wrath of Khan so emotionally affecting? You might say it has something to do with Ricardo Montalban’s over-the-top performance as Khan or the shocking death of a certain pointy-eared Vulcan hero. None of those assessments would be wrong. But, you’d be forgetting one of the more subtle and affecting stories told: the reunion between interstellar playboy James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his estranged son, David Marcus (Merritt Butrick)....

The Gray Man is directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, who, are forever famous as the duo who directed several game-changing Marvel movies, including Avengers: Endgame. In 2021, the brothers told Fatherly that they “find men at their funniest when they’re self-effacing or when they lack self-awareness.” This trick is on full display in The Gray Man which gives us a low-key self-effacing badass in the form of agent Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling) paired with an utterly hateable Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans....

If you aren’t familiar with the program, let me break it down for you: human toddler-aged animals clad in diapers, sleep, eat, play, and bicker as dictated by one Clickety Clack, a clock with a face who is their god. Once every ten minutes, they learn a new word, a confetti cannon goes off, and there is much merrymaking. A word party, if you will. If you’re over the age of 5, the show holds little appeal....