Rich Batten's Page

Some of my favorite parenting memories are reading with my children. Whether I was holding them on my lap in a rocking chair, laying prostrate beside them on their bed, sitting leaned up against their bed, sitting in the hall way between their rooms voicing the characters of the Narnia or Harry Potter series, sitting together in the family room or using a flashlight in a tent on a mountain side – the location and posture didn’t matter – what did matter was the bond we created by being together i… Continue

As I write this the World Series is rounding third base and heading for home. And while other sporting events may challenge the supremacy of baseball, in the words of a character in W.P. Kinsella's 1982 novel, Shoeless Joe, "The one constant throughout all the years has been baseball. America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be… Continue

Just over half of the respondents to the Colorado Dads web survey on how father-inclusive their child’s school is perceive it to be “mostly” or “Fully” inclusive. I wish it were more, but the good news is that fathers’ involvement in their children’s education is on the rise according to a recent (and more sophisticated) study by The National Center for Fath… Continue

I write this post on the evening of a full moon. I have always anticipated and enjoyed full moons as they rise in the evening, stand guard through the night and set in the growing light of the dawn. I anticipate this evening a little differently since reading a research article by Suzanne M. Flannery Quinn. Her article is actually on the presence and depictions of fathers in best-selling picture books in the U.S. and is published in the Spring 2009 edition of… Continue

Twenty plus years ago I finished graduate school in May, my daughter was born in June and my first job out of grad school came in September . . . of the following year. I became an at-home dad right from the start. And from that moment my heart and direction was set. Whatever I did, wherever I did it I was always going to be about helping men be the kind of dads their children need them to be.

Erma Bombeck captured my commi… Continue