Waitakere ‘Focus On Fathering‘

Waitakere City is holding a ’Focus on Fathering Week’ again, building on last year’s events.

This year’s celebration, coordinated by Promoting Great Parenting, Violence Free Waitakere and the Waitakere City Council includes free mall displays, seminars and Health Checks, all ending with the Fathers Day picnic, from 9—2.30 at the Tui Glen Reserve.

The opening dinner, to be hosted by Mayor Bob Harvey, will include  singers, entertainers and guest speakers Pio Terei, Cindy Kiro, and Alfred Ngaro. Telephone 837 4849 for $15.00 tickets, be quick as seats are limited.

An overnight ’Journey To The Falls’ retreat, for fathers with their ‘tramping aged’ sons, sets off at 2pm on Saturday 6th, plus midweek evening forums are planned for Pacific fathers and disabled Dads.

Further Fathering Week fun will include a photographic display in the West City Mall and evening seminars at the Kelston Community Centre on Tuesday 2nd plus, any men can check out a Health Bus in Railside Ave for free tests.

Please note – at the Father’s Day picnic, be prepared to help as this is a combined day with Project Twin Streams.

Celebrity Baby Hammock

Now your baby, too, can sleep like a star. Since April the ‘Hushamok’ has been available in New Zealand, and comes with celebrity endorsement.

Gwen Stefani apparently considers it the ‘coolest thing ever’ and Brad and Angelina Pitt-Jolie keep one of them ‘on every level of their French Chateau’ for their twin babies, according to the New Zealand promoter Handle Communications.

The top-of-the-shelf product (RRP $749) claims to help with colicky or reflux babies and to help prevent flat heads with a specialised inserted mattress.

Rapper Dad

A rapper “dedicated to bringing a different representation of masculinity to hip-hop culture” may make you wonder what kind of representation he’s talking about and whether you’d approve of it.

Bomani Armah (top left), who considers himself a hip-hop artist and an educator, has made some waves in the US with music videos such as ‘Read a Book’, and now ‘Peek-a-Boo’.

It’s all on Youtube, and ‘Peek-a-boo’ deserves some credit for its depiction of a confident dad who is doing more than just clowning around.