International Men’s Day 2012

Today is a day for men. International Men’s Day is celebrated in over 50 countries. A day to think about how they fit into society, where things are going well and where they are not. A day to consider health issues that relate to men, and particularly this year where the celebration theme is ‘health.’ With the focus on health, it seems particularly relevant that it also happens to take place in the month of the Movember celebration (where men try to raise prostate cancer awareness by growing out mustaches all month).

According to their site, their theme for this year can be described as:

• Improving male life expectancy;
• Helping men get help;
• Improving boys education;
• Tackling tolerance of violence against men and boys;
• Promoting fathers and positive male role models.

Promoting fathers and positive male role models seems particularly important to me because I believe that a large part of the problem with the enormous and growing amount of single mothers is fathers who are too willing to walk away from responsibility. I hope that on this day, ways to solve that problem become part of the thought process.