Christian Parenting

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday that fathers have to share the responsibility for raising children and caring for families because their role doesn't end at conception. Days before Father's Day, the first-term Illinois senator and father of two daughters delivered his life message as well as an assessment of what government needs to do in remarks at a Baptist church.

"What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child," Obama said.

In his prepared text, Obama said: Men need to "stop acting like boys - who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception"

He recalled his own upbringing as the son of a Kenyan father and a mother from Kansas. Obama said he grew up with a father he know only through letters and stories told by his mothers and the relatives who raised him.

One Native Life

I fell in love when I was 7. I mean really and truly in love. It was the kind of rapturous love that changes the lighting in your world and makes everything sharper, clearer, like it never existed in quite that way before, or ever will again. Some people call it ''puppy love'' to make light of it, but I've come to know enough of dogs in my time to know that puppies love truly and unconditionally. And it's true for human puppies, too.

Her name was Wilhemina Draper, and everyone called her Billie. Billie Draper was the most popular kid in our class. She had brownish-blonde hair cut in a bob and big blue eyes that sparkled when she laughed, which was all tinkly and musical. I was awed by her. She could outrun everyone and she learned how to skin-the-cat on the monkey bars before any of the boys would even try it.

Groups call on Canada to bring home Gitmo prisoner

It's about taking a stand on human rights that matter and that must prevail no matter what a person's identity is or what family they came from," he said.