In the chirpy prose and rhymed couplets of self-help-speak, Farrell exposes the pathologies of feminism and calls on men to fight back for their domestic rights. Over 30 years feminism has replaced the benevolent patriarch with an emasculated monster: We have gone from the "Era of Father Knows Best to the Era of Daddy Molests; from Dad as family head to deadbeat dad."

Politically speaking, the ideas presented in Farrell's book lurch from the left to the right and back again. He spells out the ABCs of men's and women's reproductive rights, calling for more research on a male birth control pill (he blames the lack of a male pill on the sexist assumption of "the unconscious moral superiority of women -- that men can trust women to tell the truth more than women can trust men"), while advancing the argument that a man should have the right to choose whether to "abort" his parental rights and obligations by refusing to pay child support, or to veto a partner's abortion and compel a woman to bear a child he has fathered.

"Father-Child Reunion" will be known, at least in sound-bite form, as the book that claims single fathers are superior to single mothers on almost every measurable scale: Farrell has marshaled data to show that single fathers raise children who are, among other things, more empathetic, less violent, less likely to become teenage parents and perform better in school than children raised by single mothers. He even claims that girls raised by single fathers have more orgasms than those raised by single mothers.

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According to Farrell's data, single fathers are less likely than single mothers to bad-mouth their absent spouse (a practice that Farrell calls "the most insidious form of child abuse"), and also less likely to abuse their children, in all categories, including physical and sexual abuse (though men are more likely than women to be accused of sexual abuse). Also, says Farrell, single fathers, who make up 19 percent of all single parents, tend to be better educated and have a higher income than their female counterparts.

"I'm not saying that men make better fathers than women do mothers," he says. Rather, Farrell likens the man who wants to be a stay-at-home father today to the woman who wanted to be a surgeon in the 1950s. Because men are not encouraged to be "protector-nurturers," any man who wants to be the primary parent to his child is likely to encounter legal, social and familial discrimination every step of the way, says Farrell.

And thus, explains Farrell, any man who is strong enough, emotionally and financially, to fight that systemic discrimination is likely to be well above average in his motivation and desire to be a parent. (Indeed, this process of self-selection may explain why gay and lesbian parents, who have consistently had to fight for their parental rights, have come out so far ahead of their straight counterparts in studies that measure their commitment and skill as parents.)

Oddly enough, Farrell is not, himself, a father. He has twice been a stepfather. The first time, his relationship with the mother lasted five years; the second relationship, which is still ongoing, "depending on the week or month," has lasted for seven years. "But," says Farrell, "I am still very close to the children and spend a lot of time with them. And I've spent a lot of time as a camp counselor and I helped to raise my brother."

Order "Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood" from the editors of Mothers Who Think.