As with so many fathers, along came the pregnancy and I found myself largely unprepared. In school, when the "Health" class was to discuss pregnancy, birthing or neonatal care, the boys were shuffled out and down the hall to watch football films. I actually had the courage to ask why and was told, "Boys aren't interested in those things, and besides, you'd just make the girls nervous." I came across similar attitudes while my wife was pregnant, was giving birth and after - then came across it again in finding a publisher for my book, "The New Father's Panic Book: Everything a Dad Needs to Know to Welcome His Bundle of Joy."

I'd been a professional writer for some years when my wife became pregnant. She knew me well, looked me straight in the eye and said, "You're going to write a book about this, aren't you?" The book was already in progress.

I took as a basic theme, "For every pregnant woman there is a pregnant man." The father has been largely ignored for a very long time. My father faced those signs in the maternity ward that said that fathers weren't allowed beyond a particular spot. When I faced becoming a father, things had improved … a little.

At that time, the childbirth classes we attended concentrated on the mother and offered little or no advice for the father. While that's as it should be, perhaps, the fathers who attended were largely left out. Searching for other information, I found that with hundreds of books for mothers, there was almost nothing for fathers.

Statistically, the more the father is involved, the fewer problems. The mother tends to have an easier pregnancy, an easier birthing, a more stable marriage … and the father who is involved early tends to remain involved with the lives of his children. This greatly increases the chances that the children will grow up healthy, happy and successful.

It's strange that our society recognizes the problems of a broken home - of there being no father directly involved - yet one that still pushes him away. Parenting is a team effort, of both a mother and a father. As with so many things, knowledge is the key. I wrote "The New Father's Panic Book" with the hope of helping both mothers and fathers to understand just what is going on, and why. Of the 45 books I've written to date, this one is my favorite. In a way, it's a father's gift to his child - and maybe a gift to other children as well.

About the Author: Gene B. Williams is a freelance writer now living in rural Arizona. He has written 45 books plus thousands of short stories, magazine articles, columns, scripts, etc. Although best known as a technical writer, a recent project, "Am I Dreaming?", involved writing stories and poems for preschool children. He is also a noted photographer and videographer.