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Father’s Day is usually about the greatness of our fathers.

Now the Neighborhood is asking your help in finding history’s most deplorable dads.

Our second contest will feature the deadbeat dads, absent fathers and downright rotten scoundrel sperm donors of the past few millennia. We will accept suggestions from our readers: the top entries will be featured in a finalist post, along with an online poll.

The winner of the online poll will receive a guest post on the Neighborhood…as well as a prize to be determined 😉

Who will win? There’s so many to choose from: Philip of Macedon disowning his son and heir Alexander. Ivan the Terrible strangling his own son in a fit of madness. Benjamin Frankin cutting off his own Loyalist offspring. Or even Josef Stalin treating his own children no better than his millions of subjects in misery.

E-mail your entry to the Neighborhood as soon as possible. Include your name, e-mail, website/blog (optional) the name of the “Bad Dad” and a short description of why he should be History’s Worst Dad.

Entries must be in by Tuesday, June 28, 2011. Finalists and the online poll will be announced soon after.

Pass the word, have fun, and get those entries in!

Like right here in the Neighborhood, many teachers and parents are heading to their first parent/teacher conference. Teachers are preparing frantically to have all your child’s information on hand. However, many parents often leave the conference even more bewildered than when they came in.

As much as teachers prepare for these meetings, parents should be equally ready to face the acheivements and challenges your child has experienced thus far.

I stumbled upon a great instructional video from The K5, an elementary education blog. In this video, parents can learn how to prepare for the best–and worst–that can happen at the conference. It takes away much of the stress if both teacher and parent are on the same page.

Please pass this on to all of your parents and teachers. Now where did I leave that stack of report cards…?