Spain has seen its fair share of headlines recently, but they have almost always fed the narrative of “fragile southern Europe.”

Even with economic recovery, the financial crisis left a generation under-employed and toppled Spain’s two-party system; the separatist movement rages in Catalonia; corruption brought down the former right-wing government this month.

But the improbable rise of Pedro Sánchez, whose Social Democrats (PSOE) suffered historic losses in the last election cycles, has in the past week sent a clear message about a new leftist and progressive path for Spain. His first move was to form a government that is majority women, and more than any other in Europe. Days later, when Italy refused to allow a ship of migrants, the MS Aquarius, to dock at its ports, Mr. Sánchez welcomed its passengers to Valencia. An opinion piece called him the Justin Trudeau of Europe, after Canada’s liberal leader.

His moves come as Portugal next door has seen another government, led by the center-left with hard-left parties in coalition, defy expectations that it would flail. Together the two could help bolster a mainstream left in Europe that has been challenged by protest parties and struggled to communicate a vision of a country that can grow while protecting citizens, human rights, and a rules-based international system.

“When he decides to accept refugees from the Aquarius ship, when he forms a female cabinet, he is sending a message in terms of the symbolic fight, trying to underline the commitment of the government to a more open society,” says Pablo Simon, a professor of political science at Madrid’s Carlos III University. “The Iberian Peninsula could be a good lab to see if these approaches can work or not.”

Welcoming the Aquarius

Europe’s fractures have been on full display this week over a boat holding 629 people who left the coast of Libya and that Italians refused entry. Malta did too. France blasted Italy for “cynicism and irresponsibility;” Italy summoned its French ambassador in response, calling France’s position hypocritical.

Sánchez was able to rise above the fray, offering the boat passage to the Spanish coast and signaling support for human rights and international law. His gesture also highlighted a relatively open attitude in Spain toward migration, standing in stark contrast to Italy, which is much more burdened by it. Italy's new government, a coalition between two populist parties, won on a promise to clamp down on immigration.

Francisco Seco/AP

Spain's new government ministers pose for the media on June 8 after their first Cabinet meeting at the Moncloa palace in Madrid with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (c.).

Unlike many countries in Europe, Spain has no viable anti-migration or far-right party, for several reasons including its own emigration and its experience under right-wing dictatorship.

And this move to “open” Spain is highly unlikely to generate backlash in the same way that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision in 2015 did, given the orders of magnitude in difference – 600-odd migrants versus hundreds of thousands who entered Germany. But that could change depending on what happens next, says Xavier Casals, a Spanish historian of the far right. “Now we are talking about one boat. What if many come? What part will Spain play?” he says. Spain could make a U-turn and block subsequent arrivals. Or, he says, “this case could put immigration on the agenda where it previously hasn’t been.”

So far it's been broadly accepted, and the PSOE has seen a bounce in opinion polls.

Writing in the Vanguardia, columnist Enric Juliana made a parallel with the fight in the Mediterranean and the contentious Group of Seven summit, comparing Sánchez to Mr. Trudeau, and Italian far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to President Trump.

“After having clashed at the summit of the G7 in Quebec on the subject of the organization of world trade, Trump and Trudeau styles meet again in the Mediterranean. Two brands, two patents, two ways of conceiving politics,” he writes. “The new Spanish [leader] has chosen the Trudeau concept: a diffuse liberal-progressiveness, based on feminism, empathy, and good intentions.”

Against graft and for gender equality

It is still early days, and the situation is volatile. The PSOE holds just 84 of 350 parliamentary seats, and the no confidence vote that brought Sánchez to power was a bold gamble that he won.

But the government next door in Portugal suggests that such daring propositions can have staying power – Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa formed his ruling coalition after his Socialist party came in second in 2015 elections. And they have managed to remain popular by combining fiscal discipline with growth policies.

Antonio Costa Pinto, a political expert at University of Lisbon's Institute of Social Sciences, says Portuguese socialists have an easier time than their Spanish counterparts. They hadn’t fared so poorly in the election cycle in the first place, and Portugal’s mainstream parties have been less challenged by protest parties. They also don’t contend with the heady regionalism of Spain – perhaps riskiest for Sánchez is how to end the standoff over independence in Catalonia.

Mr. Pinto says checking graft and overseeing growth are crucial if the two social democratic parties of the Iberian Peninsula are to attract back more voters who have fled to the harder left and to successfully “rebuild a social democratic pact.”

In Spain, Sánchez also forced out his culture and sports minister after less than a week on the job over an old tax violation. It’s a sign that he is serious that his government will tolerate no corruption. But perhaps nothing has generated as many headlines at home as his appointment of 11 women to his cabinet of 17. They have been called the “fe-ministers.”

The #MeToo movement here has morphed into a broad demand for gender equality, seen most prominently on March 8 to mark International Women’s Day. Millions of Spanish workers, backed by unions and top female politicians, went to the streets to strike. Paloma Román Marugán, a political scientist at Complutense University in Madrid, says the new cabinet reflects the leader’s understanding of a feminist mood in Spain. “Spain has been a pioneer on many fronts that have to do with gender,” she says, “Women here are determined to go as far as possible.”

She sees a brighter scenario for social democracy than at any time in the last decade. “The European left had not been able to reinvent itself in these times, especially with the economic crisis,” says Ms. Román Marugán. “Now Portugal has stood as a shining example that proves that leftist politics is possible. If Spain joins with them, it can be a hope for the left in Europe.”

Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

Dr. Larry Kwan speaks with an employee during a doctor's visit at a Cisco health clinic at Cisco Systems in San Jose, Calif., March 22. Many Americans have health insurance through an employer plan, or through Medicare and Medicaid. But the Affordable Care Act has expanded insurance coverage for many who have preexisting conditions.

Robin Dake recalls a time when health insurance was financially out of reach for her and her two daughters ​– with the prospect of premiums of about $900 a month.

 “I couldn't afford it. I simply had no insurance for a while. And that's pretty terrifying as a mom,” she says.

The arrival of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) changed things in a big way. Even though one of her  daughters has what’s known in insurance jargon as a “preexisting condition” – in her case a seizure disorder – Ms. Dake has been able to  afford insurance as a self-employed single parent in rural Georgia.

Now, her daughter, Tory, who is studying to be a doctor, dreams about opening up a clinic one day where people “don’t have to worry about insurance.” Currently, just one of her own medicines can cost up to $600 a month or more without insurance. When there's a glitch with her insurance, her pharmacist makes sure to get her at a least one dose.

“It's been a battle with the insurance companies and the policies in general,” she says. “And it's just so frustrating.” 

Now the ACA's protection against sky-high insurance rates faces a new threat. Twenty conservative states are seeking to overturn the ACA in court. They argue it is no longer constitutional now that a core provision, the threat of a tax penalty for people who don’t get insurance, has been repealed.

And this month, the Trump administration’s Justice Department sided partly with those states, saying it would not defend the provisions aimed at safeguarding people with preexisting conditions.

The administration’s shift not only adds to legal uncertainty over the law, it also has stirred a political uproar, injecting an issue into congressional election campaigns that many Republicans didn’t want or expect. In turn, the result may actually be to galvanize already-strong public support for this aspect of the law known as Obamacare.

“The strategy behind this is rather bizarre. It's hard to really understand the political reasoning for why the administration put forward the position that they did,” says Sabrina Corlette, a professor at Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms in Washington. “It certainly seemed to take a number of members of Congress by surprise.”

Lawsuit prompts sketicism

This week a number of Republican lawmakers have voiced their strong support for protecting insurance rates for people like Tory Dake, possibly signaling that the court case itself won’t ultimately determine the nation’s law on this issue.

The Justice Department’s position “is unbelievable,” says Ed Dolan, an economist at the Niskanen Center, a free-market oriented think tank based in Washington. “The preexisting condition provision is the single most popular part of Obamacare.”

To Tory, politicians who don't support the provision seem to lack a complete understanding of what it means to “budget when you’re tight on money” or have a preexisting condition, blaming the individuals who have them instead of looking for ways to help. Being exposed to people with both those challenges can lead people, of all political backgrounds, to cultivate more empathy, she says.

In fact, the provision is perhaps unique as a part of the law that “has strong majority support from both Republicans and Democrats,” adds Mr. Dolan, who has developed a conservative proposal of his own for ensuring universal health-insurance coverage for Americans.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll from a year ago, 7 in 10 Americans wants the federal government to continue to bar insurance companies from charging more for people with preexisting health conditions. That includes 59 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of independents, and 84 percent of Democrats. A CBS News poll last year found even stronger support than that, including 8 in 10 Republicans.

The lawsuit to overturn the ACA may be a legal longshot. That’s the case whether the goal is to toss out the whole law (as Texas and other states have urged) or part of it (the Justice Department view), some experts say.

“I would be surprised” if the legal challenge succeeds, says Chris Pope, a health policy expert at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute in New York. He notes the chorus of GOP lawmakers including Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who have said such an outcome is not what they intended when legislating.

On June 14 a group of legal experts, some of whom in the past have stood in opposing camps over the constitutionality of Obamacare, joined in filing an amicus brief arguing that the states lack legal grounds for their case.

The issue of legislative intent could be key. The states' lawsuit points to initial visions of the ACA as a unified whole, which some argued would fall apart if any key piece is removed. The amicus brief says actions by Congress under President Trump show an intent for much of the law to remain in place, even as Congress was removing the law's threat of tax penalties for not buying insurance.

Still, it remains to be seen how federal judges will rule in the initial case (to be reviewed a conservative judge in Texas) or on appeal.

Americans wonder: What's next?

For now, many Americans are concerned about the risk to their insurance. And it’s not just people diagnosed with preexisting conditions, it’s also those who worry they could fall into that category in the future.

“I think people are starting to realize that just because they don't have something wrong with them today something could be wrong with them tomorrow,” says Ryanne Rizzo, a Detroit-area independent contractor. “It doesn't seem fair that people can be bankrupted or completely have their lives in shambles because they’re sick.”

Her own family was shaken when her teenage daughter was seriously injured in a car accident. During her daughter’s lengthy recuperation, Ms. Rizzo lost a job and started going through a divorce (which included moving off her husband’s health-insurance plan).

She was able to enroll for ACA coverage right away.

Her daughter, now 16, has recovered but still has preexisting conditions related to the accident.

“I wish it wasn’t a political issue,” Rizzo says. It “definitely affects the way I vote. It’s the number one concern I have … You can't work. You can't go to school. You can’t lead a meaningful life at all if your health is not there, and your child's health is not taken care of.” 

Health-care a voter priority

Her view hints at a wider reality: Health care is one of the highest-priority issues for US voters, as the nation approaches mid-term elections in which control of Congress is at stake.

The rift within GOP ranks is surprising. President Trump himself has supported protecting people with preexisting conditions in the past. And the administration acknowledges that it’s unusual for the Justice Department to withdraw support for an existing federal law. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said June 12 that the new legal stance is not a "policy position" but a constitutional and legal one. 

Some Republicans in Congress support the legal arguments used in challenging the ACA, and say a successful lawsuit could help Americans. “Consumers will have more choices, more competition, more options, more individual freedom and lower premiums,” predicted Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, in an interview with Vox.com.

Obamacare has been controversial from its inception, with critics saying the law has pushed up health care costs, limited choice of doctors, and steered consumers young and old toward one-size-fits-all plans. Even supporters see room for the law to be improved, while defending its basic approach for trying to make strong coverage affordable to all.

While personal health challenges vary in severity, as many as 51 percent of Americans have a preexisting condition, using a definition similar to the underwriting criteria used by insurers prior to the ACA. According to one narrower definition the figure is 23 percent.

But for Robin and Tory Dake in Toccoa, Ga., the issue goes beyond statistics, even ones as large as that.

“I have a pretty deep spiritual life and to me these issues are spiritual issues,” says Robin. “They are about how we take care of each other, how we take care of our neighbors. I don't think it's right to just want to take care of my family. I think that I need to be part of taking care of the human family.”

Although neither mom nor daughter defines themselves as very political, their travails over health insurance have bonded them in a certain amount of activism. Sometimes they talk to conservative neighbors or, for Tory, campus friends about the ACA.

“My mom is really my major motivator. Being able to see the struggles she has gone through for me and my sister has been the biggest motivation,” Tory says. “We've been on a few marches. From my point of view I tend to have a broader view of equal rights for everybody and not just particularly in health care.”

And that makes her passionate about the issue now at stake nationally.

“To put people in that situation where they can't heal, they can't have a normal life because they can't afford it, I don't agree with that at all,” says Tory, “I think that rises above the struggles of government.”

Outside a camp for former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Wilfran Martinez runs a couple of organic farms, bursting with emerald green banana trees.

The former rebel enjoys his new lifestyle, away from mosquito-infested jungles where he fought for almost ten years.

And he’s had some success in his new endeavor. Recently his farm, which is a transitional program for demobilized FARC members, signed a contract to sell its tomatoes, peppers, and other crops to 22 local schools.

But the former fighters have still not received a promised plot of land from the Colombian government – key to their business plan and post-war future. Mr. Martinez worries that this weekend’s run-off presidential election could make it even harder to get help moving forward.

“We wouldn't be surprised if the next government breaks some of the promises that have been made to us,” Martinez says. “So far we’ve had a lot of problems getting the current government to keep its word.”

Colombia will elect a new president on Sunday, and voters are faced with two starkly different choices. Ivan Duque, a conservative senator who is backed by Colombia’s business elite, is running against Gustavo Petro, a leftist former mayor of Bogota who was a guerrilla fighter in the 1980s.

They have very different ideas on how to deal with Colombia’s most urgent problems, from its sagging health system to the large gap between rich and poor. But perhaps most pressing are their conflicting perspectives on how to implement a two-year-old landmark agreement, which ended more than five decades of violence with FARC rebels, in a way that keeps the shaky peace.

Analysts say that the winner will have to make adjustments, but ensure that progress continues where the deal already seems to be working – like Martinez’s farming project in the northern province of La Guajira.

“Implementing the accords is not just about giving the FARC what has been promised to them,” says Ariel Avila, a security analyst at the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, a Colombian think tank.

“We need the next government to implement policies that will stop another outbreak of violence from occurring in remote areas.”

Making a legal living

Research conducted by Mr. Avila’s foundation shows that the number of kidnappings, landmine victims, and internally displaced people in Colombia has fallen steadily since the peace deal was signed by President Juan Manuel Santos in 2016.

But Avila says that in some areas of the country, particularly those under former FARC control, homicide rates are rising as criminal groups, renegade FARC factions, and the smaller ELN guerrilla group try to take over “illegal economies,” like coca plantations, abandoned by the FARC. The guerrillas taxed the crop for years to finance their insurgency.

Colombia’s next president will have to increase law enforcement in these troubled areas, while deploying economic and social programs that help locals transition to legal ways of making a living, Avila says. The peace deal includes support for these types of programs.

“Implementing the peace deal also means complying with what has been promised to [farming] communities,” Avila says. “And that includes things like building roads for farmers to get their produce to markets.”

Candidates Mr. Petro and Mr. Duque have both said that they want to increase investment in remote areas of the countryside so that violence doesn’t return. But while Petro favors agricultural projects, spurred by a land reform program in which the government would purchase land for impoverished peasants, Duque focuses on boosting agro-industry to create more jobs, and providing incentives for oil and mining companies.

Juan Carlos Garzon, a researcher at Colombia’s Ideas for Peace Foundation, says that the next president will have to revisit an ongoing government project helping coca growers transition to legal crops.  

The project – known as PNIS – has been relatively quick at signing contracts with farmers who grow coca, in which they agree to eradicate their crops in exchange for a monthly subsidy.

But it has been notoriously slow at helping farmers plan what they will grow next, and where they will sell it. Only 10 percent of the 71,000 families who have joined the program so far have received technical assistance.

“That kind of assistance is what allows you to make these eradication efforts sustainable over time,” Mr. Garzon says, noting that the current program participants are on “very shaky footing.”

Trying to cut back coca

Colombia’s coca crop has been rising quickly, according to US government estimates, growing from roughly 200,000 acres in 2013 to 460,000 acres in 2016. Cocaine production tripled between 2012 and 2016.

Duque has proposed tackling the problem by resuming the aerial fumigation of coca crops, a tactic that was stopped in Colombia three years ago because of its potentially negative health consequences.

But while the threat of fumigation might encourage some farmers to stick to voluntary eradication initiatives, it could also lead to more confrontation between farming communities and the Colombian government.

“Coca farmers may find themselves in a position where they have to defend their livelihood,” says Sergio Guzman, an analyst in Bogota for the international consulting group Control Risks. “And that may increase social unrest in the form of strikes, road blocks, or even violent uprisings.”

Duque is currently favored by polls to win the election. Some of that popularity has come from the very changes he proposes to make to the peace deal, such as making it harder for FARC leaders who committed war crimes to participate in formal politics. Under the current deal, FARC is guaranteed 10 seats in Congress, an important incentive for the group when it participated in peace negotiations.

Though the FARC’s recognized political party has avoided campaigning for Petro, they are wary of Duque. He’s considered a protégé of former President Alvaro Uribe, one of the most outspoken critics of signing a peace deal with the FARC.

“We hope that the next president understands this special moment that Colombia is going through,” says Marcos Martinez, a former FARC special forces commander who now helps run employment programs for his comrades at a transition camp in northern Colombia. “The world is evolving and Colombia should not be stuck in war mode.”

Ann Hermes/Staff

William Lee (r.), who attended a fathers' support program in St. Louis, enjoys a moment with his sons Jreisen (c.) and Jalon (l.).

On alternating weekends, William Howard Lee Jr. gets to bask in the kind of unconditional love and glee that naturally spill out of 5-year-olds. His son Jreisen jumps into his arms, telling him all about his latest adventure or favorite toy. 

“He feels like his father can do no wrong, and I love that about seeing the innocence in his eyes,” Mr. Lee says, his own eyes hidden behind sunglasses as he smiles thinking about his “baby.”

When Lee enrolled at Fathers’ Support Center (FSC) here in January, he carried burdens that little Jreisen couldn’t see: He grew up without his father, and his stepfather beat his mom before leaving when Lee was 6. Lee was an ex-con struggling to find a better job. He was quick to argue with the mother of Jreisen and Jalon (one of his two 16-year-old sons), and he didn’t see them as often as he wished.

But he was determined to be a better father than anyone had been to him. “I want to break a generational curse and show my children how to be more productive as a father,” he says. “We all try to parent the best that we can, but, you know, we don’t always have the answers, and we don’t always have the right guidelines to start with.”

He found some of those parenting insights here, and so much more than he imagined when he first arrived at the no-frills classrooms in this big tan building, shared among social service agencies and nonprofits. It sits on a hill overlooking small brick homes and abandoned lots near a St. Louis highway that hugs a curve in the Mississippi River. 

Ann Hermes/Staff

Fathers introduce themselves during a sharing session at the Fathers’ Support Center in St. Louis, which helps men get more involved in their children’s lives.

Over the past 21 years, FSC has expanded to four more locations around the city and has given nearly 15,000 low-income fathers everything from job training to relationship skills. Every few months it enrolls a new group for its six-week full-time Family Formation Program, facilitated mainly by other men who have traveled a similar path. Graduates receive a year of follow-up support. 

They may come in feeling like a frustrated or failed parent, or even like unappreciated “cash registers” for their kids’ mothers. But they tend to go out feeling more confident as fathers – fathers better equipped to play a unique, essential role in their children’s lives.

***

Nearly 3 out of 10 children in the United States do not live with their biological father, and for African-Americans – the majority of FSC participants – the figure is closer to 6 in 10. 

Regardless of living arrangements, positive involvement by fathers is associated with better outcomes for kids – in academic achievement, social and emotional well-being, and behavior. Yet society is still catching up with how best to nurture those kinds of relationships. 

New information is emerging about how places such as FSC affect disadvantaged fathers’ ability to better support their children. And a growing number of communities are starting to reform child-support systems to make room for a broader concept of fatherhood.

“Poor dads have totally taken on this narrative of the new father,” says Kathryn Edin, a sociology and public affairs professor at Princeton University in New Jersey. “This is who they aspire to be,” not unlike their higher-income counterparts. But “doing so outside of a strong partner bond or a strong co-parenting bond is very difficult.”

Too often these fathers are overshadowed by stereotypes of “deadbeat dads” who callously walk away from responsibilities, adds Dr. Edin, coauthor of “Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City.” 

It’s true that there are men in every social class who abandon their children. But poor men who want to be involved often face steep barriers, from unrealistic child-support orders to “maternal gatekeeping,” Edin says. Sometimes a mother needs to block access for her or her child’s safety, but often other reasons prevail, such as the mother moving on to a new partner or not understanding the importance of trying to co-parent.

Supports for dads do have positive effects on their parenting, according to groundbreaking findings released in June from a study of 5,500 men served by FSC and three other fatherhood programs. One year after participating, the fathers did more age-appropriate activities with their children – reading a book out loud or helping with homework, for instance – than did the fathers in the randomized control group. They also reported more nurturing behaviors, such as showing patience with their children or encouraging them to talk about their feelings.

Mathematica Policy Research conducted the Parents and Children Together (PACT) evaluation study to gauge the effects of Responsible Fatherhood grants administered by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Some hoped-for results haven’t yet been achieved. The programs overall did not increase the men’s in-person contact with their children, for instance. The men did experience more-stable employment, but that did not translate into higher earnings or larger financial contributions to their kids.

For Halbert Sullivan, founder and chief executive officer of FSC, getting the nonprofit off the ground was tough, but every time he wanted to quit someone would stop by to tell a story about the difference the program was making in people’s lives. “I am able to see and be a part of the success of families, which leads to success in our community,” says Mr. Sullivan, sitting in his office, his shelf loaded with fatherhood books and a teddy bear from his grandson.

***

It’s 8 a.m. on a Wednesday when the “what’s up” session, a daily meeting of fathers in the FSC program, kicks off. The men who join the circle late pay a dollar to the “fines” jar. One by one, the men in the session share something from the day before.

Marcus Jones, who has been up all night with one of his four children, says he’s learning how to discipline and love them at the same time – “and tell them what they did right.”

Scott Couch, father of a 9-year-old girl, says the nutrition class inspired him to make a big bowl of fruit salad for dinner. “Throw mango in it. Good stuff!” he exclaims. 

He’s hoping he’ll be able to get more access to his daughter, and he’s showing her that life isn’t just about buying stuff. “We all say we want to give them something that we didn’t have,” Mr. Couch says. “It don’t have to be money.” For him, it’s teaching her how to cook.

Sean Buckley, coordinated in purple and gray dress clothes and sneakers, shares quietly that he spoke with someone who “helped me open up in a way I had never opened up to anybody.” 

Father to a 20-year-old and an 8-month-old, Mr. Buckley says his spirits are uplifted by the group. “To know that you are changing into something for the better, it feels real good.... I didn’t know I was going to have to stop smoking weed, but I’m doing it for one simple reason: my child.” 

Affirming nods and smiles pulse around the circle as bonds of trust start to form three weeks into the program. Across the country, men often find the social support networks that are established during such programs crucial to their growth as fathers. 

Mentoring shows participants “there are people out there who care for them and who will walk with them as they make this very challenging journey,” said Brad Lambert, co-founder of Connections to Success, during a webcast discussion last December. His group runs fatherhood programs in Kansas and Missouri and was part of the PACT study. 

Lee, who graduated from FSC in February, says that talking about himself was difficult at first. But the daily circles were full of humor and encouragement. “It was just a brotherhood. You didn’t see color; you just seein’ another man that’s going through the same struggles ... and we all trying to find a way to be a positive person.”

That shared motivation leads to presentations and discussions on topics ranging from domestic violence prevention to positive discipline methods. 

***

A printed sheet on the wall of an FSC classroom reads, “No matter what a man’s past may have been, his future is spotless.”

But letting out whatever they’re holding in from difficult times in the past is part of the process. In today’s “what it’s been like” session, six participants sit around a large table to talk about growing up with, or without, their dads.

Facilitator Gregory Tumlin shares, first, a harrowing story of abandonment, teen parenthood, homelessness, and finally kicking his addictions and forging a relationship with his children. 

“I done seen the worst,” he nearly whispers, his head bowed as the man next to him places a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he says more firmly, “I get frustrated when I see some men who think being a father is a game.”

Some of the men here had father figures step in to give them help, but they never completely filled the void. 

“My cousin’s father used to come pick him up all the time, and that’s something that used to touch me, man,” Buckley says. He wipes his eyes with a paper towel, sniffs, and pauses. “Can you throw me in the air like that?” he remembers thinking.

Looking back, he appreciates uncles who taught him and his cousins a skill, such as how to hang drywall, even though the discipline they imparted sometimes came at the crack of a belt. 

Of the three men here who did grow up with their dads, two faced abuse and the third got involved in neighborhood gang activity.

Couch doesn’t shy away from describing extreme physical and emotional abuse, which his sister didn’t experience or even know about. As a “white kid in the ghetto,” he says, he’d run down the alley and get beat up, but he was more afraid of what awaited him at home.

His voice loud and raw, he chronicles his complex emotions about his alcoholic father, who has since died, including that he offered some useful lessons despite it all. “I’m never mean to women, never missed a day of work,” Couch says.

With many of the participants, the first step in being a better father is to not follow some of the ways they were raised. “A lot of us tried to parent the way that we were parented,” says Lawrence Simmons Jr., a graduate of the program here and now a facilitator. “If you know it had a negative effect on you, then we have to find an alternative way of doing it.”

***

American families are far more complex today than they were in the days of Ozzie and Harriet. Four out of 10 children are now born outside marriage. By their fifth birthday, 78 percent of those children have seen their parents split up or change partners, have gained a new half-sibling, or both, Edin and her coauthors reported recently in Issues in Science and Technology. 

As a result, society needs to “fundamentally shift toward seeing co-parenting as a key social role,” she says.

Moving in that direction, FSC, the Center for Urban Families in Baltimore, and some other fatherhood centers have added programs for mothers and co-parenting pairs in recent years.

As a young teen, Lee made only brief contact with his father, “and we kind of went our separate ways from there,” he says, wearing a black jacket and shiny stud earrings, his black baseball cap removed in lingering obedience to the rules here. His mother raised him to be respectful and nurturing, he says, “but I was missing something.”

Ann Hermes/Staff

Darius Scott (l.) and Jemichael Carter hug during a ‘what’s up’ session at a fatherhood program in St. Louis that helps absentee fathers get involved in the lives of their children.

Just before Father’s Day in 2011, after serving 10 years in prison, Lee reached out to his father, who welcomed the overture. “Now we have one of the best relationships ever,” he says. What it took, he notes, was “for me to forgive him.” 

He realized during his time at FSC that he needed to seek such forgiveness from Yolanda Cole, the mother of Jalon and Jreisen. (He also hopes to improve things with the mother of William, his other teen, but she’s recently avoided his attempts to make contact.) Communication between Lee and Ms. Cole had long been stymied by arguments.

Lee says the program has taught him how to listen better. “I didn’t give her enough credit for the things she was saying because I really wasn’t fully hearing her,” he says.

FSC’s program delivers about 10 hours of marriage and relationship instruction. When needed, family therapists work with the men – and the women, if they’re willing. Out of the four programs in the PACT study, it was the only one to show improvements on interactions with the mothers.

During one unusual session, the men talk with a panel of women volunteers. “Then they realize ... ‘Well, I’ve been judging her, but this is how women actually feel,” Mr. Simmons says with a chuckle. “Someone has to humble themselves so they can actually have a productive conversation.”

Simmons is one who has reestablished a healthy relationship with the mother of his three children. A 2015 graduate of the program, he reunited with her nearly 31 years after their split. 

When they announced they’d be having a civil ceremony in 2017, he says, his 30-something daughter told him, “ ‘Nah, you ain’t going to a courthouse. You’re going to marry my mother the right way!’ ”

***

During a symposium on child support for each FSC group, the men can bring in paperwork and get legal assistance to lower their payments if they qualify.

But the overarching message is that “child support is not the enemy,” Simmons says. Some of the fathers are reminded that if they were caring for a child full time, they would likely be paying far more in support than they are now.

Yet the flip side is also true: Experts such as Edin say those who run child-support agencies need to get the message that fathers are not the enemy, either. Some states take as much as 65 percent of men’s income if they get behind, and adjustments are hard to come by even when a man loses his job. Noncustodial fathers are more likely to pay child support – and stay involved – if the amount remains below 35 percent of income, Edin says, or if they are allowed to make informal contributions of goods and services, such as doing household jobs. That’s an innovation some states have been trying. 

When Lee wanted more formal visitation with Jalon about a year ago, he called the child-support office and said he was considering volunteering to pay. The woman on the phone laughed at him, he says, and asked him why he’d want to do that. “It’s like child support is not really even geared to actually helping the child,” he says. “It’s so sad.”

Currently he pays support for both 16-year-olds and hopes he will be able to contribute for Jreisen soon, too. He now has a job washing dishes – humbling for a man whose teenage son does the same thing – but the center helped him get certification to drive a forklift and a commercial driver’s license, which he expects will lead to better work. His ultimate goal is to start a business and hire other formerly incarcerated people. 

Lee says he’s excited about “actually being able to stand on my own two feet and actually help my children financially.” 

“I can actually be there,” he notes, “and we can do things together, and I don’t have to worry about if I got the money to pay for it if my son hungry.”

***

A week before his group’s graduation in February, Lee visited Cole at a tax office where she works. Looking for a fresh start, he took the new communication and fathering skills he’d learned at FSC and approached her with fresh hope. She remembers the emotional day well.

“He apologized for a lot of the things that went on between us and the kids,” she says on a rainy afternoon, her purple fingernails resting on the kitchen table. The cream-colored brick home she shares with Jalon and Jreisen sits on a quiet street in Granite City, Ill., across the river just north of St. Louis. 

Before attending the program, she says, Lee would let a few months go by before reaching out to the children, and would come down on Jalon for not taking the initiative to see him. She tried to tell him that you can’t push things on teenagers but have to befriend them and support their interests, which for Jalon includes running an e-commerce business after school. 

Ann Hermes/Staff

William Lee bonds with his sons Jalon (c.) and Jreisen (l.) at the Saint Louis Science Center. Mr. Lee says his relationship with his sons has improved since taking a fatherhood program.

The better communication with Lee has been “a big relief,” she says. For so long, she’s had to act as both mother and father, although the boys have had positive interactions with another man, the primary parent to her 11-year-old son. She frequently reminds Jalon, who’s protective of Jreisen, that he doesn’t have to take on the father role. 

Jalon, perched quietly on a kitchen stool, says he’s noticed the change in his dad. “He’s more caring, more open arms,” he says, and when he talks to Mom, “it’s not yelling but actual conversation.” 

When Lee offered an apology, “I was able to forgive him,” Jalon says.

Cole tears up momentarily as she talks about the new dynamic. “All I really wanted was for him to be a good dad to his kids. And he’s making forth the effort.”

For Lee, the payoff with his sons has been immediate, and recently included taking them to the Saint Louis Science Center, where they laughed in a wind chamber and climbed into the driver’s seat of a giant farm combine. “I can tell from his actions that he likes the fact that I’m trying,” Lee says of Jalon. “I can see it and I can hear it in his voice. If I tell him now I love him, he’ll sound excited when he say it back.”

AP Photo

Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani (pictured) and the Taliban have each announced a cease-fire related to the holy month of Ramadan.

After decades of conflict and costly foreign intervention, Afghanistan has a new chance for peace. Both the government and the Taliban have declared unilateral cease-fires to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The temporary halt in fighting is only for three days, June 15-18. Yet if it holds, it will be the most extensive halt to offensive operations since the United States invaded the country in 2001 in response to the 9/11 bombings by Al Qaeda.

Any path to peace remains difficult. But even a brief cease-fire may signal momentum toward a negotiated solution. Crucial to any prospects for peace will be a dialogue between the militant Islamic Taliban and the elected president, Ashraf Ghani, and his team about issues of governance and power sharing.

Fighting in Afghanistan has been intense over the past year, but the logic of a negotiated solution has gained support inside and outside the country. Evidence is growing that the Afghan people strongly desire an end to the fighting. A small group of “peace marchers,” for example, is walking 300 miles from Kandahar to Kabul – while respecting the Ramadan practices of daytime fasting – in order to signal their “thirst for peace,” as one participant told the press. And shortly before the government’s cease-fire announcement, a group of Afghan clerics called for a cease-fire and talks.

If there is a real opening in these events, it will remain fragile and needs to be encouraged. Both sides put caveats on their cease-fires. The government did not include a cease-fire with the more radical Islamic State or Al Qaeda groups operating in the country. The Taliban said its cease-fire is only with the “domestic opposition” and not “foreign occupiers” (US and NATO forces). Most observers expect the Taliban’s “fighting season” to continue after the three days. 

Yet the fact that both parties made this gesture is significant as it signals they each realize the only way out is a political settlement. For its part, the Trump administration set a goal last year of a negotiated solution. To get there, it is working to strengthen the Afghan military and the government’s services to the people, as well as increase pressure on Pakistan to cut its support for the Taliban.  

The US moves have given a boost to the Afghan government, notably to the reformers in its ranks. Indeed, younger Afghans educated since 2001, including women, are taking leading roles in Kabul. 

While the government still rules over most of the population, the Taliban controls or threatens large swaths of the country. Human rights organizations underscore the rising toll of fighting on civilians. Other observers argue more positively that recent events have reinforced a perception that a military victory is not possible for either side, a view that has strengthened public sentiment to find a way to peace.

Both the Taliban and President Ghani may have sensed this shift. Indeed, one of the peace marchers told reporters that a group of Taliban fighters approached them at one point to offer their support for the march and for ending the fighting.

The next big threshold is to bring the parties together. The Taliban insists they will only negotiate with the US and only about withdrawing US forces. The Afghan government and its foreign allies say talks must be Afghans talking directly to Afghans and that a settlement must preserve important advances, such as rights embodied in the Constitution. A new generation of Afghans is now used to a more open and progressive environment. Some observers argue that elements of the Taliban also have moderated their views on a future Afghan society.

The mental blocks against peace in Afghanistan may be crumbling. If these latest signs of warming prove real, the next step may be talks through informal channels or perhaps using a third-party mediator. A war-weary Afghanistan deserves a way to a better future.