FATHER'S DAY

WE SUSPECT we're preaching to the choir here - that heavenly choir comprising fathers active in their children's lives.

So we ask you to pass this message along to your male friends and relatives who, for one reason or another - baby mama drama, ex-wife strife, or simple triflingness - have shirked their fatherly responsibilities.

Take your child to school on Monday.

The Million Father March is a national project to get more fathers involved with their children's education. Now in its fourth year, the project is in 200 cities, including Philadelphia. (Most city schools open Monday.)

The project, coordinated locally by David Fattah Sr., is positive: Become familiar with your children's education; know what classes they are taking; meet their teachers; attend parent/teacher meetings. Too often these tasks are left to the mother who always carries an inordinate amount of day-to-day child-rearing responsibilities.

This culture is quick to blame the cause of much of the families' travails on absent men. Responsible fathers go unheralded when they do what they are supposed to, and don't, as comedian Chris Rock says in one of his routines, look for a cookie as a reward. *