"When a woman, any woman, has issues with substances, has kids out of wedlock and ends up struggling as a single parent, she is identified by many names: slut, loser, welfare mom, burden on society. Take those same circumstances and array them over a man, and he becomes a crown prince. See him doing that dad thing and, with a flick of the wrist, the mom thing too! Why is it that the same series of overt acts committed by a male becomes somehow ennobled?"

-- David Carr, a former crack addict and single father of twin girls, who worked his way off welfare to eventually become a culture reporter and media columnist for the New York Times. This quote is from Carr's new memoir, "The Night of the Gun," which was excerpted in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine.