In December last year, my wife gave birth to our first child. I could tell you what a wonderful rewarding experience it is (and it is), but I’m not going to.
Instead I want to talk about the joy of low expectations that society places upon you as a father. I never realised that being a “good dad� was so easy. Pushing a pram up the street I have beaming old ladies tell me how wonderful it is that men are involved with the children, and that their husband would never have been seen pushing a pram. Change a nappy at my grandparents place and I hear about how fantastic it is that I help out.
It’s not just my grandparent’s generation that have this attitude. It is also clear from those in my parents or even my some of my own generation that they regard a father willing to help out with the general child raising chores an exception rather than the rule. I’ve worked with very proud Dads who would always talk of what their multiple children were up to, but admitted to having changed around three nappies in their lives. Its not that they weren’t interested in their children, it was merely that they didn’t help with the less pleasant chores.
Of course I don’t do as much as my wife does with the baby, I work and she doesn’t now. Still when I’m home I try to take a fair share of the child care chores. I don’t consider this exceptional but obviously it is. So all I can say to the generations of lazy bastards out there is, thanks for making it so easy to look like a good dad.
” So all I can say to the generations of lazy bastards out there is, thanks for making it so easy to look like a good dad.”
You’ve come a long way baby. I must have changed all of 4 nappies per kid in may time as a proud dad.
Edney, don’t kid yourself. Young kids are horrible. They shit in their pants expecting someone to clean it up for them and cry a lot. A “good” dad wouldn’t look at these little monsters until the age of 3 or four. Otherwise stay well away from them and pretend you’re too busy or tired with work committments.
Don’t get hooked into this modern dad routine. That’s for gals and you’re far to smart for that stuff anyway.
If I didn’t already know you were incapable, I’d pray to Bob Moog that you were being sarcastic here JC.
Good lord what a tool.
Anyhoo, I LOVE low expectations, and spend much effort creating them where they don’t already exist.
e.g. none of my siblings live in our home town any more. My two sisters contact Mum and Dad weekly, remember important dates, keep them informed, etc etc. I call once in a blue moon, and they fall off their perches with joy.
e.g.2 I let the bedroom I share with my lady friend get messy. She has higher standards, and is almost always the one to crack first and tidy up. I do it maybe 3 times a year, and get a celebratory… well, I won’t bother you with the details.
Oooohhh!!!!! Just got a call from the hubby of one of said sisters. I’m a nuncle! How’s that for symmetry?
jc: Sucker. You missed out on a whole heap of great stuff.
…but not so easy to punctuate properly.
…or make a worthwhile contribution.
Good on you Steve.
This wasn’t meant to be self-praise, but a comment on generally low standards!
“This wasn’t meant to be self-praise, but a comment on generally low standards!”
Not low enough, it seems. If you start from zero like me, anything you offer is an infinite improvement. You need to be more than smart. Smart as fox. That way you can be a cool dad without the crap and meet up with the bighters when they’re up to it such as 4 or 5 yrs old.
FDB
I’m a tool? Huh! By the way stop derailing the thread
by offering your biography. It’s irrelvant to the thread. this is about avoiding menial, thankless tasks that carers who are better equipped can do.
“jc: Sucker. You missed out on a whole heap of great”
Like what? Vomit down my shirt. Gee. Let me cry in regret.
Sorry FDB
missed some of you comments. Why am I referred to as a tool when you seem just as bad/good. By all appearances you’re not exactly shaping up into becoming the model 21 century dad with the clean up routine you’re into.
Thanks JC, I think you’ve more or less shown what I mean.
I’m kidding steve.
I actually couldn’t do a lot as I had a 7/7 job and by friday i was totally exhausted. But I did try to make up for it during weekends as I spent lots of time with them.
Kids are great….. except teen years when they just turn into horrible little mosters.
Don’t derail a good discussion people.
The fact that so many people are NOT like Steve E is one of the reasons I chose not to have children. This isn’t being nasty, it’s being honest. My partner and I have helped a number of teenagers get their lives back on track - my nephew is with us now - but unlike most people I actually like teenagers.
What I don’t have is a high tolerance for mess, shitty nappies and meaningless conversation. I love my partner’s kids, because they’re older and both very bright, as well as setting great examples as indigenous high achievers. Toddlers you can keep. I’d have needed someone else to do all the baby parenting stuff, my partner had done that twice already, and I like my space. Hence no kids.
There are a lot of women around like me. Unless we find more Steve Es out there, Australia’s demographic statistics are going to continue to look ordinary.
Up to you, fellas.
“Up to you, fellas. ”
Well actaully there is a way round that. We hired nannies to do the crap as neither of us were into that sort of thing. Also the place we lived almost made it mandatory to have a nanny. Most people were out of towners and didn’t have regular family support.
SL
Young kids don’t require much more attention in terms of clean up etc. than a dog. Well a little more but not much.
If you love dogs,SL, you’ll love kids.
I wonder if the apostrophe nazi understands that commenters’ IP addresses are visible to everyone with posting privileges on a Wordpress site, as this is, and that we can also see which other comments have been posted from that same IP address in the past.
Just wonderin’
Couldnt agree more. I have three young children and a wife that works longer hours than me, so I do most of the drugery. The amount of unsolicited admiration is totally unjustified, and was never offered when the situation was reversed. It only bothers her a little…
I played house Dad before my kids went to school. Our theory was that we weren’t going to subject our children to childcare, so my wife and I took turns staying at home with them.
But you’re right Steve, just about every book about child rearing depicts the father as a transient figure, disappearing in the morning before reappearing briefly in the evening, perhaps to pat the child on the head before bedtime. That shit really pisses me off.
If you weren’t ‘into that sort of thing’ then you shouldn’t have had kids..Dick.
I prefer to spend my money on 4WD utes, quality firearms and decent dogs. Maybe I’m not very maternal, but I am rational in the economic sense. And dogs are useful from 18 months up if properly trained.
Just sayin.
I dunno, I think that old chestnut “specialization of labor,” which worked so well for Mr. H. Ford, might have a wee bit of traction here.
My dad was an incredibly good father, but he didn’t go in at all for the “I’m your friend” or “I’m your second-string mum” routine. He was very clear about, “I’m your *father*.” I’m not exactly a reliable witness, but I’d be astounded to hear that he ever troubled himself to change a single nappy on my account; certainly he didn’t when it came to my younger sibs.
On the other hand, at the drop of a hat he would effortlessly build, or help me build, any bizarre contraption or gear I thought I required. He also patiently sat and explained to me all of the evil shit about the world that *somebody* needs to tell a kid — often that job’s delegated to your crazy uncle who’s an ex-Marine, and who by that point is so wasted that you don’t know whether or not to believe him. So, my dad spared me this particular exercise in skepticism. He also had the presence of mind to teach me, in a pinch, how to drop a bloke with the minimum number of punches; somehow I think that my mom, saintly as she is, would not have been up to that particular assignment.
Which is all just a roundabout way of saying, Mr. Edney (and btw, Congratulations to you and the missus!), that you should enjoy all the praise as much as you can… but on the other hand, do get ready. Your job’s just sort of a leetle different in nature, and it won’t really get started yet for a bit longer. But what the fuck, it’s all fun, right? Great good luck to you both!!
I know what you mean, Marki. My young fella drove me to drugs too…
This discussion reminds me of what my ex’s brother used to say when he wanted to cause strife among the womenfolk. “A woman’s work is never done. Cos they never bloody do it!”
I know exactly what you mean Steve. My girl’s 2 and half now, and I have honestly tried to shoulder a fair share of the burden.
But if I look deep into my heart of hearts, the reality is I have generally wangled the fun stuff by way of contributions. “yeah, I’ll take to the park! And the bookshop too. You just rest up!”
Bulk hours count though, I reckon, but still… lets examine the work load.
Ive changed 500 nappies, but that was only about 30% of them. Ive given her 50 baths, and dressed her while she wriggled like a Sufi on crack 100 times. But thats only a quarter of the action that’s gone down since birth.
Some bits really arent fun. Especially in the first 6 months - wailing little sleepless poo machine.
Im not the sort to preach the good news on kids. Its totally valid to choose not to have them. But these days, my daughter wakes me every morning with a cuddle and her own composition, the “I love Daddy” song - which frankly makes the the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
Ive also been way less neurotic since. Me and my problems just dont matter quite as much to me anymore. Existential relief - thats what noone told me about fatherhood beforehand.
Congrats Steve. Its going to pay off even more from hereon in.
Just for clarification - has the title of the post been changed, or was the apostrophe nazi guilty of the ultimate sin… INCORRECT CORRECTION?!?!?!?
JC - I noticed as I was writing that I was painting myself into a corner, and I was going to think of a way to be funny about it, but then the news came through from San Fran about my new nephew. Suddenly, petty ego-sparring seemed unimportant. I know there are plenty of ways to divvy up labour, and I know you were just doing some gentle shit-stirring.
“wriggled like a Sufi on crack”
Straight to the poolroom with that one, LE.
FDB
Congrats FDB. Mean that. Hope you celebrate well.
Enjoy it while it lasts Steve. When they reach the screaming tantrum toddler stage (which Scepticlawyer so wisely avoided) then you’ll get your share of dirty looks for not being a parent with a perfectly behaved little angel who is seen and not heard.
[Gets busy wrapping his banjo to send to SL - figures she needs it more than I do, now that I no longer have any utes, dogs or guns. . .]
Gin, Mindy. Gin mixed with Fanta and Playstation.
j_p_z’s comment just reminded me of two things. 1, the extent to which my dad taught me how to blue (girls these days need that) and 2, how much that beautiful working-class Australian expression ‘missus’ needs to be treasured. I don’t mind being my partner’s missus, because it’s a good thing to be, in the best unalloyed sense.
And Mindy is right about toddlers, too.
Just sayin.
“you’ll get your share of dirty looks for not being a parent with a perfectly behaved little angel who is seen and not heard.”
There’s this poor woman on my tram every morning with this three-year old girl in a pram who yells about once every 30 seconds. A high-pitched steady wail, not quite a scream, with no discernable reason behind it. It’d actually be better if it was constant. I’m just getting into the paragraph I’m trying to read again, when bam! Out of nowhere.
Mum’s got this glazed look as if it happens day in day out, and just ignores people who tell her to shut the thing up. What can you do?
And I actually want to learn how to play tha banjo, Grendel.
What can you do?
Just smile at her, FDB. No doubt she’s frickin’ tired.
Toddlers are allowed to think they’re the centre of the universe. The rest of us are supposed to get over it.
FDB, you can smile sympathy at the poor woman.
Guaranteed she’s had very little sympathy from strangers. When you get into the habit of showing sympathy for mothers you find they’re usually grateful for the change.
The flipside to the Dad’s-a-marvel-for-pushing-the-stroller equation is that Mum’s-crap-because-her-kid’s-tired, cross, hungry, naturally bad tempered or whatever.
As the mother of two teenagers and adopter of many others, give me a teenager any day. They are foul monsters in many ways, but at least they don’t crap and chunder all over you. Not often anyway.
Pretty fond of the banjo myself. But being an expat Queenslander means I have to keep such perversions a secret these days.
P.S.
Of course your tram Mum could just be a really crap mother, but it’s always worth a try offering sympathy anyway.
Grendel, banjo players are in high demand in Melbourne. Where are you? My band couldn’t find one good enough with enough time to lay down parts on our album. We were pretty bummed.
Lyn & Zoe - I’ve tried that, and she scowls. I suspect that she is a bit, shall we say, laissez-faire (alcoholic?) but then I feel guilty for thinking that. Maybe the kid’s got a problem with her brain-bone…
SL, dont intellectualise it, just do it, not having your own kids is like not seeing in colour. Time slips away.
SE, a good dad has to do more than push the pram, they have to listen…
Sorry rog, no can do - I just don’t care enough. Mind you my teenage nephew is shaping up nicely. He’s learned about personal responsibility, is already working two jobs, and has an independence of spirit that can only be good for Australia in the long term.
Except you cant tie them up to the clothes line, and leave them by themselves while you go out for drinks for at least a good 6 months.
FDB, no I corrected the title. I do prefer to have things correct, but I should check the title as well as the text.
Rog, I wasn’t trying to suggest that was all there was to it! It was tongue in cheek you know, a comment on the perceptions merely pushing a pram was generating.
Yes, I tend to think the Dad would get sympathy in the same situation for just trying.
FDB - Perth.
And I reckon there is a good chance that little girl has autism - if so, the noise she makes would be to block out the intolerable noise of the world around her, and I could well understand the glazed look in the mother’s eyes. Even if she wanted the child to be quiet there wouldn’t actually by any way she could make that happen.
“What I don’t have is a high tolerance for mess, shitty nappies and meaningless conversation.”
Conversation is two-sided by definition and it won’t be meaningless to the young one. And you get an almost unparalleled opportunity to have a formative influence on the development of a young mind. It’s quite the opposite of ‘meaningless’, but YMMV (as clearly it does).
“you’ll get your share of dirty looks for not being a parent with a perfectly behaved little angel who is seen and not heard.�
And everyone not giving dirty looks is either thinking “God, I’m glad I’m through that phase” nor “God, I’m not looking forward to that”
I don’t get anything out of it, and I’m happy to admit that, Darryl. Rather than engage in pretense, I’ll just do without kids and engage in a lot of other stuff I find much more enjoyable.
I was thinking the same thing, or at least a ASD such as Aspergers etc.
I caught a group of parents on one of the dodgy ‘current affairs’ shows last week, who were calling on the govt for more support in terms of respite and community care. The majority of that group of parents living with a severely austistic child expressed thoughts of suicide, giving up their child (some already had) and some even confessed to fleeting glimpses of infanticide.
Then theres the current scandal engulfing the Fed Community Services Minister regarding his alledged statement to disability advocates that he would give up his child if it were disabled; while the outrage seems focused on his ‘undervaluing the life of a disabled child ‘ politically the more pertinent issue to me is that he is more or less conceding that the level of community support available ( under our gt) leaves many with little choice but to consider this option.
Now thats a screw up.
sorry..my rant above was in relation to Grendle’s comment.
SL: not having yr own biological kids is a perfectly fine choice. You shouldn’t have to justify it.
I saw that ASD show, tough stuff. I also know a few who have SIDS events, very hard to deal with. You can get frightened by all the things that might go wrong.
oh, and for the record, i’m not a particularly maternal type and found the early years really really hard. Lots of fun and good stuff along the way, but spontaneous, erratic creative independent types usually dont make the transition to routine all that well.
that said, parenthood is absolutely THE most fortuitous thing to have happened to me, on so many levels.
“I prefer to spend my money on 4WD utes, quality firearms and decent dogs. Maybe I’m not very maternal, but I am rational in the economic sense.”
Fear not. Your descendants will be too numerous to count. They will be like grains of sands on many beaches or like the stars in the sky on a clear night.
Yeah, Cobb’s comments were kind of interesting - I think he was attempting empathy - as in “you guys are amazing, no way could I do what you manage to do” which, yes, does seem to be admitting more support is needed. Unfortunately for John Cobb though, he does has a history of tangling thoughts and words in ways that perhaps don’t reflect his intentions. Does this excuse him? No bloody way!
John Cobb’s refreshing honesty should be applauded.
The next step is to do something about it.
A really good start would be to sit down with three parents of kids with disabilities and some technically knowledgeable representatives of the various support organisations. He could find out exactly what is on offer, when, what obstacles are provided, how it feels to get it, and what happens when it is not available.
I was thinking uncharitably that he should then have to go home one day and face up to the real responsibiity of having a child who has just come out of a coma after a car accident.
Then I realised he could never, ever, be in the position of the people providing long term care to family with disabilities because his parliamentary superannuation will enable him to pay for support which the rest of his constituency simply can’t afford.
Given, you see, that being a carer creates poverty.
See, I could have typed that word for word (but I just cut and pasted it). Seriously, we love our son, he is so much fun, wouldn’t ask for it to be any other way. But the reasons stated above are why we have decided our perfect number of children are one. Oh, and the other reason is we are both selfish people, and while we can cope with one, more would mean having to be even less selfish, and I am not sure we are willing to do that.
My DH tries to contribute equally - he is happy to change nappies, and he does the shower-pajamas thing each night. But I KNOW that when our son gets older, it will be Dad teaching him the practical stuff and making the crazy machines. Because I will happily admit I am totally crap at that kind of thing.
Yeah, one kid is mostly compatible with pre-exisiting lifestyles. After the first 6 months anyway. You can still go to a restaurant, swap nights out, have a life.
I dont know about two though. And three! Forget it, game over. You’re now “parents”. As an American friend of mine so aptly put it, with the advent of the third child “you go from man-on-man, to zone defense”.
I believe it was a basketball analogy. Made me chuckle for weeks.
Poor bastard.
Well, Alex, the ignorant comments that people who won’t use childcare come out with (as “subject our children to childcare” implies) really piss me off. Do you not understand your prejudices about childcare may be as unfounded as mythical Dad stories in books?
” depicts the father as a transient figure, disappearing in the morning before reappearing briefly in the evening, perhaps to pat the child on the head before bedtime….may be as unfounded as mythical Dad stories”
Bugger it… I am mythical now…that would explain the fading vision. I thought I was just getting older.
Will someone tell me how you support the family and without leaving the house..
Whoa there ppls. Alex didn’t say nobody worked..they alternated who stayed at home. Exactly as we did.
I’d hate to see this degenerate into a childcare debate (i.e fulltime child care vs full time staying home) because there are pros and cons for either, and each of our circumstances are incredibly different; some have friends and family around, some are single parents, etc etc…
HOwever, if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to stay with your kids, than i say go for it. The second car and the big mortgage can always come later.
HOwever, if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to stay with your kids, than i say go for it. The second car and the big mortgage can always come later.
SC cowgirl, that is not the issue. I have never hung shit on anyone who stayed with the kids. I am taking him up on using the words *subjected* to childcare. That is not a neutral term. I don’t use the words “subjected to being left at home with his mother” to describe a child at home, ask yourself why?.