Being a dad has its advantages and disadvantages.
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
• Life, as you know it, is over.
This is a book about being a dad. I wrote it for three reasons.
First, I wanted to become the rich and famous author of a book with one of those ‘Three Million Now in Print’ stickers on it. (That didn’t exactly come to fruition. However, I have sold a few hundred thousand copies, and with the publishing royalties I was able to put a full set of new tyres on my Tarago.
On at least three separate occasions. Yay.)
Second, I’m writing this book to prepare you. Becoming a dad is life-changing. Monumentally, teeth-crackingly, awe- inspiringly life-changing. Somebody needs to tell you. It might as well be me.
My wife, Meredith, and I are the proud parents of three daughters: Rachael, Georgia and Matilda. And I do mean proud. We love our kids. And I love being their dad.
Except for that time Rachael redecorated her room by pulling the cap off a container of talcum powder. (Yes, back in the day when there was more white powder in your baby’s crotch than at an afternoon tea with Pablo Escobar.)
And except for that time when, during a dinner party, toddler Georgia appeared suddenly and to our confusion with bright blue lips, tongue and fingers, chanting the word ‘duck’, causing me to wonder if I had left the toilet door open, thereby granting her easy unfettered access to the toilet freshener cube hooked over the rim of the bowl? (The answer, if you are interested, was, yes I had.)
And especially except for that time Tilly ran through a plate-glass door wearing only silky pyjamas, sending us scurrying to the hospital in one of those ‘Please God’ moments.
Yep, there’s nothing quite like being a dad. I consider myself a fully- edged family man. Being a dad is really important to me. It is at the very core of who I am. But
I had a bit of a rocky beginning and I certainly wouldn’t claim to have enjoyed every minute of it. As a new dad, I remember crawling into bed each night mumbling inanely to myself, How did this happen? Why didn’t anybody tell me about this? Why wasn’t I warned? Can I change my mind about this whole dad thing?
I remember feeling disillusioned that I had subscribed to an ideal that being a dad was easy and fun and full of warmth and wonder, like a montage of soft-focus, TV- commercial moments made up of throwing a ball in the park and cooking snags over a camp re in the backyard. I felt miffed that the brotherhood-of-blokes had failed to adequately and truthfully prepare me for my new station in life. Then again . . . it wouldn’t be the first time the brotherhood- of-blokes had let me down and misled me. It is they, after all, who also suggest that paintball doesn’t hurt, that hiring a stripper is a good way to finish a buck’s night or that getting a fully sick Chinese character tatt on your bicep while on holiday in Phuket is a good idea. (Because that ink that you think reads ‘Strength and Honour’ actually reads ‘Spring Roll Tourist’.)
Becoming a dad is a shock to the system. So, I’m writing to give you the lowdown, the scoop, the big picture, the rope-a-dope, the man-in-the-street, bloke-next-door barbecue- wisdom view.
Third, I have a strong conviction about the importance of dadhood. Our country needs good dads. Our kids need good dads. They need their dads to love them, care for them, provide for them, know them, teach them, raise them, spend time with them, discipline them, read with them, talk with them, throw them up in the air, catch them, protect them, encourage them, wrestle them on the carpet and hang round for hours bored senseless while they finish their ballet lesson. We need our dads to role model to our kids what it means to be a good man and a good husband. We need our kids to see us loving our wives (but not, um, literally).
It makes me happy that many men take an active and involved role in family life. Unfortunately, some blokes still view parenting as a maternal thing and see their identity in their work and income. This is a tragedy. As far as I can ascertain, there are only five parenting things that men can’t do:
1. Get pregnant.
2. Grow another human being inside their body for nine months.
3. Give birth to aforementioned human being.
4. Breastfeed.
5. Remember the names of all the kids at playgroup.
As a society, we still tend to define ourselves by the work we do, and that can lead some men to get the balance wrong. I have met dads who are not into family stuff, dads who seem always absent or away on business, dads who are perpetually busy and are so wrapped up in their own lives that they and their children only ever pass like ships in the night. They are men with no time for family.
You don’t want that to be you.
I acknowledge that life is complex and there are bills to pay, and that work can be demanding, but don’t be the guy who lives for work and has no time for his own kids. Don’t be the guy who is always at the office, always missing events, always staring at his phone or sitting at a laptop or off with his mates while family life happens elsewhere. One day, guys like that wake up and look at their children who don’t know them . . . and realise too late that there is more to life.
So, in writing this book I hope that I remind and help some blokes – I dunno? Maybe you? – realise how important and how enjoyable (albeit sometimes frustrating and tiring) it is to be ‘Dad’.
But how exactly do you be ‘Dad’?
Good question.
In some respects, blokes tend to replicate their own fathers, basing their approach on what they experienced growing up. I was fortunate to be brought up in a home with loving and involved parents. Like most families, we were not immune to the trials and tribulations of life, but our house was happy, ordered and lively. My parents, Hilda and Stan, sacrificed a lot to give me opportunities and wonderful experiences, and were deliberate in raising me with core values, aspirations and an OCD approach to Saturday morning house cleaning. Although I miss my mum, who died a few years ago, I continue to be blessed to have a positive relationship with a devoted father that has evolved through many seasons throughout our lives. This obviously helped to shape and form my own understanding of parenting and dadhood.
But not every guy has had that. Some guys – Maybe you? – grew up with an absent or distant dad, or at worst, a hostile and toxic – possibly violent – relationship with their father. This can be something of a challenge then as they start to work out their own approach to fatherhood.
Unfortunately, us blokes can’t do a Certificate IV in Fathering at TAFE and, as far as I know, universities don’t offer Bachelor degrees in Paternity. How do we, as aspiring fathers-to-be, learn the ropes of fathering without hanging ourselves, so to speak?
When Meredith was pregnant with our first child, Rachael- nee-Elvis, I had so many questions that needed answering. There were plans to be made and things to do, and I knew nothing about babies and parenting and kids. And I do mean nothing. I needed information and advice to help me work out, essentially, what is it exactly that I’m supposed to do?
I started looking for decent books that would prepare me for parenting. You can spot these books by their grand and promising titles, such as The Complete Guide to Parenting . . . or How to Raise a Child ... or Ten Easy Steps to ... Either that or by their covers, which feature soft-focus photos of female models (with pregnancy-suggesting cushions stuffed up their cashmere sweaters on which their hands are meaningfully placed) silhouetted in frosted bay windows staring out to the middle distance with a serene look on their face that says, ‘I’m pregnant and I’m in love with my baby . . .’
I didn’t find too many books that really did the trick. Most were written for women, many adopting a kind of alternate- reality saccharine insipidness to which I could not relate. The few dad books I stumbled across (squeezed in among other non-male books such as Your Breast, Your Baby or Spirit Momma: The Divine Light Within, or Buff Mom, Buff Baby) were okay but tended to be either dry and technical textbooks or a collection of clichéd dad memes and photos with inspirational and winsome desktop-calendar quotations (‘A dad holds his daughter’s hand when she is young, but her heart forever.’) but didn’t actually really tell me anything.
Somewhere in there, I decided to write this.
Which raises the question: who exactly is this Peter Downey fellow to be telling me about all this stuff anyway?
Well, I’m not a child psychologist, bioethicist, obstetrician or paediatrician. I’m not the head of some amazing parent-education organisation. And although I’m a ‘Doctor’, my Doctorate is in education not medicine, which means I am perpetually anxious that on a long-haul flight an attendant will announce, ‘Is there a doctor on board?’ and I’ll put up my hand and will, despite my attempts to qualify that statement, be whisked to the back of the plane to conduct a Caesarean with nothing but plastic airline cutlery and a first- aid sewing kit, and afterwards we’ll all have a good old laugh about the whole misunderstanding.
My main qualification is this: I’m an ordinary bloke, husband and dad of three kids. I live in the suburbs, work ve days a week, wash the car on the weekend and like to watch movies and get Thai takeaway on a Friday night.
One day, I was a normal, carefree guy, just like you. The next day, I was buying nappies in bulk and trying to assemble a travel cot. If anything, it is my inadequacies and failings, not my expertise, that make this book what it is. So, here I am, a few years down the track – twenty- five years, to be precise – ready to share my joys, frustrations, ideas, triumphs and mistakes. If that doesn’t convince you, though, I’ve watched plenty of films and TV shows with dads and babies in them.
The basic message of this book is that being a dad takes energy, commitment and involvement. It takes time and effort. You can’t do it half-heartedly. You can’t do it in your spare time. This is very important for you to understand, so I’m going to write it again.
Being a dad takes energy, commitment and involvement. It takes time and effort. You can’t do it half-heartedly. You can’t do it in your spare time. Capiche?
It means being active and involved in the daily dealings with your baby. It means ‘getting your hands dirty’ – metaphorically and literally – and participating in all aspects of family life. It means sharing the parenting and rejecting outdated stereotypes that parenting is ‘women’s business’.
Our kids need us. Your baby, whether or not you’ve met it yet, needs you. It needs your testosterone, your love, care, concern, involvement, wisdom, strength, patience and discipline. It needs your strong arm and your gentle hand. It needs you to be there, to be involved. You’ve got to know them, and you’ve got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them ... hang on a sec ... that’s not ... um...
Obviously, I wrote this book for soon-to-be or new dads, the Australian (and in various editions, international) male who knows little or nothing about fatherhood but who wants to face the storm and be the best damn dad he can be. But the absence of focus here towards mums or particular maternal issues should in no way lessen the obvious importance and centrality of mums or detract from the integral relationship of the husband–wife parenting team. Mums are equally important as dads. I have nothing against women. I like women. I even married one.
So . . . welcome to the wonderful world of fatherhood. We have a long road ahead of us. A hard road. A road fraught with obstacles, trials and tribulations. But it is also a rewarding road, adorned with great experiences and golden moments that you wouldn’t have thought possible. And once you walk that road, you’ll never be the same again.
So, let’s get started . . .
ADVANTAGES
- A decade, guaranteed, of guilt-free Disney/Pixar animated movies on the big screen.
- Rediscovering your love of Lego.
- Social kudos in your workplace, especially among women.
- People usher you to the front of queues.
- You can break wind anytime, anyplace and blame it on the baby.
- Then, there’s always the joyous fulfilment of playing the most significant role in shaping the life of another human being.
DISADVANTAGES
• Life, as you know it, is over.
This is a book about being a dad. I wrote it for three reasons.
First, I wanted to become the rich and famous author of a book with one of those ‘Three Million Now in Print’ stickers on it. (That didn’t exactly come to fruition. However, I have sold a few hundred thousand copies, and with the publishing royalties I was able to put a full set of new tyres on my Tarago.
On at least three separate occasions. Yay.)
Second, I’m writing this book to prepare you. Becoming a dad is life-changing. Monumentally, teeth-crackingly, awe- inspiringly life-changing. Somebody needs to tell you. It might as well be me.
My wife, Meredith, and I are the proud parents of three daughters: Rachael, Georgia and Matilda. And I do mean proud. We love our kids. And I love being their dad.
Except for that time Rachael redecorated her room by pulling the cap off a container of talcum powder. (Yes, back in the day when there was more white powder in your baby’s crotch than at an afternoon tea with Pablo Escobar.)
And except for that time when, during a dinner party, toddler Georgia appeared suddenly and to our confusion with bright blue lips, tongue and fingers, chanting the word ‘duck’, causing me to wonder if I had left the toilet door open, thereby granting her easy unfettered access to the toilet freshener cube hooked over the rim of the bowl? (The answer, if you are interested, was, yes I had.)
And especially except for that time Tilly ran through a plate-glass door wearing only silky pyjamas, sending us scurrying to the hospital in one of those ‘Please God’ moments.
Yep, there’s nothing quite like being a dad. I consider myself a fully- edged family man. Being a dad is really important to me. It is at the very core of who I am. But
I had a bit of a rocky beginning and I certainly wouldn’t claim to have enjoyed every minute of it. As a new dad, I remember crawling into bed each night mumbling inanely to myself, How did this happen? Why didn’t anybody tell me about this? Why wasn’t I warned? Can I change my mind about this whole dad thing?
I remember feeling disillusioned that I had subscribed to an ideal that being a dad was easy and fun and full of warmth and wonder, like a montage of soft-focus, TV- commercial moments made up of throwing a ball in the park and cooking snags over a camp re in the backyard. I felt miffed that the brotherhood-of-blokes had failed to adequately and truthfully prepare me for my new station in life. Then again . . . it wouldn’t be the first time the brotherhood- of-blokes had let me down and misled me. It is they, after all, who also suggest that paintball doesn’t hurt, that hiring a stripper is a good way to finish a buck’s night or that getting a fully sick Chinese character tatt on your bicep while on holiday in Phuket is a good idea. (Because that ink that you think reads ‘Strength and Honour’ actually reads ‘Spring Roll Tourist’.)
Becoming a dad is a shock to the system. So, I’m writing to give you the lowdown, the scoop, the big picture, the rope-a-dope, the man-in-the-street, bloke-next-door barbecue- wisdom view.
Third, I have a strong conviction about the importance of dadhood. Our country needs good dads. Our kids need good dads. They need their dads to love them, care for them, provide for them, know them, teach them, raise them, spend time with them, discipline them, read with them, talk with them, throw them up in the air, catch them, protect them, encourage them, wrestle them on the carpet and hang round for hours bored senseless while they finish their ballet lesson. We need our dads to role model to our kids what it means to be a good man and a good husband. We need our kids to see us loving our wives (but not, um, literally).
It makes me happy that many men take an active and involved role in family life. Unfortunately, some blokes still view parenting as a maternal thing and see their identity in their work and income. This is a tragedy. As far as I can ascertain, there are only five parenting things that men can’t do:
1. Get pregnant.
2. Grow another human being inside their body for nine months.
3. Give birth to aforementioned human being.
4. Breastfeed.
5. Remember the names of all the kids at playgroup.
As a society, we still tend to define ourselves by the work we do, and that can lead some men to get the balance wrong. I have met dads who are not into family stuff, dads who seem always absent or away on business, dads who are perpetually busy and are so wrapped up in their own lives that they and their children only ever pass like ships in the night. They are men with no time for family.
You don’t want that to be you.
I acknowledge that life is complex and there are bills to pay, and that work can be demanding, but don’t be the guy who lives for work and has no time for his own kids. Don’t be the guy who is always at the office, always missing events, always staring at his phone or sitting at a laptop or off with his mates while family life happens elsewhere. One day, guys like that wake up and look at their children who don’t know them . . . and realise too late that there is more to life.
So, in writing this book I hope that I remind and help some blokes – I dunno? Maybe you? – realise how important and how enjoyable (albeit sometimes frustrating and tiring) it is to be ‘Dad’.
But how exactly do you be ‘Dad’?
Good question.
In some respects, blokes tend to replicate their own fathers, basing their approach on what they experienced growing up. I was fortunate to be brought up in a home with loving and involved parents. Like most families, we were not immune to the trials and tribulations of life, but our house was happy, ordered and lively. My parents, Hilda and Stan, sacrificed a lot to give me opportunities and wonderful experiences, and were deliberate in raising me with core values, aspirations and an OCD approach to Saturday morning house cleaning. Although I miss my mum, who died a few years ago, I continue to be blessed to have a positive relationship with a devoted father that has evolved through many seasons throughout our lives. This obviously helped to shape and form my own understanding of parenting and dadhood.
But not every guy has had that. Some guys – Maybe you? – grew up with an absent or distant dad, or at worst, a hostile and toxic – possibly violent – relationship with their father. This can be something of a challenge then as they start to work out their own approach to fatherhood.
Unfortunately, us blokes can’t do a Certificate IV in Fathering at TAFE and, as far as I know, universities don’t offer Bachelor degrees in Paternity. How do we, as aspiring fathers-to-be, learn the ropes of fathering without hanging ourselves, so to speak?
When Meredith was pregnant with our first child, Rachael- nee-Elvis, I had so many questions that needed answering. There were plans to be made and things to do, and I knew nothing about babies and parenting and kids. And I do mean nothing. I needed information and advice to help me work out, essentially, what is it exactly that I’m supposed to do?
I started looking for decent books that would prepare me for parenting. You can spot these books by their grand and promising titles, such as The Complete Guide to Parenting . . . or How to Raise a Child ... or Ten Easy Steps to ... Either that or by their covers, which feature soft-focus photos of female models (with pregnancy-suggesting cushions stuffed up their cashmere sweaters on which their hands are meaningfully placed) silhouetted in frosted bay windows staring out to the middle distance with a serene look on their face that says, ‘I’m pregnant and I’m in love with my baby . . .’
I didn’t find too many books that really did the trick. Most were written for women, many adopting a kind of alternate- reality saccharine insipidness to which I could not relate. The few dad books I stumbled across (squeezed in among other non-male books such as Your Breast, Your Baby or Spirit Momma: The Divine Light Within, or Buff Mom, Buff Baby) were okay but tended to be either dry and technical textbooks or a collection of clichéd dad memes and photos with inspirational and winsome desktop-calendar quotations (‘A dad holds his daughter’s hand when she is young, but her heart forever.’) but didn’t actually really tell me anything.
Somewhere in there, I decided to write this.
Which raises the question: who exactly is this Peter Downey fellow to be telling me about all this stuff anyway?
Well, I’m not a child psychologist, bioethicist, obstetrician or paediatrician. I’m not the head of some amazing parent-education organisation. And although I’m a ‘Doctor’, my Doctorate is in education not medicine, which means I am perpetually anxious that on a long-haul flight an attendant will announce, ‘Is there a doctor on board?’ and I’ll put up my hand and will, despite my attempts to qualify that statement, be whisked to the back of the plane to conduct a Caesarean with nothing but plastic airline cutlery and a first- aid sewing kit, and afterwards we’ll all have a good old laugh about the whole misunderstanding.
My main qualification is this: I’m an ordinary bloke, husband and dad of three kids. I live in the suburbs, work ve days a week, wash the car on the weekend and like to watch movies and get Thai takeaway on a Friday night.
One day, I was a normal, carefree guy, just like you. The next day, I was buying nappies in bulk and trying to assemble a travel cot. If anything, it is my inadequacies and failings, not my expertise, that make this book what it is. So, here I am, a few years down the track – twenty- five years, to be precise – ready to share my joys, frustrations, ideas, triumphs and mistakes. If that doesn’t convince you, though, I’ve watched plenty of films and TV shows with dads and babies in them.
The basic message of this book is that being a dad takes energy, commitment and involvement. It takes time and effort. You can’t do it half-heartedly. You can’t do it in your spare time. This is very important for you to understand, so I’m going to write it again.
Being a dad takes energy, commitment and involvement. It takes time and effort. You can’t do it half-heartedly. You can’t do it in your spare time. Capiche?
It means being active and involved in the daily dealings with your baby. It means ‘getting your hands dirty’ – metaphorically and literally – and participating in all aspects of family life. It means sharing the parenting and rejecting outdated stereotypes that parenting is ‘women’s business’.
Our kids need us. Your baby, whether or not you’ve met it yet, needs you. It needs your testosterone, your love, care, concern, involvement, wisdom, strength, patience and discipline. It needs your strong arm and your gentle hand. It needs you to be there, to be involved. You’ve got to know them, and you’ve got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them ... hang on a sec ... that’s not ... um...
Obviously, I wrote this book for soon-to-be or new dads, the Australian (and in various editions, international) male who knows little or nothing about fatherhood but who wants to face the storm and be the best damn dad he can be. But the absence of focus here towards mums or particular maternal issues should in no way lessen the obvious importance and centrality of mums or detract from the integral relationship of the husband–wife parenting team. Mums are equally important as dads. I have nothing against women. I like women. I even married one.
So . . . welcome to the wonderful world of fatherhood. We have a long road ahead of us. A hard road. A road fraught with obstacles, trials and tribulations. But it is also a rewarding road, adorned with great experiences and golden moments that you wouldn’t have thought possible. And once you walk that road, you’ll never be the same again.
So, let’s get started . . .