Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
SHARING PARENTING
The idea that the nuclear family includes '2.4 children' still lingers, even when the average child count has dropped to 1.7. That's because – and this in no way delegitimises any alternatives – most children are still raised in such a set-up. But families are about more than just numbers. The image of the nuclear family still includes Mum raising the kids and Dad offering a protective and supportive gaze when he returns from a hard day's work. The man goes out of the home to work, the woman takes care of the childcare. The 'natural' way of the world.
We've been treated to different reasons for this set-up being the best way of doing things, from an efficient division of labour, to playing, to the biological strengths of the sexes. These arguments have made it difficult if not impossible for parents to have any real choice about how they split parenting. They have shaped how the world of childcare works, and what is expected in the workplace. They curtail the choice of most parents to choose to share parenting equally, or to even consider letting the dad become the main responsible parent instead of the mum.
If you're told that one of two options is going to be not just impossible, but also damaging to your family, and if every attempt you make to go down that path is treated as weird or is blocked by others, you're not really able to make a free choice about what's best. You're left with the only choice available, which means in the end it's not a real choice: you're just stuck with one way of doing things.
Of course sharing parenting more equally between both parents is not an option for some families either because it is simply better for one parent, mum or dad, to take the lead as primary carer for most of the time or because one parent is not around by dint of choice or tragedy. However for the vast majority of families sharing parenting can be a good choice. And we'll make the case why for many couples it may be a better choice than the alternative, and why sharing parenting deserves to be treated on a fair footing with the idea that Mum takes the lead on childcare alone, and Dad is kept at arm's length.
Some try to make this out to be a zero-sum game. If dads get more time with the kids, they'll love Mum less; dads can only suffer from being expected to know how to clean up baby-poop; the economy will go under if we support dads in paternity the same way we support mums in motherhood. Some think that men's rights are 'abused' by maternity rights, others that maternity rights would be jeopardised by giving dads better rights. All of these arguments are nonsense, and we can look to the latest research to prove it.
Shared parenting should be taken more seriously as something that gives Dad, Mum, and the kids a win, not to mention the real benefits it can bring to the economy.
CHAPTER 2
DADS
IT MIGHT NOT BE EASY, BUT IT SURE AS HELL IS WORTH IT
Now my baby and I have really got that bond, that he developed before with his mum. More so now, I feel like he's my little buddy and we're a little team and just spend our days together and do stuff together. It's kind of like you're best mates. But I didn't have that beforehand.
Jason (9 months leave), Fathers On Leave Alone
Formerly the Cabinet Minister with responsibility for families, Michael Gove wrote a piece in The Times in 2008 arguing why it was awesome to be a hands-off dad. "When tiredness sets in, in the hour before bedtime when tears come more easily, there's many a dad I know who finds that urgent work demands his absence, colleagues need to be called, papers submitted." Clearly referring to the task left to his wife, Gove explains that the pyjama-clad kid will "grab the book you've been reading for the past three years, which they've now outgrown, and which everyone else in their class now regards as babyish, insist that you read it".
He goes on to moan that the bedtime routine is a terrible travail that dads should avoid at all cost. Instead they should sneak in when the mum has done all the hard work, and get the cuddles during the 'sweet-spot' just before they settle down for sleep at the end of the day. So, in sum, that dad gets to miss most of the upbringing of his kids, but manages to squeeze in a few happy minutes just before bed-time.
We can only feel sorry for the men who buy into this. The moment your baby arrives, your whole world is going to change. You can either sit on the edge of the pool, dip your toes in and comment on how nice it is to get wet, like Gove, or you can say "screw this, I'm diving in". The invigorating feeling of being immersed in refreshing water as you start the swim, and moving in a way you never could on dry land is something that the toe-dipping-only people will never get the chance to know. When it comes to being an involved dad, people like Gove may just not understand quite what they're missing.
Contrast this to stay-at-home dad and author of Dad Blog UK, John Adams, who sums up the contrast he's noticed between dads who buy into the Gove way of thinking, and those who dive in to parenting: "When talking to both types of guys at the pub, the difference is really clear. The involved dads will talk about their kids' school lives, want to talk about how they're coming along and the funny things they get up to. They're just happy talking about their kids. They have a much better knowledge of their kids' school lives, happiness and their worlds than the other dads." We want to talk about things we enjoy, and when you're involved with bringing up your kids, that's your kids.
Of course, there's a whole range of dad types. At one end of the scale there's the absent dad who spends little time around his kids at all; there's the toe-dipping-type or the 'stand-back' dad; or the mum's assistant who occasionally picks up a bottle to give to his partner or 'does her a favour' by picking his own kids up from school one day a week. At the other end of the scale is the fully responsible dad, who doesn't see his partner as being more at the helm of looking after the kids, because he is just as much a parent as she is. The dads who embrace every part of being a dad fully.
It's these fully active and responsible dads who are breaking the norm, and who often come across their own version of the 'glass ceiling' when getting into fatherhood. Though it's more a glass floor, childcare being associated with women, and therefore any man seeking to trade in full-time work to take on more hands-on parenting is seen as stepping down. What it has in common with the glass ceiling is that it is mainly patrolled by men.
Dads who get involved like this, who fully dive into being a proper, responsible, and equal parent for their kids, often struggle to understand why every guy that has a kid doesn't do this, because it really is awesome.
Satisfaction
The feeling of your little person falling asleep on your shoulder as you're carrying them because they trust you like no-one else in the world, is a feeling you can't put into words. When they get scared or upset, they run to you for a hug. Every involved parent knows this feeling is golden, even if it's slightly tarnished when they do it in the hours of darkness when you're trying to sleep or enjoy some 'special' time with your partner. That golden feeling doesn't happen by not being around for your kids, and it happens more the more time you spend looking after them.
Listening to the toddler getting bathed from downstairs (as Michael Gove would if he accidently gets home to his own children too early, ironically having spent his day with giant man-baby Boris Johnson) isn't a happy experience – you only hear the crying when the shampoo comes out. But when you're involved, you also see the smiles, have the chats, try out the new toys. You have the conversation about the lion-shaped toothbrush and why red and pink aren't the same colour. It's worth it in a way that you can't see when you're not in the bathroom.
Ryan recently became a father to his first kid, little Orán. There's no shortage of time that Ryan has to talk about his new son. "I'm normally really motivated to get up and spend my time getting ready, but I'm now finding it really difficult to get out of bed in the morning because he's awake. I just get that time to spend watching him making his little noises. Him and me time. It's just great."
Ryan joins countless other dads who can benefit from spending more time with their kids and get more involved with their upbringing. While these benefits for dads have been largely ignored in the past, there is now an increasing amount of research pointing to the benefits that active parenting can bring to men. First off, the closer dads are to their babies and kids, the more satisfied the dads feel with their lives.
The huge United Nations-backed, State of the World's Fathers report sifted evidence from around the globe and concluded: "Men who are involved in meaningful ways with their children report this relationship to be one of their most important sources of well-being and happiness. Studies find that fathers who report close, non-violent connections with their children live longer, have fewer mental or physical health problems, are less likely to abuse drugs, are more productive at work, and report being happier than fathers who do not report this connection with their children."
Being involved in parenting is a virtuous circle. The more involved you are as a dad, the more rewarding parenting becomes. You may not realise it when you're explaining to a three-year-old that they can't have ice-cream for dinner and managing their meltdown after you've announced this injustice. But being the involved parent for those moments means that you're going to bond with your kids more and enjoy the upside of parenting like you've never enjoyed something before.
Let's be honest, a toddler having a meltdown over nothing can be tough. But even the best jobs have plenty of drudgery, arguments with colleagues, and moments where we question our career choice. We just hope, like with parenting, that they'll be outweighed by the good times. It takes time and effort but for parents who put in the hard graft of the sleepless nights and arguing with unreasonable tiny versions of themselves, the rewards are magnified.
Research has also shown that the more time dads spend as sole carers for their kids in two-parent households, the stronger their bonds and interactions with their kids become. This isn't rocket science, yet the paternity gap is still gaping, and it took until 2008 for researchers to start to make this claim and back it up with data.
Living in an apartment in South London, Justin and Chloe had their first child, Josh, just over two years ago. Justin explains that his work meant that he couldn't spend the time he wanted to around his new toddler. This meant that whilst Josh got very close to Chloe, he saw Justin much the same as he saw other people in the family. "You're told that you're all of a sudden going to have this really close bond with your baby, like they'll suddenly have this strong attachment. But it was really tough in the beginning and it takes time to form the bonds."
"Josh was really clingy to Chloe for the first year. He wouldn't let me or anyone else take him and do stuff for him, which was really difficult on Chloe, but also really upsetting for me. I was helping out but Josh wasn't really connecting with me. But he did spend nearly all his time around Chloe, so it makes sense."
Justin noticed however that "he's started to come to me a little more freely recently, which feels great. I've spent several weeks with a lot more time around him, holiday and coming home early, and it's really paying off. I've had a lot more time to play with him and look after him. But I know that if I spend just a few weeks needing to work later or travel more I'll have to start from scratch and he'll get really clingy to just Chloe again."
He says what every dad in his situation feels: "I know it sounds bad but it's nice to feel wanted and loved by your kids. You really need that sometimes. It's just so great when they turn round and run over to you or give you a spontaneous hug! It's deflating when they don't."
One extensive study covering detailed interviews from dads across eleven developed countries, including the UK, demonstrated something that just a bit of on-your-own parenting experience can show is fairly obvious. These bonds and the sense of satisfaction are more pronounced when dads have a good chunk of time on their own with their babies. Taking charge and owning the task at hand makes parenting even more satisfying.
Purpose like you've never felt it before
Men that are more engaged with their children and family life, who take on more of the mental load – that's the term for keeping on top of when sports day is, which kid needs a packed lunch tomorrow and whether everyone in the house has enough clean pants – live longer and enjoy better mental health.
They have purpose. They are more social, are less prone to depression, more self-aware, more self-confident, and more mature. The list goes on, and the evidence is mounting that dads benefit from being closely involved in parenting in ways they don't always see before being an involved dad. Arguably the clearest reason for all these perks that dads get for being more involved stems from a new purpose when they fully commit to the their role as dad.
Ali, with two kids, works in the public sector and, ignoring pressure from his boss, took shared parental leave for his second daughter. "There's no doubt in my mind that I've bonded more with Julia, my second, than my first. She's still tiny, but there's a really close connection. Since my wife had an emergency C-section, I also took on a much bigger role in feeding and caring for Julia right from the beginning. I did all the night feeds myself and was just really ready for it all. I was tired and exhausted, but was loving every second of it. I felt really needed. I just didn't get that with our first as my wife was able to do everything."
Ali goes on to explain that while taking shared parental leave, he bonded much better with his second daughter than he was able to with his first, "summarised in the proud moment when her first word was 'dadda'! I loved it. I was talking about my clever little girl's first word for weeks. Julia did laugh at my wife first, but I got her first smile, not just the ones trying to push out a fart. The real first smile. It feels silly but that means so much when you're a dad. You just feel you get more purpose in life."
David Shaul, the primary carer for his kids, talks about the first time he got to take his son out to the cinema in his blog, Dad vs. World: "When I was a kid I'd dream about being a professional footballer, having a big house and a flashy car, yet in this moment, sat just me and my lad watching a superhero film hand in hand I couldn't feel any luckier if I had any of those things. I'm living my dream, I just didn't know this was what I wanted until I had it."
Sure, we have a sense of purpose in our careers. We want our jobs to go well, to be trusted and respected in what we do from the building site, to the beat or the boardroom. Historically, dads have stepped aside, though when it comes to having a big purpose in the home, all they have needed to do in the past is bring home the bread, and occasionally read a good-night story. That's no longer seen as a life purpose.
Mental health
Olivia Spencer's book, Sad Dad, explores the mental health issues that men can face when becoming fathers. We often assume that men can't get postnatal depression because that's for mums coping with the cocktail of post-pregnancy hormones, overwhelming responsibility and loss of control. But dads do report getting it, or something like it. And even if a father's problems don't manifest themselves in a full-blown depression, the causes can still have a significant strain on his mental health.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Dads Don't Babysit"
by .
Copyright © 2018 David Freed and James Millar.
Excerpted by permission of Free Association Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
