My daughter is now a young woman, yet it seems like only yesterday that she was being born. That was a day to remember! We had planned on a home birth, but had a back-up plan for a hospital transfer if necessary. And sure enough, the labour ended with an emergency Caesarean at about 3 a.m. – not at all what we had hoped for. The pact I’d made with my wife Shaaron was, ‘Nobody else takes this baby’. So I was there in the operating theatre, and our baby went straight from the weighing scales and into my arms.
While Shaaron recovered from the operation over the next few days, I slept on a stretcher bed on the floor of her hospital room, our baby tucked beside me, which often caused shrieks of shock from nurses who stumbled in for the 2 a.m change of shift. It was a great system – Shaaron knew our baby was close and safe, not off in a nursery somewhere, and I could hand her up to Mum for a feed at any time. Sometimes a nurse would discreetly ask Shaaron if this was what she really wanted. She would smile and say, ‘Yes, of course!’
Fighting to be a dad
The experience of my daughter’s birth showed in a way what it is like to be a dad these days – you have to make a firm stand, sometimes even fight, to be allowed to be a dad. The world doesn’t seem to want you to be an involved parent: it would rather have you stay late at the office. Someone else will teach your children to hit a ball, play the piano and believe in themselves – you just pay the bills.
Luckily, fathers are fighting their way back into family life, and very welcome they are, too. Twentieth-century fathering was something of a disaster. Our fathers’ generation included a few great dads, but most men of previous generations proved their love by working, not by playing, cuddling, talking or teaching – the things that kids really love. In those hard times of poverty and war, some dads were violent, scary or drank too much. Many were traumatised and were hard to get close to. Some men simply walked out on their families and never came back. So when we come to fathering our own children, it can feel strange, since we may have little knowledge of what good fathering looks like. We only have half the pieces of the jigsaw.
But things are looking up. We know from studies across the developed world that fathers have increased the time they spend with children by 400 percent since the 1970s. Young dads today are determined to spend more time with their kids, and most of them succeed. In fact, with fatherhood, you never ‘fail’, as long as you don’t quit. As long as you are willing to have a go, you will always achieve more than you realise. Don’t be tempted to leave all the parenting to your partner. As we’ll see in this chapter, men bring different things to parenting to what women bring, things that are unique and irreplaceable. The more you do with your kids, the more you will rediscover your talents at fathering and your own unique style. There is nothing as satisfying as raising great kids.
Reviving a lost art
A lot of fathering of boys is simple. Here are some clues:
Most boys love to be physically active, to have fun with their fathers. They love to hug their dad, and play-wrestle with him. (If they don’t like it, you’re probably being too rough!)
They like to accompany you on adventures and experiences in the big, wide world – all the while feeling secure because dad seems so huge and capable (even if he doesn’t feel that way himself half of the time).
They love to hear stories about your life, meet your friends, and see what you do for a living.
They love you to teach them things – anything, really. If you don’t know about things like fishing or making stuff in sheds or fixing go-karts or computers, and so on, well, you can learn together. It’s trying that counts.
PRACTICAL HELP
MIRROR NEURONS
In 2006 an incredible discovery was made: namely, the existence in the body of mirror neurons. These are a network of nerve cells that run alongside our motor nerves, and they have a unique role. They mirror, or imitate, everything we watch. So if we watch ballet, or football, or someone having a passionate kiss, our mirror neurons practise this action. The mirror actions are stored in our brain, ready to make it easier to copy what we’ve seen. (So every couch potato really does have an inner athlete, or rock star, or red-hot lover eagerly trying to get out!) This, we now know, is the reason that we can learn skills as fast as we do. But it’s a two-edged sword, because it means that everything kids see, they take into their brains and are inclined to repeat. The ramifications of this are huge.
This certainly impacts on what we might allow children to watch on TV and in computer games, and it underlines the importance of not depicting violence or violent sex in the media. But it especially impacts on how we behave around our kids. If children see us always being grumpy, self-pitying, sneaky, lying and cheating, vicious or mean, they become that. They take in our actions, but also our moods and outlook. Many a man has been horrified to notice he has the same gestures, movements or expressions that his father used to have. Or he comes out with words or sayings that his old man used to use. Psychologists hear this all the time in their consulting room: ‘I hate the guy, and now I am turning out just like him’. This is not genetic, it’s ‘mirror learning’. It’s a good reason to really work on how you act around your kids.
Kids learn your attitudes
Kids don’t just learn from what you say to them, they take on your attitudes as well. A friend of mine, a Vietnam veteran, was driving with his children and pulled up at some traffic lights. An Asian family were among those crossing at the lights. My friend’s four-year-old, strapped into his booster seat in the back, suddenly made a racist comment! My friend recognised his own words, and was shocked to hear them from a child: they sounded ugly and wrong to him. He found a parking spot and pulled over. He told his child he was sorry he had ever spoken like that, and he didn’t want the child ever to speak like that either.
Kids learn to love by watching you
Children even learn about love by watching you. They love it when you show warmth to their mother, give her a compliment, flirt, exchange a cuddle or a kiss. Most small children cannot resist squeezing in whenever they see their parents hugging. They love to soak in the feeling of the two of you. When you are private, and close the bedroom door, children even learn from this some of the awe and mystery of love.
Being respectful to their mother is important. So is being self-respecting – not getting into abusive or nasty arguments. Your son needs to see not only that women are never abused, but that a man can argue calmly, without fighting or lashing out – that he can listen, but also make his point and insist on being heard.
Kids learn to feel by watching you
Sons learn how to express their feelings by watching their fathers and other men. They need to see you showing all four of the basic feelings:
1. Sadness – when someone has died or a disappointment has come along