Saving fatherhood from the bureaucrats' airbrush

It's one thing picking to bits how dads are represented, as I try to do in this blog - but sometimes the problem is that they're not represented at all.

The Telegraph's story about Scotland's Ready Steady Baby leaflet is an example of where a public authority has taken the decision to airbrush fathers out of the picture altogether. Seeking to erase one of the two most clearly understood labels through which we make sense of family relationships is apparently justifiable in the name of equality for same-sex couples who have children.

Says who?! Certainly not the children. If you're a man or woman in a parental relationship with a child, that child knows you as some kind of dad or mum - regardless of what they call you and certainly regardless of your sexual orientation, or whether or not you live with and/or are in a relationship with the child's other parent or parents. Mums and dads are grown-ups who look after you and love you with all their heart. Some people have more than one mum, some have more than one dad - some have a collection of both. Many call them something different, but they know exactly who and what they are and mean. Unlike bureaucrats, kids get this stuff.

And in my experience, most families that involve same-sex parents (including my own) get it too. Of course we need to think carefully about how we use language, and there's no doubt that words like 'father', 'mother', 'mum' and 'dad' contain baggage and can be used to shore up 'traditional' modes of thinking.

But heaven save us from 'parent', that catch-all refuge from controversy fast-becoming the mot du jour of the dead-handed bureaucrats!

How to lose customers and offend half the world's parents in one easy lesson

Massive congratulations to Chris Routly, a daddy blogger from Pennsylvania whose petition against Huggies' demeaning 'Dad Test' advertising campaign forced Kimberly-Clark (Huggies' multinational owners) into an embarrassing turnaround.

The original campaign was based on the idea that Huggies nappies could withstand the ultimate test - that of being put on and taken off by fathers...who are of course completely incompetent fools.

Yes folks, an idea this sexist, patronising and ridiculous got through whatever processes exist at this huge international company, and was deemed perfectly ok to unleash on the unsuspecting consumers of America.

Thanks to floods of complaints and Mr Routly's petition, the company decided to adapt its campaign. You can read about the whole sorry tale in the Washington Post and on Mr Routly's own blog, Daddy Doctrines.

You really couldn't make this stuff up, could you?

Sticking to the formula - Daddy Daycare Episode 2

OK, so the second episode of Daddy Daycare was essentially the same as the first. We know the formula:

1. Start with a dramatic voiceover pointing out that mums do all the parenting work and dads are useless (this is the same for each episode…just in case anyone were to forget exactly how terrible men are at all this stuff). 
2. Meet the three dads who are going to be ‘knocked into shape’ – in this episode, one who’s a workaholic, another who doesn’t see nappy-changing as his role, and a third who has five children and can’t cope with their behaviour. 
3. Meet the long-suffering mothers of their children, and the all-female staff of the nursery where the men will work for a week. 
4. Light the blue touch-paper and gaze in awe as the men get everything wrong and prove that yes, men really are hopeless. 
5. Slowly, as the film progresses and the men get space to learn and practise, find glimpses of their ‘inner dad’ shining through. 

Let’s not forget the all-important ‘money shots’ though. This week there were two. One was father-of-five Grant crying his way home, realising how much he’s missed out on by dealing with his own children in too heavy-handed a fashion. The second, a moving conversation between the workaholic dad and one of the nursery workers, who had lost her child to leukaemia at the age of 4, prompting her to change careers so as to care for others’ children. The message – life is precious, don’t take it for granted, spend time with your kids rather than in the office.

So far so obvious. The Fatherhood Institute rightly points out that what’s so desperately lacking in this series is a sense of balance. We already know Episode 3 won’t redress that. Although it does hold out hope of yet more obnoxious stereotyping…one of the hapless victims looks set to be not just useless…but also gay!

Preparing to be unprepared

In stark contrast to Daddy Daycare, A Dad Is Born - also made by Love Productions, ironically enough - offered a sensitive examination of what happens when men become fathers. Kira Phillips' film followed several men as they waited for their babies to arrive, attended the birth and dealt with the first couple of weeks at home.

It was moving to watch the men's fear, their attempts to do their best for their partners and children, and the simple day-to-day caring that is so central to becoming a modern father.

Keeping the ship steady...being there...coping with being unable to take the pain away...feeling the love...thinking about what kind of dad you want to be...dealing with your partner's emotions...wondering how other dads feel...holding it all together...

Reading all the books in the world can't prepare you for new fatherhood - but what this lovely little film showed in spades is that dads need to be open to its hugeness. That's something we in the UK do little to encourage, with our icy-cold ideas about masculinity, our father-blind maternity services and our all-too-short paternity leave provision. High time we put all that right.

Daddy Daycare Episode 1: Lessons To Learn

The TV reviewers hated it. See, for example, Tom Sutcliffe in The Independent and John Crace in The Guardian. Lots of the viewers hated it, judging by last night's comments on Twitter. I hated it.

But I was taught always to focus on the positives - so let's think for a minute about what we can learn from the first episode of Channel 4's Daddy Daycare....

Lesson 1. Even though they're paid handsomely for what they do, TV production staff and commissioning editors are just as likely to get things wrong as bankers, politicians or anyone else. Daddy Daycare is not Love Productions' finest hour, and they probably know it.

Lesson 2. Although the broadcast media has the potential to shape and give voice to changes in our culture, most of the time it's deeply reactionary - which means we'd do well to spend a bit less time glued to its every pronouncement.

Lesson 3. If you're a father and are ever asked to feature in a TV documentary, think long and hard before you agree to it. You probably won't, as the researcher claims, be helping change people's perceptions of fathers, or establishing an exciting new narrative on fatherhood. Unless you're really convinced about the production team and what it's up to, remember Daddy Daycare, say 'no thanks' and go back to being the best dad you can be.

So you see, it wasn't so bad after all. The modernising of family life...mums' and dads' discovery of new and inspiring ways to share in the bringing up of happy children...it's all happening. Just not on Channel 4 from 9-10pm for the next three weeks.

Why Daddy Daycare will probably be very annoying

One of the likely flaws of Daddy Daycare, Channel 4's new series starting tonight, is that it will conflate too many issues and fail to address them sufficiently explicitly. Lumping them together, and simplifying things in order to maximise ratings, is likely to create a rather annoying viewing experience for anyone with even a passing interest in gender equality.

Here are some of the issues that underlie the 'dads are useless, mums know best' tone of this preview clip, for example:

• Our parental leave and other systems push women to do the lion's share of childcare and men to be breadwinners
• Mums (more likely to be working less-than-full-time) feel that dads (more likely to be working full-time) don't do enough at home
• Mums who work full-time (although 'full-time' in this context needs unpicking because full-time women's working hours and travelling distances tend to be shorter) feel that dads who work full-time don't do enough at home
• Some dads consider themselves ill-equipped, and/or lack the confidence, to look after children
• Some men revel in their 'inability' to look after children effectively (just as, for example, some women revel in their 'inability' to do maths, deal with technology etc)
• Some dads have relatively little access to their children and this can add to their sense of being marginal to parenting
• The childcare workforce is predominantly female
• The childcare workforce is generally underpaid and undervalued.

Can't wait to see the show...I hope to blog through the 3-part series, so follow this blog and also my Twitter account @homersmustdie.

Would YOU want to read about him?

I've never read a Joanna Trollope, and this poster hasn't done much to persuade me to change that. But given that this book is currently No. 1 in the Sunday Times bestseller list, presumably plenty of people saw this and felt moved to buy. Is it just me that finds this depressing?

Gird your loins...it's time for Daddy Daycare

Shivering in anticipation for Daddy Daycare, Channel 4's new series in which nine dads are sent on a crash-course in parenting at busy nurseries. We start next week at South London's Magic Roundabout nursery, where workaholic father-of-three Garry (38), reluctant dad-of-one Jay (39) and nervous father-to-be Stefan (26) join a staff made up entirely of single mums.

There's a point behind this show - a good proportion of British women feel their partners don't do enough childcare. (Incidentally, a good proportion of British men feel the same - they want to do more at home, but everything conspires to push them towards breadwinning, especially in the early years, all-too-often leaving them feeling on the margins of family life, rather than at the centre where they belong. Still, this is light entertainment TV, so let's put that to one side).

All the same, it goes without saying that the programme's methodology looks shockingly sexist. Just imagine a male equivalent...men think women don't bring in enough money - let's put a bunch of them in all-male workplaces and watch them do stuff for which they've had little or no training. Oil Rig Honeys, anyone?

It'll be a car crash, of course...but what type? A straightforward 'let's gawp at how useless men are' pile-up? Or a more subtle prang that cleverly plays on the viewer's preconceptions, showing in the end that maybe dads aren't so useless, and women so omniscient, after all? A nation waits with bated breath...

Revolution at The Daily Mirror...who knew?!

My most surprising discovery of the week has to be Jeff Brazier's column in The Daily Mirror.

It focuses on Jeff's role as a father of two boys, and at the end he answers readers' parenting questions - mums' as well as dads'. He comes across a loving, committed father, and from what I've seen his advice seems sound enough. His accounts of everyday life are peppered with celebrity gossip, of course - but as that's the world he inhabits, it feels natural he should write about it. And it's the side order rather than the main course - which is exactly what work should be for all of us!

This is the first time I've seen a British tabloid newspaper give a man space to be primarily a dad - and, most refreshingly, to give him the role of parenting 'expert'.

Would I be going too far if I were to herald this as a sign of cultural shift?

*No, I'm not a regular reader...I stumbled across it while searching for something else. Honestly! Well that's my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

A very modern bravery

In an editorial in this week's Spectator, the magazine's editor Question Time regular Fraser Nelson says David Lammy MP is 'brave' to talk about the importance of fathers in his book Out of the Ashes: Britain After The Riots.

Mr Lammy was brought up by his mother, and a line of argument in the book (which I haven't read by the way - and I'll wager Mr Nelson hasn't either) is, apparently, that the absence of fathers from many young boys' lives probably goes some way towards explaining why the riots happened.

According to Mr Nelson, such a claim could 'cast him out as a heretic' from his own party.

Poppycock - politicians of every hue talk about 'absent fathers' all the time. What marks Lammy out is that a) he has, having been born black and brought up in Tottenham, a very personal perspective on the rioters' issues, and b) he puts his money where his mouth is by heading up the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fatherhood, which goes some way towards putting fathers and fatherhood on Britain's political map.

If that's bravery, let's commend it!