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!

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.