About this blog

I'm a 38-year-old father of two wonderful boys, aged 8 and 6. I'm a psychologist by background, now the editor of The Psychologist. So I suppose I like to analyse things, and I have often analysed my own parenting.

A friend of mine once told me: 'You're a good Dad, Jon. Certainly a lot better than I thought you would be.' That got me thinking: what is a good Dad, and am I one? 

But here's the thing: I know lots of really great Dads. A lot of my friends have amazing Dads. Generally, parenting is hard but most people manage to do it very well.
But women seem to be very good at celebrating their success as Mums, and are often depicted in the media as superheroes (which they are). Dads tend to get a bad rap and believe it.

I thought it was time to galvanise some collective Dad pride – yes, to laugh at 'our funny little ways', but to explore what makes a great Dad, and hopefully to recognise that we're not doing such a bad job.

2 comments:

  1. i agree - we don't create the conditions in society for dads to fulfill their potential parenting role. I too think that in general mums are celebrated and dads villified. It's easy to see this in the media but tricky to catch ourselves doing it in everyday life. How many times have you heard a mum say, in a withering tone 'oh don't worry, I'll do it'....

    I think that maternity leave is the problem - once mums have been in charge of kids for 6 months we just automatically know how to do certain things quickly and easily, so it becomes easier to take over. My husband and I really worked at this - I held back on the exasperated tone and he put the hours in at the weekend. But we had twins and I was desperate for the help!

    If we had parental leave, so that mums and dads could split it between them, perhaps we'd get off on a more even footing?

    Nevertheless I applaud your efforts and will read with pleasure as I am an admirer of good dads, unsung heroes who fix things, play games, give enormous cuddles etc. Yay dads!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting… I wonder whether Dads have a better image in countries where parental leave is shared more evenly, or whether things will change in the UK now that's more of an option?

    ReplyDelete