Nappy-Change. The challenge of modern fatherhood.

The story about the feature:

Nappy change was an interesting feature.  It was in planning back in February 2011, but I could not get it finished before December 2011.  Centring about dads, the reason why it took so long was my own dad.  In January 2011 I was told that my father had terminal cancer and was already quite ill.  In February 2011 I interviewed the  Vaeterzentrum and Richard Hallows.  But after seeing my father in  March 2011, a tense time began, whilst I also was responsible full-time for my daughter.  The course of events that followed arrived very fast.  My father died in early May, his Shiva, and funeral followed and a good month later, I found myself in Poland in the birth town of my father (see Possibilities and Impossibilities of being a Neighbour).  When I finally got back to the normal  walk of life, father groups I had intended to use in the programme were being axed due to cuts, so I had to wait until September 2011 to get back on track.

I think that the feature covered much of what I knew I and other dads had experienced.  Adrienne’s Burgess and Eberhard Schaefer’s message of equity and parity I found quite important.  Too many mums and some of the dads I met are sole carers, often due to economic necessity, but  it is clear that the ideal is an arrangements where both parents or carers (where there are two) can look after the child and also engage in their own life’s ambitions.  I too had some negative experiences in encounters, but other mums told me that you can have the same kind of encounters between one mum and another mum.  But when you are the only guy in a toddler group   with 11 mums, you can sometimes allude to the possibility that  it could be one’s  maleness that makes the difference.  At the end of the day I cannot say for sure.  As Eberhard Schaefer put it, ‘some mums don’t like men to be around, on other occasions the men  are charmed.’   But what I can say is that taking on board the parental role was one of the greatest new shifts in my life, and of those more engaged dads that I encountered I know this is true for them too.  British men suffer tremendously under the conservative laws here  for paternity leave, and so do women.  The German, Danish, and Swedish models are so much more progressive and fulfilling, and I think create not only  happier parents but  happier children.   Three years off with your child, and still have a guaranteed job return coming from the leading European economy, if it doesn’t harm Germans, why would it harm Brits?  As indicated, sadly father-groups that help dads to network are under the axes of budget cuts in the UK.  Progressive steps side tracked back into reverse.  But the economic down turn inadvertently forced more men into active father roles by the cruel way of redundancies and unemployment.

We need more family friendly men, and we need more opportunities for mums.  Now that some firms can’t employ somebody full-time  as before, it is time parents get the flexibility they need for part-time work.  It obviously doesn’t suit each work-position, but there is much that can be done.  We all want to spend more time with our children and most of us don’t want to be left out from the work sphere.   I hope that in the end Britain will be able to embrace the same strategies as in Germany and the Nordic countries and see the light in this regard.  Dads for one, and Adrienne Burgess said it, are just as capable as any mum, with or without the rubber gloves that the Daily Mirror attempted to put onto Richard Hallows hands.