The Limits to Being a Dad (Again)

See also Absent Fathers

The endless round of re-organisation that accompanies a house move is, well, endless. Post needs re-directing, milk people cancelled and new ones hired, utilities cancelled and new ones started, address changing, the acquisition of endless rounds of goods that fit the new house rendering boxes of curtains ill-fitting, painting, cleaning, settling the kids, finding the nearest chippie (I speak of restaurants not trades-people - though please don't disregard the latter either), and so on. The Tinternet is a great boon in these days as we can do much from the sofa in the new lounge. The world is, we have discovered, almost entirely remote controlled.

But not all of it.

As responsible parents to gawjuss kids it is requisite and necessary as well for the mind as for the soul to register the little darlings with a doctor's surgery. I am not worried for myself as I am never ever ill, ever - but needs must when sprogs go splat! To the doctors we all toddled. Of course we had to find proof that we have been actual humans for all of the months that we have breathed air, proved our address, proved our last address and the eight prior to that, offered DNA samples, retina scans, fingerprints and psychometric profiling. With all this information lovingly gathered, we went about our business. 

Me - I was registered in a trice. Excellent. Not Mrs Acular though - she has nothing with her name on it at the same time as our new address. We can sort of understand that. We might be international terrorists (and she looks pretty dodgy it has to be said), but we pleaded our case. Nope. She may not register (but a letter from the bank would help our cause). 

Well, let's do the kids. We have all we need for them, and we are here all together. 

This is where I learned much about our world in 2011, and especially those bits I do not understand or like. The (very nice, incredibly helpful, and a little awkward about what she was about to say) receptionist told us that they couldn't register the kids until the mother was registered ... "in case there are any problems". Let me repeat the scenario: I was there in person, with my wife, already known to be the 'vicar' (not that that makes any substantial difference save perhaps for the fact that I carry a CRB and am professionally nice), with my children and as a member of a family clearly and manifestly working as a unit to do a job together. Mrs Acular and I appeared to be on civil terms, the kids on my lap illustrated that I wasn't a fruit-loop (in their eyes).

But no - they may not receive the care of a doctor until mum was registered. Didn't I feel like the child-beating village pervert all of a sudden! I can only guess that because a small handful of male deviants abuse children that all men are relegated to the place of designated driver in the legal lives of their children. Aren't mothers also found guilty of mistreating their children? Perhaps I just dreamed that. 

Lesson #1: Being a loving Dad to two adoring children is not sufficient any more. 

Not happy. Not happy one little bit.

Absent Fathers

First of all, let me clear. This is not a post about parish team ministries, and neither am I about to launch invective at anyone specific.

My little target of choice today is the way that the world is appearing to airbrush dads out of the picture. 

In Britain, we are country who normally enjoy a good degree of geographical prowess, yet you will oft be assaulted by the fragrant Stacey Solomon on your evening telly informing you 'That's Why Mum's Shop at Iceland'. 

If you manage to find a shop closer than Iceland, you may find reading material in there (I use the term 'reading' in the very loosest of senses), and one such edition met my gaze as I sat and watched my kids play. In it was some outrage about a tanning salon for kids as young as a year old, and people issuing the entirely appropriate outrage were ... yes, you guessed it ... mums. 

I read somewhere else about a Battle Royal between Mumsnet (an internet site 'for parents by parents', though this is lost in the name, I think) and its Chinese counterpart in, well, China. The latter extolled the virtues of hard parenting framing the needs for setting boundaries and seeking excellence. The Mumsnet brand of parenting is, apparently, parent-centric and, it is claimed, extol the virtues of placing the needs of the kids after that of the ragged tired parents. I cannot verify the claim of the article that I had read; I simply place its comments here. 

In the end, my point is not about where to buy food, whether it is correct to spray-tan a toddler, or indeed the right way to raise a child. My point is that a significant cross-section of parenting society seems ill-placed to have a view these days ....

.... dads. 

I couldn't tell you where dads shop (well, I can, because they are all in the same supermarket as me when I shop). Dads are simply relegated to being among topics of discussion. I think that this is all a little imbalanced. Let me be absolutely clear at this point - mums are (typically) wonderful, and perhaps the most important person in our lives before our own kids come along. But dads have a value too. It is funny, in a week when a leader of hundreds of millions of people expresses a view, he is shot down in flames. When a parents of one or two people presume to write a book telling the masses how to raise their children, it gets awards. 

I have nothing against Mumsnet or Iceland, or anyone else. Perhaps it is the fault of fathers that we have become under-represented (save for fancy-dress mongers on motorway bridges). We have lost our voice, we seem to not have a case anymore. I would love to see a greater balance. It seems that, once again, the gentleman have opted to passive silence. Why this is I don't know - but our kids needs both of us, ideally. 

I don't shop at Iceland because of that advert, by the way.