I used to rant about how – from “dad jokes” to “dad dancing” – the word “dad” has become a bit of a pejorative, a standing joke in modern language. But to be honest, fathers are their own worst enemies when it comes to dad PR.
Dads often paint a terrible picture of fatherhood. We become overtaken by a sinister urge to be comically dour and gloomy about it all. It’s common to hear tribal elders telling fresh ears that their lives are effectively over.
It’s sad, because I’ve watched dads around me on their parenting journey for a while now. And almost universally, men become so much more awesome as people when they become dads, in ways that are seldom ever discussed.
I’ve been a parent for 11 years now. Through its ups and downs, I feel like the process has aged me expertly, like a ridiculous fine wine or a slab of Wagyu beef.
Before parenthood, I was flakey, unreliable, frequently late, aloof, a bit dishonest and crap in a crisis.
Creating a tiny, beautiful DNA clone of yourself changes that drastically. It not only brings a huge sense of purpose and meaning, as I’ve seen so many times over in men who have had children, it truly benefits you as an individual too.
Firstly, your sociability goes through the roof. I’m loath to compare parenthood to dog ownership, but it’s undeniable that it gets you out of the house and you chat to strangers in parks a lot more too. Much more profoundly, you are likely to know the value of true community for the first time.
My son got a fever the day I moved house, the medicine kit lost in the blur of cardboard boxes. Just one text to a neighbourhood parents group and I had a thermometer and Calpol on my doorstep. I’ve lived in a city my whole life and never knew genuine community until I became a dad.
Parenthood made me a better person in society – but it also made me better in myself. Don’t laugh, but it’s not unlike getting a psychological personal trainer. After a while, you can feel your brain growing ever so slightly. You think faster, you work harder and you’re able to prioritise what’s important and what’s not like never before. You become ruthlessly efficient – as you know they’ll wake up in an hour or need picking up from school in two. It’s a way to shatter all previous PBs.
These aren’t obscure truths. Other parents talk about such changes all the time. So why does this not cut through with men? Maybe because we only evangelise fatherhood as blessing men with a new-found sense of care, kindness and compassion. All amazing and frequently true, but possibly estranged from where modern concepts of manhood are right now.
For starters, I think too many men have backgrounds that make them wary of the ensuing vulnerability parenthood exposes. They’re almost scared to care, in other words. If you look into the toxically influential manosphere you see this in spades, with many claiming a good father is a largely absent father. Elsewhere online, you commonly see men who view parenthood as akin to selling oneself into slavery, or sensationalist content about the angst of paternity battles not the joy of paternity leave.
If only the ultra-men of the world knew that parenthood teaches you a sense of true strength. The strength to handle an overtired, overwrought one-year-old who is screaming constantly. The strength to adapt and compromise with a four-year-old experiencing huge hormone surges. The strength to cope with an immovable, unarguable inevitability like your conjoined future together.
So many things are said to “make a man” – losing your virginity, your first fight, being tough, standing up for yourself. Yet I honestly feel like in the modern world, it’s fatherhood that makes a man more than anything else.
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I’m grateful that people laud parents for their selfless duty. If only they knew how much we gain from it also – that it doesn’t just subtract from your life but enhances and bolsters it. By giving you the resilience to cope in a million situations, a swathe of new perspectives, a clarity of purpose and a million character-building challenges every year.
Some men would rather do a Tough Mudder than handle a bit of spilt yogurt. That’s fine – but boy are they missing out.
Oliver Keens is a writer, columnist, author and also a working DJ
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