I remember a girl in my class at primary school. Her mum was some kind of lawyer in the City of London; her father was a homemaker. Other kids teased her for it. I didn’t. I thought it was fantastic. Could dads really do that? Crikey: I’d love to.
Fast-forward twenty-something years and I’m a hands-on father. In our household, I do the lion’s share of the childcare – morning routines, nursery run a couple of days per week, lots of playing, tidying, teaching, and so on and so on. I cook pretty much every meal that anyone in my house eats and spend every free moment I have walking in parks as my daughter races ahead of me on her bike, or else playing hide-and-seek in the woods, reading stories, playing with action figures, pushing swings. All the rest of it.
It’s a joyful if tiring way to live. I’m knackered most of the time, but honestly, I’ve never been happier. I love spending time parenting, and most of the time I like who I am as a father. However, living like this has also shown me something slightly uncomfortable about the broader culture in which we are raising our children. Because beneath the surface, things can be quite hostile to fathers. Or, at least, there is no neutral middle ground. You’re either lauded or mocked.
At playgrounds and parties, conversations with parents often begin the same way. Someone eventually asks the practical question: what do you do? Well, I have answers for them. But mostly, I say, I look after my daughter.
No, no, they say; what do you do for work?
This is the moment when the conversation sometimes falters. There is a brief pause, followed by a slightly disbelieving look. Then one of two things happens. They either say “good for you” (a little self-conscious, but OK), or they say something along the lines of “well then”. A raised eyebrow. I either go up or down in their estimation.
Because fathers, it seems, are still expected to put work first and family second. Or they are ever so progressive, turning the system on its head. Either way, if a man spends large amounts of time caring for his child, the default suspicion is that something has gone wrong in the normal order of things.
I’m very happy with the way we do things. My wife has a good academic career, very much in-lab. I’ve always been self-employed and flexible… and here I am, justifying again why we’ve done it this way round.
I write for magazines and papers, I could say. As much or as little as I can, around childcare commitments. I’ve written a couple of novels, I’ll say (I then wince as I say that they’re aimed at 10- to 13-year-olds, as though nothing about my life can escape the raising of mini humans).
Yet the question itself reveals a great deal about how we still think about fatherhood; the fact that I feel the need to justify our set-up to myself and others shows how much we’re still lagging. Because when mothers devote themselves full or part-time to childcare, it’s framed as the most natural, admirable thing going. When fathers do it, it needs explanation.
When I first became a father, meaningful paternity cover, I discovered, was almost non-existent. Like every other new dad, I was expected to take a few days, adjust, and then get straight back to the grindstone, as though childcare were exclusively a maternal responsibility. Fathers may support around the periphery, but that’s it; culturally, mums are still the ones expected to do it all, to the detriment of all. They are more likely to win custody in a divorce, more likely to be homemakers in the long run.
This message matters. When policy and workplaces and social expectations all come together to treat fathers as secondary, many men step back without realising it, or at least without raising a fuss. Some feel awkward claiming space in mother-dominated environments – though this is changing, and there were a few of us dads at early years playgroups and the like, happily enough. Other men simply get swept along by the structural cues that bring them into work and away from family life.
We celebrate fatherhood often enough in our rhetoric. However, structures around us haven’t caught up. It’s 2026, for goodness’ sake. How can a father being the main caregiver still be an oddity? How can it even be something worth noting?
Children benefit enormously from close relationships with both parents. My relationship with my daughter is the best thing in my life. The everyday presence of fathers, reading stories and walking to school, chatting away happily whatever we’re doing, builds something truly special. It isn’t – and should not be – optional, or cause for either praise or consternation. It should simply be.
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