18. Representation

We’re at Rhyme Time and everyone is singing an extended version of The Wheels on the Bus. We’ve covered the wheels (round and round), the wipers (swish), doors (open and shut), driver (“any more fares?”), bell (ding) and we’re into the further reaches.

“The grannies on the bus go knit, knit, knit….” we sing. Then the babies (they go waah, waah, waah) and then “The mamas on the bus go ‘I love you, I love you….’ All day long”. “The dadas,” says the host, pauses and looks at me, one of three dads in a room of 20 mums and female nannies, “what do the dadas do?” she asks. I have a split second to think of something meaningful and non-gendered, and fail. “They can say ‘I love you’ as well,” I suggest. It gets half-heartedly sung and the song is brought to a close. 

Now I have a pretty thick skin, but I keep noticing these small examples of how equal co-parenting, or even fathers taking the lead in parenting, is far from normalised and accommodated. This is not a ‘boo hoo’ for men, when not only all of pregnancy and childbirth and then most of the burden of parenting still falls overwhelmingly on women, but I do think it is worth discussing. One of the ways to mitigate and relieve the burden on mothers is to remove barriers to – and normalise the idea of – men taking an increased role, and where circumstances allow, a fully equal or even lead role. 

Not having a clear role in The Wheels on the Bus I can live with, but there are things which are more irritating and significant. Our GP lists both mother’s and father’s phone numbers on our son’s records. If I’m filling out the online form to get triaged, I put my number on it. Invariably, however, the duty GP calls my partner, as the mother’s name is in primary place on his medical records. It’s particularly annoying if I’m at home on my own with a sick child, my partner is away, and whilst on a train she gets a voicemail telling her if she’s worried about our son she should ”seek urgent medical attention via an A&E” (true story). 

There has been progress on having more men take a hands-on, more equal parenting role. In my circle I know families with two parents taking an equal role while they both continue to work. I know others where the father is leading on weekday caring while the mother works. I know dads who’ve done solo long-haul trips with their kid to see family. 

Beyond my immediate circle, you can see broader progress towards a greater role for fathers and a sharing of responsibilities. Events like  “pints and ponytails” – where a group of dads sat in a pub and learnt how to look after their daughters’ hair – got lots of coverage and discussion, but the really significant change has been the spreading awareness of the concept of ‘the mental load’, which has helped couples I know make game-changing moves on how they operate as parents and it has been really useful for us in discussions on sharing the load. 

The core idea is that dividing up tasks, even if you could magically find the perfect balance of the time and energy needed to do them, doesn’t create equality if one partner (and research backs up what we all know which is this is typically the mother) has to do the thinking behind this: working out what the tasks to be divided are, knowing what’s not been done, keeping important knowledge like clothing sizes and health information, anticipating what’s coming up and doing the basics like keeping the house stocked with food and supplies. Understanding this and sharing the mental load as well as tasks is a game-changer for many. Even if family and work circumstances mean it is sensible for one partner to take on more of the mental load, making this a conscious decision and having the other parent understand the weight of this is super-helpful.

Online – and despite the best of intentions, all new parents spend too much time online, optimised as it is to fill small available bits of attention – there are emerging voices like @everydaydadsclub which are working to try and normalise the idea of dads being a full part of parenting. 

But in the online space you quickly realise that these are new and currently very small voices in a landscape which routinely makes assumptions about parental roles and often portrays fathers in a negative way. Much of this content is actually created by dads with countless meme accounts happy to perpetuate the idea of the dad as a jokey and mildly incompetent parent with some great stories about poo explosions and a general sense of ‘this is all a bit more mad than I was expecting’. 

Parenting has massively crunched the time I have available to read actual books. I expected to read lots of kids books, and have many happy memories of being read to as a child. Although I will always try and steer the choice to anything by Julia Donaldson, he usually picks any book with a flap to lift, or a bug to point to, and then more often than not he will bring over the same few Peppa Pig books we have. They are usually the best way to calm him down when he’s upset and fighting sleep, so that’s where we’re spending our time at the moment, and it’s a particularly regressive place in its portrayal of parenting roles.

Daddy Pig is not a great example of fathers playing a full role in parenting, with his focus on work and playing football. In contrast Mummy Pig is the superstar all-rounder creating a non-stop whirl of adventures and improving activities. We’re maintaining an omertà over the existence of the animated series (one of many reasons why we haven’t got around to fixing the ‘broken’ TV….), in part because the stereotypes of the books really come to life in a more offensive way, with Daddy Pig’s character largely centred on his (over)weight and incompetence. The other full-time dad portrayal I remember is Kevin in Motherland. He’s a great dad and throws himself into it fully, but he’s presented as being completely emasculated in doing so.

Do I care? Fortunately I care only for the judgement of my child and my partner and I come to parenting with enough life experience to feel confident charting my own path. But this stuff does matter as the accumulation of these portrayals of two very distinctive and separate roles for mothers and fathers shores up the barriers to men playing a more active role in parenting, and genuinely taking some of the burden off mothers. 

The structure of employment makes it hard enough to establish equal parenting roles in that crucial first year, with limited paternity leave ensuring that mothers are just more present during the kid’s waking hours. Any prospect of changing this seems distant when the imagery of dad parenting is so far off that of an equal parent engaged in all the tasks, not just the fun stuff.

I’m really fortunate I’ve been able to take a career break to be fully involved, and indeed picking up more of the mental load as my partner has gone back to work. I’m happy doing it and it helps balance out the guilt I felt during the pregnancy and birth stages about the inherent limits of what I could do. 

I’m enjoying it, but I do sometimes get tired of having to correct misassumptions around how much of the parenting I am doing. I take him for immunisations and the nurse asks ‘where’s mum today?’ and I wonder if the reverse question would be asked if mum had taken him. ‘You’re looking after him today?’ I sometimes get asked, or ‘is it a daddy day?’ says a well-meaning person sitting next to us on the tube, like it’s an occasional thing. I tell myself it’s water off a duck’s back, but then I’m walking in the park last Friday and he’s losing his shit and I feel like the group of five mothers in a circle with their contented babies I pass are thinking ‘dad’s doing his occasional shift, and he doesn’t know what to do…’. Clearly I’m projecting, but the projection must be coming from the little chip chip chip of the comments which make assumptions around how much (or rather how little) parenting I do.

I’m actually doing lots of parenting, thanks. There are moments where I love it, and there are really difficult days. The fun of the rapid development of his walking and his ballooning vocabulary is sometimes balanced by the appearance of new behaviours like a strong pram aversion which kicks in when you’re far from home and unable to carry him. His independence has taken a massive and literal step forward with his walking, and has even mastered opening door handles. This physical win has seemingly triggered a significant psychological reaction as he struggles with how much independence he actually wants and becomes very clingy, including on waking in the night, sometimes requiring him to be taken out of bed for a few hours to calm him and get him back to sleep. Throw in some illness and an allergic reaction just when we thought we were clear on all allergens (more on that anon…) and it’s been a tough few weeks where we’ve all been exhausted.

But right now I still wouldn’t want to offload anything of this experience to outside childcare, and I would feel really left out if my partner was getting a disproportionate share of all these experiences. I would feel really guilty if I was getting to experience the fun bits (walking, being able to point at probably 100 different foods, animals and objects when prompted) and not doing the hard yards of sleepless nights and carrying a bawling infant home in one hand while you try and push a shopping-laden pram with the other, so I’m incredibly fortunate I’ve been able to take a career break now. I wish more dads could get to share as much of these early years as I’m getting to do.

For that to happen, there needs to be more acknowledgment that for many families it is happening and it’s completely normal. I’m not looking for a medal for the amount of parenting I’m doing, and I would be wary of a tilt in the portrayal of parenthood where men expect to be lauded and celebrated as heroes for doing little more than the basics. 

But where it exists, a step towards normalising that parenting is often shared and can be successfully done by either parent would be really helpful – both to chip away at barriers preventing men from doing more parenting, and to create more desire among dads to play a more equal and full role.

There hasn’t been much food so far in this post, so let’s end on a positive note: pancakes. They’ve become a core part of our current menu and they are quick to make, use up things from the fridge, and get eaten heartily. I’m doing them in a style that owes more to Korean pajeon or Thai hoi thawt or Vietnamese bánh xèo.

You’ll need: plain (wheat) flour, cornflour, some cooked veg like any cabbage or broccoli, and an egg. Optional: a dash or two of fish sauce or soy sauce.

Make a batter using about 60:40 ratio of plain flour to cornflour. This will give you a crispy exterior so you get some interesting textures. For a 20cm pan I use just over a tablespoon of plain flour, and just under a tablespoon of cornflour. Add cold water and whisk until you have the consistency of thick cream or custard. If you wish, add a dash or two of fish sauce or soy sauce. You could use salt, but if you’re still being cautious about salt levels, one of these will do the job with a big dollop of flavour too.

Heat some vegetable oil in your pan on a medium heat. I do it about 6 on a 10 point scale on my hob. Shred the cooked veg and add to the pan. Allow it to heat up and dry out a little, then pour in the batter, and shake about a bit until it’s evenly spread. Cook it until you can see the top of the batter has set. Flip the pancake over.  Keep peeping at the bottom until it has browned. You might want to raise the heat to 7. When it is starting to colour, break an egg on the top of the pancake and use your spatula to break up the yolk and mix it about a bit. It will drizzle into the gaps and down the sides. When it is half set, flip again and cook for another minute to get the egg fully set and brown in places. Slide on a plate and leave to cool a bit before slicing into strips for your little one to eat. Keep some sriracha or chilli sauce handy and swipe the bits you steal through this on the way to your mouth.