Читать книгу The Complete Parenting Collection - Steve Biddulph, Steve Biddulph - Страница 61

The experience of my daughter’s birth showed in a way what it is like to be a dad these days – you have to make a firm stand, sometimes even fight, to be allowed to be a dad. The world doesn’t seem to want you to be an involved parent: it would rather have you stay late at the office. Someone else will teach your children to hit a ball, play the piano and believe in themselves – you just pay the bills.

Luckily, fathers are fighting their way back into family life, and very welcome they are, too. Twentieth-century fathering was something of a disaster. Our fathers’ generation included a few great dads, but most men of previous generations proved their love by working, not by playing, cuddling, talking or teaching – the things that kids really love. In those hard times of poverty and war, some dads were violent, scary or drank too much. Many were traumatised and were hard to get close to. Some men simply walked out on their families and never came back. So when we come to fathering our own children, it can feel strange, since we may have little knowledge of what good fathering looks like. We only have half the pieces of the jigsaw.

But things are looking up. We know from studies across the developed world that fathers have increased the time they spend with children by 400 percent since the 1970s. Young dads today are determined to spend more time with their kids, and most of them succeed. In fact, with fatherhood, you never ‘fail’, as long as you don’t quit. As long as you are willing to have a go, you will always achieve more than you realise. Don’t be tempted to leave all the parenting to your partner. As we’ll see in this chapter, men bring different things to parenting to what women bring, things that are unique and irreplaceable. The more you do with your kids, the more you will rediscover your talents at fathering and your own unique style. There is nothing as satisfying as raising great kids.