Brought to Book

A version of this column featured in the June issue of Pregnancy, Baby & You magazine. My next column will be in the September 2008 issue…



I am a hoarder of useless stuff. It’s a guy thing. I will use any excuse to buy myself a book, a CD or a DVD. And I will shamelessly dub my random, space-eating collection as a “library” to dignify and justify its presence in our ever-shrinking home. At the first sign of pregnancy, I sniffed a book-buying opportunity.

My first few taps on Amazon, however, were unsuccessful at best. I typed in “Father”. Up came “My Father was a Serial Killer.” It didn’t sound helpful. I tried “Dad”. The Pocket Idiot's Guide popped up. An idiot? Me? Must be some other dad. Trying "daddy", I found a question on screen: "Did you mean 'dada'?" I didn't know if did, so I clicked on. Dada, it seems, referred to a bunch of mad artsy types who influenced the surrealists. All very nice but advice on Provider Panic from "starving", goateed, Bohemian trustafarians was really the last thing I needed.

As a last resort, I turned to the books I already had, starting with The Big One. Turning to the New Testament I thumbed the pages for a word of consolation from Joseph. Surely the earthly father of Christ could lend a hand? Not a word. Literally. In the whole of the New Testament, Joseph doesn’t utter a single peep. The message for new dads seems to be: keep your lip buttoned and just get on with it. But then, perhaps Joseph isn’t the best role model either. After all, it is one of the new dad’s responsibilities to make sure that mum and baby have a peaceful and restful environment after the birth. Yet within minutes Ol’ Joe had the place swarming with shepherds and wise men.

Towards the end of the third trimester, a friend had loaned me a copy of Ernest Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Now, I’d never read any Hemmingway before. All I knew about him was that his nickname was Papa. Appropriate, I thought. Until I encountered, towards the end of the book, a scene featuring a Caesarean section that would not have been out of place in the recent Sweeney Todd movie. Did it give me nightmares? Only when I was asleep.

All this is to make light of my trouble finding a serious, non-patronising book to help me through impending fatherhood. And this ”making light” is part of the trouble. Why is it that men can’t/won’t approach a subject seriously without making gags about it? Even in my pre-natal NCT class, when we were asked to split into groups (male and female groups) to discuss different aspects of the imminent event, the women’s heads were always huddled together deep in debate while we were roaring our heads off with laughter. If it’s not yet known as Chandler Syndrome – named for the pathologically emotionally stunted (but in a nice way) gag-cracker Chandler Bing out of Friends – then it damn well should be.

Is it an expected response? Are we playing up to the GSOH clause in all those lonely-hearts ads? “Don’t care if he looks like an even porkier, melted version of Adrian Chiles but GSOH essential”. Or are we just trying to mask the fact that we are terrified? No bad thing, this, being terrified. In fact, it’s because we’re terrified that we’re looking for a book in the first place. And round and round it goes.

Help, for me, was at hand in one of the many books my wife Karen ploughed through during the pregnancy. So much so that she remains a Delphic oracle on the subject? “Colic? Just rub coal and jam on the soles of her feet. Simple.” Yeah, right. But the book that stood out was Miriam Stoppard’s Conception, Pregnancy & Birth. I remembered Stoppard from TV in my childhood, and she proved to be a reliable advisor, stopping in the narrative from time to time to address the dad in a direct and non-patronising way, with no gags. Good old Mizza Stoppo, that's what I say.

And so, having been unable to find satisfaction in the dad books field, I started my blog to educate other would-be fathers in the ways of parenthood with hard information presented in a concise and frank fashion revealing all the mysteries once and for all. Well… no, actually, it's just a stream of daft gags and nice pics. But it does keep me cheerful. And keeping cheerful makes me a better dad. Maybe old Saint Joe was right: just shut up and get on with it.