Dad Standards

I’m not a bad dad. Not really. If I don’t run to her when she cries, then I’ll usually walk fairly quickly. She is dressed and fed every day, usually several times, and I love her unconditionally. I meet the bare minimum standard like an absolute pro.

But I’m not a great Dad. Most nights I’ll just put her in front of The Disney Channel rather than read to her. The majority of meals I cook for her consist of breadcrumbs and beige and I don’t often remember to brush her teeth.

Basically, I took the parenting manual, highlighted the title of each chapter, and decided that would be enough.

And, to be fair, so far it has been. My daughter has survived to see three birthdays up to yet without dying, murdering, or causing any major international incident.

So, as a Dad, I am hitting par for the course. Middle of the pack. Happily settled in mid-table obscurity, neither threatening to trouble the title challengers nor in danger of being dragged into a relegation dogfight. My weekly highlights are the last thing shown on Match of the Day and receive about four seconds of analysis.

‘He changed her arse, pulled some funny faces, and put her to bed’.

‘Absolutely classic, see you next week’.

My missus though, is an exceptional parent. She does everything I do plus so much more. She knows what every cough means, she reads and plays educational games. She cooks healthy meals with actual, honest-to-God green stuff in them. The whole household keeps ticking along only because each individual tick has been carefully planned and scheduled in her little magic book.

I would be completely lost without her. In fact, I’m still lost anyway but can easily hide that fact because she is here with a compass, map, and a big swollen bag full of first aid supplies and sandwiches.

And yet, I don’t often hear people tell her how brilliant she is. She doesn’t get anywhere near the credit she deserves for her parenting prowess and I can only assume it’s because she’s a woman. It is expected of her the same way it’s expected of me to be able to hang shelves and fix washing machines (two other skills that I absolutely do not possess).

And yet, since before, our little girl was born, people have told me how great a Dad I am just for having mastered the trick of being here. For existing within the same building and for loving her. Shouldn’t that be the minimum that we expect?

I have raised this before with some kind-hearted idiots who thought they were just paying a simple compliment and didn’t expect the recipient of the simple compliment to argue back.

I said ‘You are giving me far too much credit for doing something that should be expected of literally every Dad.’ Which they responded with their long and depressing family history of abusive and/or absent DNA donors as evidence that sometimes we can’t expect something as simple as attendance and love from our fathers.

My further retort goes that even though many people are unacceptable bastards, that doesn’t mean we get to move the line of what is OK, nor the lines for what is good or great.

We aren’t marking people’s A-Level exams. We don’t need to have a certain number of passing grades, so if one person is a feckless twat, that has no bearing on mine or anyone else’s fecklessness or, indeed, our twattishness.

I’m not opposed to low standards in general (they’re the only reason I managed to get my missus in the first place) but if we must insist on putting the lowest possible bar in place for parents to stumble over, wouldn’t it be nice if that bar was the same height for both genders.

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