Super Dad ? (mostly not) !!!

My friends son had wet his nappies again and he just sat there chatting away merrily to me about his impending trip as I was asking him to handle the child

Aah forget it, he doesn’t understand the difference between a diaper and a sanitary pad she yelped as she carried away the bawling baby soothing him all along. Which reminds me ….

One afternoon I was sitting with her in my lap when the slight change in the room odour caught me. I did what my sense told me and rushed to the washroom. As expected it all came out. My uncle was aghast. Did you actually do that he asked I mumbled “yeah, I did”. He rattles off how in 30 years of being the patriarch he never has done that, seconded by my aunt who had a sullen "bee-sting" look on her face now.

And now there all of but 2'4" inches stood the difference between my dad’s generation and mine. I am not making any tall claims here neither am I speaking for everyone ostensibly labeled generation X but I among the many guys I know have already taken a few lessons on the basics of parenting.

I don’t need recognition and neither do I need compensation so feminist’s stay off and macho’s go look somewhere else. I admit and I still believe mothers bear the majority of the burden of rearing a child at least in my country they do but it’s also true that belonging to the “male” species I still take decisions that are radically different from choices my folks made decades ago.

Now let me get this thing straight here. Men traditionally play the role of providers for the family they never did any other thing they never showed interest nor where they taught to. They still play the same role at least a vast majority of them, of acting as pillars to provide material stuff. It other words the traditional gender roles still apply. Dad providing and mom managing to make sure we were on right track.

But honestly times are changing. I for starters don’t want to get into that grove. It was definitely hard work for mom as she reared us 4 and while dad was with us, putting it bluntly the influence during early childhood was quite limited. But that doesn’t make him a bad parent, he was and still is an awesome dad, granddad, uncle etc as the case may be

All this is not to tell how terrific a dad I would be if that’s what you think. I rather like to think that I may get something out of this parenting, something that my dad didn’t and as expected neither did my uncle. Honestly there is ample room for improvement and hopefully when the time comes (maybe in another 2 years as I am 2(?) :) now ) I may do better and my kids still better. That’s the hope anyways….

For all you know, I might give my kids some off beat names and diligently document every self important profanity laced insight into rearing on my blog or as I believe the case would be, just be pleased with myself that I am trying my best to be a good parent.

My next generation would probably tell how successful men like me are but right now if you ask me, I guess we just have a different outlook than male species over the last few decades did, maybe we are more interested in our kids and maybe not, but the bottom line being I can tell for sure why and when her butt smells funky…..