Alpha Dad

Robin Bennett

Description

How to be a dad, hold down a job and keep a sense of humour whilst you are about it. A month-by-month description of the first year of fatherhood dealing with everything from family tax credits, to changing nappies and what to do with your hands during the birth. An easy to read, humourous book combining helpful advice on what to expect at each stage and what you can do about it. Useful facts and further reading at the end of each chapter.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 13 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780957456525
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
ALPHA DAD


By
Robin Bennett



Publisher Information
Alpha Dad
Published in 2013 by Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Copyright © 2013 Robin Bennett
The right of Robin Bennett to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.



Alpha Dad
An heroic guide to being a dad & holding down a job in the first year
Preamble - your hopes and fears for the future
Why on earth would you read this book?
Most of us rugged menfolk know next to nothing about babies, as distinct from kids in general. When it comes to children, from about the age of four or five upwards, the greater majority of us can claim at least some level of experience - namely relatives, children of friends and neighbourhood kids mooching ominously around your car first thing in the morning. Small children simply appear to get about more, plus they can talk - pretty much incessantly, when the mood strikes. Babies, on the other hand, tend to feature about as much in your life, frankly, as street furniture from a visual point of view, or a noisy stereo, if we are talking audio. They don’t appear to get out very much and when they do it’s rarely to places you go (i.e. the pub, the bookies, your mates’ house). If we see them in the street they are invariably disguised as a heap of blankets being pushed around in a buggy. If they happen to make a noise, we simply move away - usually into the nearest pub, bookie or single male friend.
It’s not that we don’t like them, we just don’t really have an opinion, that’s all. This is not helped by the following facts either:
One . We can’t actually remember being a baby. Most adult memory kicks from the age of three, usually coinciding with the first time we fall off something high (i.e. chairs, stairs) onto something hard (floor, head). Anything before that is a complete mystery, so we have nothing to actually relate to, for starters; not a shred of ‘evidence’ - for want of a better word - upon which we can base an informed opinion upon. We cope with this by not having one at all generally.
Two. The fairer sex has very strong opinions on the other hand, which usually go like this: Ages 1-12, loves babies, have one in plastic that they cuddle and tick off on equal measure, put in unlikely places to sleep (dog’s bed, airing cupboard, upside down in tree). They obviously prefer the real thing though, when they can get their hands on one. 13-17, source of cash from baby-sitting. Now they love babies all the more because the income that they bring in enables frequent shopping trips to Top Shop, with best mates Jasmina-Madonna and ‘Chelle. Added to this, baby-sitting babies is generally a doddle and crucially the only place you get to watch TV undisturbed with total remote dominance. Between 18-26 girls generally avoid babies, baby-sitting at that age makes you look like a single mother or au pair, and having one around ones person might make you look frumpy and/or desperate by association. Most females at 20 declare that they will never have children, then at 27 sudden blind panic strikes about dying childless and lonely surrounded by cats, and so on...
Three . Men don’t get pregnant. In fact the very idea of living with prospect that one day somebody will be growing inside you is frankly really, really weird.
How can we compete with this? For us we are born therefore babies must exist -at the very least on some philosophical level but, beyond that, they hardly get another thought.
Until someone we know very well - someone we have most probably agreed to look after and provide for - has one.
Invariably, this event takes us by complete surprise, even when you’ve had nine months to digest the news. Your wife or partner may walk around for the better part of nine months looking like she’s eaten the telly and you have most probably seen your child in black and white, as a sort of grainy kidney bean scan - but the reality almost never sinks in until your wife-stroke-partner is lying in front of you, bathed in sweat, job done, so to speak.
If she is conscious, she will look euphoric yet strangely calm - in a way you suspect you will simply never ever be, however much pilates you might decide to do. She will be holding what looks, for all the world, like a giant prune wrapped in a pink or blue bundle.
For these reasons (in part), a mother’s level of attachment to the unborn or the very recently new-born child is frankly rare in a man. However, in a matter of days, you will find that you start to love this prune more than anything you have ever loved before - most tellingly, even yourself. Trust me on this.
Unsurprisingly (and this is my point, finally ), most baby books seem to be written for mums, frankly, or those who have the job of caring for baby MOST of the time, which is fair enough. And let’s face it, although the average time that the father spends caring for a child has more than doubled from the one hour a day twenty years ago - this is up from an hour a month post Victorian era and no more than passing recognition until they were eighteen before that and they could pitch in stealing cattle from your neighbours - the buck tends to stop with women by and large. By that I mean that back-up care is certainly down to us, bringing home the bacon for the time being, bath times, reading stories, fitting car seats and bottle feeding - but the real hours are actually put in by the mother. Namely being up half the night, major nappy changes, hours spent keeping him/her amused on a baby mat, dealing with diarrhoea... the list is endless.
Nevertheless, whilst not trying to earn a living, we do have a role to play. However, baby books tend to be either too detailed, i.e. simply too much reading for not enough hard information; holistic, whatever that may be; and sometimes just downright cheeky. At the other end of the scale, namely fiction - ‘Bloke Lit’ is just far too anguished. I don’t want a moan, I want to do something useful.
Shortly after our first son, Jude, was born, I searched in vain for a (short) book that will give me the basics on how to perform my part as a working dad and above all enjoy the experience insofar was possible. So as well as aiming to be a pithy handbook, this book then should also be a celebration of fatherhood. And not at the expense of motherhood - the roles are just different, that’s all.
How will you read this book?
One-handed, most probably.
This book designed in short chapters that are easily read - roughly one section in each chapter can be absorbed per average bottle feed or trip to the bog. Large books are all very well if your changing mat happens to come with a lectern.



Chapter One
What Should Be Happening Right About Now?
I won’t intrude on how it all began but basically the first you know of anything being up, so to speak, is a series of confusing signals from your partner, most of us simply choose to ignore in our own inimitable way.
If your girlfriend or wife’s period is late, chances are she simply won’t let on. Dozens of false alarms throughout her teens and twenties will have hardened her somewhat and made her realise that getting pregnant is simply not a simple case of lavatory hygiene or ‘French’ kissing.
Instead, after about 7 or 8 weeks, she will start to feel tired and the possibility that this could be IT, will, in all fairness, start to play on her mind. Plus she will probably be feeling as sick as a mongrel. This may lead to a general rattiness. If you are the sensitive, bleeding heart, liberal type you may now begin to suspect something is odd - you may even put two and two together, based on the fact that after almost 10 straight weeks you haven’t had conjugal rights withdrawn for anything more serious than usual minor infractions.
Your partner’s breasts may get bigger. This should not be trumpeted as a cause for celebration in itself.
Scans And Antenatal Classes
The first scan will usually be at around 8 weeks, in order to date the baby’s birth and then you’ll do it all again at 20 weeks, assuming you and your partner want one at all. There is a body of opinion acknowledging that bombarding your undeveloped child with high frequency sound may not good for him or for her. Like x-rays, when you dentist helpfully provides you with a snapshot of what your corpse will one day look like, the scan is probably something best taken in moderation. Some couples don’t go for the first dating scan, others forgo all scans entirely. Most of us, who are naturally more curious, happily take half a day off work and go along to the local hospital where these things usually take place.
Even when it all goes well, this first scan can be a bit of a let down for the father and mother to be. You hear comments like. ‘The shot is too grainy’, ‘the unborn looks like a kidney bean’, and ‘how come she gets to lie down in the comfy chair?’ Personally, I don’t see it like this at all. At 8 weeks the child is almost fully recognisable as a human being (not bean), an entirely unique individual that you, presumably, have had a hand in creating. For me, the first scan is proof that the most important part of the process, the sperm and the egg, forming into a little human with arms, legs eyes and - most importantly, a tiny beating heart, has safely taken place. For all our intellectual leaps into digital technology, splittin