Men's Perspective on Parenting

Nina Sebastiane: Welcome back to Baby Talk with me Nina Sebastiane. Now a little earlier on author John Smith was giving us his tips on helping fathers deal with the traumas of pregnancy from a man's perspective of course. That's all very well and good but what role does dad take after the baby is born. Stephen Giles, author of the book You're the Daddy joins me now to hopefully shed some light on the subject. Welcome! Stephen Giles: Hi Nina! Nina Sebastiane: How are you doing? Stephen Giles: Good. Nina Sebastiane: Now we had you on with your first book Lad to Dad, didn't we? Stephen Giles: That's right. Nina Sebastiane: So Lad to Dad took you through the pregnancy phase as well but this is actually taking you from first year, from zero to first year. Stephen Giles: That's right, yeah. Nina Sebastiane: Why? Do we not know, dad's not instinctively do what they do? Stephen Giles: Clearly they don't, partly because of my paralysis during the first year but partly also because of all the other experiences that I have witnessed, and that's in the front part of the book from other dads. It's still a very different experience between mums and dads that each partner in the relationship experiences very different things during the first year. You are both parents, but your relationships with the baby and your relationships with each other, obviously a completely different. Nina Sebastiane: Give me an example of one of the worst experiences in that first year for you. Stephen Giles: One of the things that obviously happens as a man is that you have very little practical training for carrying babies, holding babies, and changing nappies. Nina Sebastiane: You dropped him? Stephen Giles: No, no I didn't, I didn't drop him. Nina Sebastiane: Everybody, I am sure everybody has a sort of moment where they kind of go, oh! Stephen Giles: I very nearly dropped him, I certainly bounced him too much a few times. But, things like changing nappies, holding the baby, getting used to handling the baby and getting used to -- I mean, even on right on my first day as a father, I was left on my own with probably a lot of with my son, and I had to change a nappy. And no one told me, no one had instructed me how this worked or had any of this thing and the natural reaction as a dad is to -- it's a reactive response, you just pull the nappy off. Nina Sebastiane: That was your first mistake. Stephen Giles: Exactly, exactly, yeah. He is in -- Nina Sebastiane: I am saying this of course not as I have got two girls but I have seen little boys when they are first born and what they do, when you put the nappy off and you haven't got anything there to protect your lovely new outfit. Stephen Giles: The logical thought process is, baby has filled nappy, the baby is upset because of that. It's taking the nappy off, go over to the other side of the room, fill up the tray, come back absolute carnage is behind us because there is just stuff everywhere, and it took me about three-quarters-of-an-hour to clean up the horrible mess. Nina Sebastiane: Clean up the mess, yeah. Stephen Giles: And this was still on the ward. Nina Sebastiane: No, excellent. Stephen Giles: My wife was up, having a shower, and she came back very happily from shower, I just secured the tape on the nappy, just about got the entire room swabbed. Nina Sebastiane: But you never did it again though? Stephen Giles: No, never did that. Well, in varying degrees I tried not to do it again but it's very difficult in the middle of the night remembering the mistakes you make. About 8 or 9 weeks down the line, I had exactly the same experience. This time absolutely everything came out of this little boy, absolutely everything, both ends, top, bottom. And I was letting my poor wife have a lie in and I just screamed to her to rush down the stairs. I didn't know what was happening, and of course she felt I had thrown him on the floor, or throw him outside of the window or something. But, of course it was just a case of not being able to change a nappy. Nina Sebastiane: So this is basically, you have written it in almost like a diary, haven't you? Stephen Giles: Yeah. Nina Sebastiane: It's kind of, it's like your experience in the first year and then sort of there is little add-ons on each section which is kind of practical experience and places you can get information and that kind of stuff. I mean, what in your mind was the most memorable bit of that year? The thing that you just got damn, I wish I would have known that. Stephen Giles: I wish I would have known how the babies really aren't as vulnerable as you expect them to be. The babies are quite affective at looking after themselves and they are quite affective, they are very resilient. And so therefore, quite a lot of the worrying that you do, quite a lot of the anxiety that you put into everyday activities could be so much more relaxed. You could be so much more relaxed and you could be thinking I am enjoying this experience rather than living in a state of sort of constant panic which is what I did most of the time. Nina Sebastiane: But, that's what they say about every person who is a parent in the first year, isn't it? You know with your second for example, and you just had a second, you have got an 8 week old, haven't you? You know you are so more laissez faire about it because 99 million times out of 100 you are going to put them somewhere, they are going to be fine. If no problem, you know that they don't walk away. Stephen Giles: Yeah, experience is the only try. The only way to prove anything is by doing it once, and probably making a mess of it, and that's the reason for the format, the book. I wanted to make it very clear that we all make a mess of it. So writing the journal format was a much more honest way to do that. Nina Sebastiane: I mean do you think dads are getting better being great dads? I mean it says, from nappy mess to happiness in one year, the art of being a great dad. Now, are we getting back to there now, to that way? Stephen Giles: Yeah, I think so because we are talking about it more. Nina Sebastiane: Yeah. Stephen Giles: And communication is the big issue that really never happened in the past. We didn't talk about being dads, we didn't talk about - everybody assumed that, dad means you said right at the start. You are just the dad, you just assume you are a dad and most of our parents and their generation did that. They just assumed, the roles were given to them rather than they created it. Nina Sebastiane: What was the highest -- all of us obviously are a couple of years old now, what was the highest point or highlight of writing this book? What thing put a grid on your face more than anything would you say? Stephen Giles: Towards the end of the first year together, I mean we went through a bit of a roller coaster all overnight, because at about 3 months, his mother went back to work, and I took over his full time care for 3 or 4 months. And during that time, we had some fantastic bonding time, but we also didn't get on it certain times. I mean it's terrible to say that a child who is 4 months old can be the master of a 30 something. Nina Sebastiane: Well, I think if you speak to most parents actually there is a point where you think, this 2-year-old or this 1-year-old is getting the better of me, how can I redress the balance? How? Stephen Giles: Well, there will come a time later on in the year 9 months, 10 months old, and it's the typical dad fantasy cliché really. We were sitting and watching the European football championships together, and he was sitting in his little England kit and I was sitting in my big England kit, we were watching football together. Nina Sebastiane: He had his milk, you had your beer. Stephen Giles: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, well the other way around, I don't know. I can't remember how it was now. But, we were just sat together. It was in itself a bonding moment but it was the result of all that time that we spent together and maybe we hadn't got on fantastically well at times, maybe we had, but we knew each other, and we'd really established a relationship, and we'd really established a rapport and it was just great. It just stuck in my mind as being a time when I thought, yeah, I can really, I can see the relevance of what I have done, I can see the point of what I have done and why I have tried to get as involved as I have over the first year. Nina Sebastiane: And being with him as the principal care. I mean it's a big responsibility. I mean do you think now your relationship has benefited from that time that you had with him about earlier? Stephen Giles: Yeah, unquestionably, unquestionably. I am going to think as much that I can fall in for my wife when she is looking after the little one. Nina Sebastiane: Yeah. She knows you are not going to kill him? Stephen Giles: Yeah. She knows I am relatively safe pair of hands unless I am changing a nappy of course. Nina Sebastiane: There is one thing that I love in this book. It's the competitive dad syndrome. Share a little bit about that with us? Stephen Giles: Well, competitive dad syndrome is the name that I put to this feeling that we all have, and whether we admit to ourselves or not, it just depends on quite how honest we are. But all dads have this sense that our children are the most spectacularly wonderful people in the world. Nina Sebastiane: Probably they are, aren't they? Stephen Giles: And as a result of that, all other children have to be terrible, all other children have to be stupid and ugly and awful. And it's not true but you just have to do it as a dad and as a mum. I am sure as a mum, but I am only talking from my own experience of it, as a competitive dad, you start off naturally just absorbing everybody's pride to be a wonderful baby. Nina Sebastiane: Yes. In other words it's you. Stephen Giles: Yeah. It's all my carrier, it's all down to the fact that it was you that -- your super humanity has somehow passed down a generation and it's a fantastic thing. And then you have got the milestones and the walking and there is something that I wrote in the book which is the terrible admission. But, at 6 months, I stood up a little boy and held him around the middle, and put his hands on a little trolley, that my dad had built for him, and he sort of took steps as they can when they are supported. And then I went straight home and airbrushed out my hands, so it looked like he was walking at 6 months holding this trolley. Nina Sebastiane: Don't believe that. Stephen Giles: And then sent it to all the family. I said, look, an incredible child. I mean that to me is the most extraordinary awful example of competitive dad syndrome. Nina Sebastiane: Yeah, I know. Have you seen anybody, a therapist for this? Stephen Giles: In all honesty, I will bet there are people out there that can trump it because it's a mad time. Nina Sebastiane: Yeah. Stephen Giles: In your first year with your child, you want the best for them and absolutely everything. And sometimes it comes through in a negative way because everybody does it, as long as you can manage to rein in and not started to rein in now. Nina Sebastiane: Well, Stephen thanks very much for coming in to share that with us. It's a great book. There is a lot of poignant bits and happy bits, and it's really well put together. Now, remember if you have got any questions or comments about anything you have seen on today's Baby Talk, why don't give us a call. You can phone us on 0905-028-0090 or you can text the word Baby plus your message 82540. Thanks again. We will see you next time.