Nappies not a life changing experience

You can’t train for fatherhood. It’s not a marathon.

Ok so there may some parallels with endurance events but generally speaking the only template for being a dad is having one.

My dear old dad is still around. He had three children and was just 23 when my brother came along. To be fair my brother was a challenge and largely still is but mum and dad weren’t sufficiently discouraged by the experience not to go back for two more.

This was small town NZ in the 60s.

There were no baby groups getting together to cradle flat whites and thrash out the finer points of parenting. There were no flat whites.

Dad may have thrown a few ideas around a smoko room full of mechanics clutching an instant coffee and a ciggie but their collective wisdom would have been along the lines of go large wetting the kid’s head and let your wife do the hands on stuff ever after.

Rightly or wrongly that was the popular thinking of the time.

I’ve often put it to my wife that we should honour the spirit of our forebears by being more faithful to mother-does-everything-andfather-sits-back-with-a-beerwatching-on style parenting.

She sits on me until we agree that this is probably not for the best.

Dad was a mechanic. He rebuilt countless engines, probably filled a dozen swimming pools in oil changes and even manhandled new tracks on to a D8 bulldozer. In simple terms you’d say he is a bloke.

If mum had asked him to change a nappy he’d have given her that caught in the headlights look.

To be fair disposables weren’t really a thing back then and cloth nappies are like origami cranes - harder than they look.

But it dad wasn’t completely off the hook.

He worked hard to keep things afloat - up to his back wheels in valve grinds and axle grease all week only to turn around and spend weekends repeating the exercise keeping our old warhorse Austin Westminster on the road, or cutting firewood or sorting the plumbing, or trying to grow enough food to keep three squawking kids fed.

In his holidays he would sign up at the freezing works for the extra coin.

As for spare time pursuits there wasn’t really any. The closest thing he came to mountainbiking or any sort of high adventure on two wheels was the ride home from the pub on Friday nights.

Did he miss anything by not changing a single nappy? I don’t know, I’ve never asked him but if anyone was to ask me the same question I’d tell them as experiences go nappy changing is roughly as essential as standing on a rusty nail.

But we live in very different times. I don’t know a timing belt from a crankshaft.

My Dad did try and show me how to replace a tap washer once but I’m not even sure I could do that anymore.

But I could just about be called as an expert witness on nappy changing, bottle feeding and what to do with a wailing child at 3am.

For better or worse I have two daughters so my fathering skills die with me.

Should I live long enough I may be lucky enough to get a sonin-law and if I do I’ll make sure his wife makes him change his weight in nappies.