How to be a family man
Being a family man has been the most rewarding and the most disappointing thing I have done in my life.
I have worked hard to be all the things that I thought a family man should be, but I probably could have done better by not trying to run a family like I was picking a five-a-side football team.
To become a family man, the first thing you need is a partner or, as I would call it, a “team captain”.
Melanie became my team captain and, once she was signed up, things started happening. We had our oldest son, Joe, 14 months after we got married.
As our first signing, the arrival of Joe promoted me from just being a married man to being a “family man”.
Joe, Melanie and I were now a team. We had not fully worked on our style of play before we expanded the squad when Luke arrived 18 months after Joe. Twenty months later, Daniel arrived.
If you have three children under the age of four, as I did, you have to make choices, because you cannot hold hands with all of them.
For a while, I used a papoose. These things were definitely not around when I was a baby, and if they had been, I am not sure if I can envisage my father’s generation taking to them like we have.
I am not trying to suggest that the generation before us didn’t engage with their children, but let’s just say that the expectations were different.
My generation are the neurotic ones. Therapists’ offices all over the world are full of patients blaming their parents for their own failings.
I also have three dogs: two English bull terriers, Bilko and Tigger, and one tiny creature of indeterminate breed called Alfie, who is best described as a real dog but smaller.
Dogs have much less complicated brains than children. They have fewer reasons to try to enforce their will or to go against yours. Despite this, Tigger has always insisted on sitting down within the first 50 yards of a walk and forcing whoever is walking her into a dragging contest.
It is exactly the same with children. You can sign them up for the Cubs, Sea Cadets, sports teams, music lessons or the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and they can refuse to go to them without giving a second thought to the opportunity lost.
I suppose what you learn as you get older is that being a parent is bloody hard. The bits that you get right go unnoticed, and the bits you get wrong live with you for ever.
Unwilling children may be like unwilling English bull terriers but it is simply not socially acceptable to put a lead on them and drag them to the Cubs or Sea Scouts, much as you would like to do so.