I AM HAVING a lie-in. It is magical. In the background, the Morning Irelandjingle jangles as I consider the rise and fall of Aine Lawlor's voice, perfect audio accompaniment to a lie-in. She is whispering important somethings in my ear but the subtext, meant only for me, is: "It's ok, you can find out about this stuff later, there's this thing called the internet, you're grand".
With Aine's blessing I finish my dream, a recent favourite, where I am the woman in Up In The Airwho meets George Clooney. In my dream, unlike in the film, it ends happily with George and I going to Ikea to eat meatballs.
I’ve closed the bedroom door. I can only hear faint squawking noises from downstairs which in order to better facilitate the lie-in, I convince myself are the neighbourhood stray cats. I drift in and out of sleep like this until a harassed-looking man in pyjamas – not George Clooney – comes in to suggest politely that perhaps I might like to get up and look after the stray cats so he can have a shower. My lie-in is over. It is 8.15am.
I am not complaining. When your day begins at 5am or 6am, being able to go back to bed for half an hour while someone else makes porridge and saves the lives of people who climb furniture for kicks is not to be sniffed at. Half an hour extra in bed can make the difference between a sane working day and one in which you want to murder everyone you meet, especially people who say kind things to you like “good morning”.
You don't hear much about them, these harassed looking people in pyjamas who let us mothers have mental-health-enhancing lie-ins. The ones who listen to us snoring – ok, me snoring – when by rights we should be parenting. The ones who have become expert at pretending to work colleagues that the porridge in their hair is dandruff, the sick on their shoulder is dried shaving cream and the bags under their eyes are due to watching box sets of The Wire. In truth, they haven't had a chance to see one episode of The Wire. Most of the time they are hanging by one.
They are the ones who first thing in the morning are doing laundry and last thing at night are pumping air into pram tyres. The ones who would like nothing more than to watch every match in the World Cup, but find themselves falling asleep on the sofa after half a beer in the middle of USA v England.
They do drop-offs and pick-ups and sidle up to bosses requesting time off for a dental appointment when they actually want to bring their babies for vaccinations. They do a full day’s work and then they come home to feed and bathe and hand wash the animals in the toy farm because in some cases, ahem, they are more hygiene conscious than the mothers.
We mothers speak in reverential tones about this new breed of fathers. The times they've popped out for milk and come back with chocolate. The way they do the breakfast so that we can have that extra half hour in bed. We once read a book called I Don't Know How She Does Itabout a mother who was raising a family while working outside the home. We watch the New Dads juggle and struggle to have it all and think one should be written called I Don't Know How He Does It. We whisper to each other that without them we would be in an asylum and the children would be in an orphanage. We are only slightly exaggerating.
If New Men were the ones who were comfortable wearing moisturiser, New Dads are the ones who will spend 15 minutes talking to a chemist about the ingredients in nappy rash cream. They are making it up as they go along. Most of them didn’t have role models who contributed in the same way they do to the home and the family. Those were different times. So, in the absence of parental guidance, with only low-level nagging from their spouses and partners to help them navigate this often treacherous terrain, they are doing their best and sometimes getting lost on the way. Just like us.
The main difference between them and us, apart from their breastfeeding skills, is that, on the whole, society doesn’t acknowledge the New Dads. The adverts for child-related products address only the female parent as though the father doesn’t care about E numbers or added sugar. Supplements in newspapers speak of “Mums and Babies” – as though the father wouldn’t be interested in reading about the latest developments in high chairs.
It seems sometimes as though us mothers have cornered the market on parenting. Perhaps it’s time to stop whispering and start shouting about how brilliant the fathers are. So this Father’s Day let’s hear it for all the New Dads. We don’t know how you do it. Have a lie-in on us.
roisin@irishtimes.com
THIS WEEKEND
Róisín will be camping at the Body and Soul Solstice Gathering in Ballinlough Castle, Co Meath with a tentphobic adult and two teething babies. To the people in the tent next to ours: Sorry.
(See bodyandsoul.ie)