Being a Dad Has It's Perks

Party Ring Anyone?

Like many prestigious roles in life the role of Dad is not without it's perks. Here are my 5 mostly shallow perks of fatherhood.

Tastier than Keira?

1. Dads get to go to kids' films

Fed up with movies with plots out of a Dostoevsky novel. Squeamish about blood and gore? Rather laugh at a cute monster than lust over Keira Knightley? Get to be a Dad - because Dads get to watch kids movies and kids movies are clinically proven to be better than films with subtitles and/or a dark subplot.

2. Dads get to eat party food

There is no greater taste on earth than the flavours created by factory boffins to adorn kids party food. The brightly coloured delights that are Party Ring biscuits, Iced Gems and fruit jelly just beg to be eaten by the discerning gourmet and as a Dad at a birthday party you get to choose your own treats and eat as much as you want.
Just offer to clear up after the party guests have gone and hoover the sweet treats before anybody else gets their hands on them.

3. Dads get to watch their kids perform

Dads are men of rock. Their bottom lips are rare to wobble and their tear ducts are criminally underused. However, put a Dad on a touchline or in the audience when their kids are the stars and you see a different beast altogether.
Watch them swell with pride and choke back emotion as their progeny relives the dreams of their dim and distant past.

4. Dads get to read bedtime stories

If I ever get invited onto Desert Island Discs and am asked what luxury I would take to my desert island I know exactly what I would ask for:

• A small child (preferably one of my own)
• A book - one of the Bartholomew Bear stories, Dr Seuss or our current favourite - Pippi Longstocking.
• For the time to be fixed permanently at 7.30pm

There are few things as bonding as reading to your child just before bedtime. We started when the Dubmeister was 2 weeks old and we haven't looked back. I am lucky enough to be home before my kids go to bed most nights - and the nights when I don't get to read to at least one of them feel much emptier than those when I do.

5. Dads get to be heroes

Every man needs to be a hero and as a Dad you get to live the dream. The dads of pre-schoolers bask in the glow of toddler adulation as they wield a hammer with expertise and panache (in their children's eyes). For a precious period everything we do is wonderful. Every muscle we own is taut and every car we drive is faster than Lewis Hamilton's.
Man was made to bask in a dose of glory and the Dads of the very small get soaked in it.

from www.alotedbabe.blogspot.com

Speak soon
JH

PS More musings on being a Dad Alone here, on the changing relationship with our children here and a list of reasons why Dad Knows Best here.