Dad Archetypes: Your Everyday Fathers (Part2)

 Nailing down 'points of temporal density' has given boffins in physics, maths, and modern literature alike a right headache. Me? I've had my own issues with it, down at the playground. For ages, it seemed totally random when I’d bump into other dads there, and when it was just a sea of mums. But if you’re a constant fixture in a certain space (and with three kids, that’s easily me), letting the weather, time of day, weekdays, and weekends vary, you can make some cracking observations about parent types. What's more, the number of kids I had with me — say, one, two, or three — seemed to dictate which other parents I'd end up chatting to. And while the kid-count tells you a fair bit about a parent's likely behaviour, how they handle kiddie conflicts? Now that's the proper calling card for slotting them into a box. Just as Bolzano-Weierstrass's theorem on accumulation points in topology is wildly generalising, so too will this upcoming typology of dads be. Partly because I've spent loads of time with certain types, and others, even if I knew them, only a little. And some blokes just aren't on playground duty; I usually catch them down the pub. Right then, let's meet the everyday dads:

Lee's a psychologist, but that's not why we don't chat before 9 AM. We haven't measured it, but we both feel there's a limit to everything, and this silence is well-earned when, on a Saturday, we're already stirring porridge and hot chocolate in the kitchen by half past five. And before the BBC weather forecaster shuffles into the TV studio to announce the day's forecast, we're already sat on the bench in the driving rain, clutching hopelessly at the handles of our brought-from-home coffee mugs, watching our hoards of wellie-booted kids gleefully splashing about. After us, the owners of restless hunting dogs arrive, glumly circling the playground, followed by the runners, including the envied James, whose teenage kids are likely spending the morning in a state of hypothermia. My pre-coffee observations are a bit hazy, and probably nothing of real significance happens anyway, beyond a few squabbles around the swings and arguments over puddle ownership dating back to birthright. So, I’ll focus on the dads who arrive later in the day.

Weekend Dads

These chaps appear after 10 AM, making up for five days of 'childlessness'. They’re kitted out with balls and kites, heading straight not for the playground, but for the big grassy patch in the park, where they can properly play with their kids. They run alongside little pink bikes for ages, letting out loud cheers to let everyone know their little girl has learned to cycle. They kick the ball highest, heading it back perfectly to their sons' feet, then dive full-body towards the returned pass. Meanwhile, their wives are at home, either still asleep or just stirring, enjoying the solitude with a book in hand, while on weekdays, they might only take out the rubbish just for the chance to bump into a neighbour or spend a few minutes outside amongst other humans. From Monday to Friday, apart from a shared breakfast where they're portioning cereal and wiping up spilled milk, they don’t see much of their husbands, who usually find sleeping children when they arrive home knackered from work in the evening, then put themselves to sleep with a bit of TV or computer time.

The Emotional Dad

Billy used to play whale sounds and Keith Jarrett to his wife's ever-growing bump, and he still uses it to get his lads off to sleep today. He took baby crying so seriously that he's got Richard Ferber's picture tacked to his darts board, and he was the first person I ever heard rave about the benefits of baby sign language. He takes the older ones to school with the youngest snoozing in a baby carrier, and then joins our little bench club on the playground, still swaying as if rocking little Ben, who's actually sat behind him on the bench munching an apple. While swinging, he drops all masculine pretence and sings nursery rhymes; at that moment, you just see a parent and a child who are completely smitten with each other.

The Traditional Dad

You can usually bump into Toby in the park on Sundays, unless he’s off hiking, the family's grilling, or he’s fixing bikes with little Toby in the garden. Weekdays are strictly reserved for earning money, while his wife handles all the kid-related chores. Toby doesn't have any identity issues; he doesn’t wash up, he doesn’t iron, he doesn’t faff about wondering how to tackle potty training. Everything’s fine exactly as his dad and grandad did it, because, well, they turned out alright, so why fix what ain't broke? The websites he reads don't mention attachment parenting or the failures of liberal childcare, so we mostly just discuss things that need fixing around the house, based on YouTube DIY videos where everything always goes smoothly, and from our own 'experiences' that our mates find hilarious.

The Busy Dad

Mike's always sat on the bench in the corner when he comes to the playground, which usually happens on Saturday afternoons when his wife's off to Zumba or the hairdresser's. He's on his own, buried in his phone, tapping away at a ridiculous speed. Sometimes he'll pace around the bench, loudly explaining things to his phone. One day, I took his three-year-old son, who'd lost his nerve on the climbing frame, over to him, and the next day, Mike had added me on LinkedIn. His career and financial advice are more useful than his parenting ideas, which he tends to share only after we've cleaned up and consoled his crying son (who's either fallen off a swing or gone head-over-heels on his bike) and delivered him back to his dad's bench.

I could go on and on, but when only Lee and I were left at the playground, I brought up the idea of a dad typology – that I'd list what types of dads show up at the playground and when.

"Comparing dads?" he laughed. "But don't take yourself too seriously, mate, or it'll end up like an IQ test!"

I must have looked pretty dumbfounded, because he put a hand on my shoulder and just said, "When Binet was asked what intelligence was, he said, 'Intelligence is what my test measures.'"

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