Happily Imperfect Dad Life

What kind of man?

As a chronic over thinker (much of which I’ve inflicted on you here, dear reader) it’s fair to say that how to be a good father and how to set a good example to my son, are major topics in my brain on any given day. I replay moments wondering how to do better next time, I store away the successes with the hope I can repeat them and embed the behaviours. I don’t want to create my son in my own image, but I want him to have every chance to discover himself and, as long as he’s not a dick, that should be a good start.

But there is so much more to these things these days, nuance is something the internet struggles with, critical thinking seems to be absent in many places, and men seem to have been swept along and divide along class/education lines. My son is 4, I have time, but what will his future look like? What challenges will he face that I can help him prepare for?

I’ve written many words on this topic already, and have many more in my head but, for now, I’ll share this video (brought to me by the excellent Dense Discovery newsletter to which you really should subscribe) about what it may be like for many men these days, and the dangers that lie online, ones my son may face in the future.

To quote Kai from his newsletter (and sub quote the presenter of the video below), the final sentence is the one that drove me to watch the whole thing:

I loved (and can attest to) this observation Reeves makes about how men communicate:“One of the things we know is that men communicate more comfortably with each other shoulder to shoulder, as opposed to face to face. When men are face to face with each other, that’s quite a threatening position. Now, if I tell you this, you won’t be able to unsee it. If you want to communicate with young men, go fishing, go for a drive, go for a hike.”

And I like that he acknowledges these differences without pathologising them: “You could roll your eyes at that and just say, ‘Oh, what’s wrong with men?’ But we have to be really careful not to treat men like defective women, or vice versa.”

That last sentence speaks to me, the feminising of emotional care is rife. As a man, you should be able to handle your emotions, to speak of them is weak, and it’s subtle and it’s everywhere, and the ‘alpha males’ start to grow, broken, weak men that claim to be superior to others. I know my son won’t be one of them, but my generation is still in the trenches on this stuff. Some of us are fighting our way out, but far too many are still there and whilst it may be a ‘male’ view to use war as a metaphor, I don’t think it’s understating how serious this is. Look at how the world is playing out, the first vestiges of this are written large, the next generation of men need to change it and we need to equip them.

November 5, 2025 Add Comment

Paying Attention

man holding a smartphone looking stressed

My son has never known a world without mobile phones, without screens lighting up, without his Mum and Dad using them on and off throughout the day.

For me, notifications are still something I view as an interruption, an annoyance. Notifications are something that I tolerate to allow me to have a tiny computer on hand for whatever task or information I need, but it’s something I remember living without, my childhood was blissfully screen and technology free (ahhh hindsight is a wonderful thing).

Looking at the world through Jack’s eyes, and I guess it’s just normal for people to look at these tiny screens many times throughout the day.

He has started gently, indirectly, calling us out on our habits, with an insistence on us having to ‘watch this’ whether it’s him playing with his toys or watching a specific bit of a tv show or movie that’s he’s already made us watch 4 times in a row already. And he checks, he glances at us to make sure we are watching.

The other day he even said ‘Daddy, can you stop that and watch this?’. It was delivered gently and kindly (he is a gentle and kind boy) but it still stung. I wasn’t being present. I wasn’t THERE with him.

So I’ve been trying to be better, removing apps from my phone, reducing the volume of notifications, and even looking at some of the ‘dumb phone’ hacks I’ve seen.

But it’s hard. If you are anything like me, someone who has been ‘on’ the internet virtually since it started, switching that world ‘off’ isn’t that easy. The simple act of reaching for my phone when I’m ‘bored’ is still one I’m struggling to break.

I wonder what it will be like for Jack as he grows up. Will constant distraction be so normal he won’t even notice them? Or will he carve out his own boundaries, will he crave quiet the way I sometimes do?

It’s hard to know what presence will look like for his generation, we are only at the start of smart glasses but the sci-fi future of everyone walking around with a constant stream of information available in a heads up display isn’t all that far off, certainly within his life time.

So perhaps that’s where I need to focus. Finding a way to help him find quiet as his world becomes more and more screen/information/attention driven. Help him understand that paying attention, being in the moment, is far more important for himself and for the people in his life.

For me, the challenge is simple, but not easy: when he’s speaking, put the phone down. Look up. Listen.

Because one day, the notifications will stop. And I don’t want to look back and realise I missed the moments that mattered most while I was staring at a screen.

August 27, 2025

The Morbid Truth

I will consider myself lucky if I see my son reach the age of 35. That’s 33 years away and by that point I’ll be 83.

I will consider myself lucky if I see my son reach the age of 30. That’s 28 years away and by that point I’ll be 78.

I say this purely because my Dad died when he was 73, Mum made it to 78 (including 13 years post stroke). That said my Dad’s death was sudden, as was my Mum’s, and both were in declining health so whilst it was a shock, neither death was completely unexpected.

Fair to say that my own mortality has been highlighted in no short measure recently.

When Becca and I decided to have a baby (even if that baby is now almost 4!) I knew and accepted that I would be an “old” Dad. Becca is a fair bit younger than me but I already knew that she absolutely wanted to have a child, it was a non-negotiable for her and we discussed it early in our relationship; I can still remember that conversation and when I went home and reflected on it I realised I wasn’t freaking out about possibly becoming a Dad regardless of my age.

I was already 48 when that discussion happened and I couldn’t help but think forward and wonder how things will be as I got older. Safe to say my age has always been in the back of my mind when it comes to thinking of my son’s future. Well, technically my age AND my health, but they are one and the same these days, ahh the joys of turning 50.

I have a desire to make sure that when I die, presuming it is at least a couple of decades away, that I will leave my wife and son in a good secure place. To me that has a myriad of meanings and, whilst it’s not purely financial, right now that’s my focus so the 5 year plan becomes a 10 year plan and other things that I had in mind for my future, like my retirement age, are currently being revised. Beyond that I feel confident that they will be safe, will have experienced as much love as I can possibly give (an unending amount), and can look back on our time together on this planet with fondness.

I will pause at this point to say that, despite the topic I am absolutely delighted to be privileged enough to be entertaining such thoughts. I know not everyone has what I have and that never leaves my mind. As I’ve said before, despite all of these ongoing thoughts I do my best to push them aside day by day but, of course, that means they need dealt with at some point, even if only from a practical point of view.

That means getting a will in place, considering what my funeral might look like – no black! Wild colours and silliness please, and if there isn’t ice cream afterwards I’ll be disappointed! – and where I want my ashes scattered (two spots spring to mind, the time I realised I was falling in love with Becca, and the second where I proposed to her, but I’ll hold off as I know Jack and I will find a special place we both love too!).

Though I am just being practical, this is not some lasting statement on the fragility of life, nor any fascination with my own death (as far away as possible and painlessly, please). If anything it’s a way to help me focus on my life today, to take time to enjoy the precious moments I have with Jack as he grows and flourishes, to savour the fact that I fell in love with an amazing woman who is my best friend, a beautiful nag, a formidable unstoppable force, and my absolute foundation.

Thinking about death is an odd thing, in a way it’s a bit like sex. Ummm that sounds weird, I just mean that it’s one of those things we just don’t talk about, do we. It feels odd just to be committing these thoughts to a permanent record, to be writing with full knowledge that this even will happen even though I am far from ready for it to occur.

It also strikes me that when I first started writing about this topic I presumed that I wouldn’t see Jack reach 40. Yet that is entirely possible, I’d only be 88 after all, and you know how I like a goal… bring on Project 90!

July 31, 2025

The thing about Bluey

Being a parent is hard. It’s also rewarding, fun, tiring, expensive, and I wouldn’t change it for the world!… but it can be really overwhelming to have so much responsibility. You spend every single day making decisions for this tiny human who has no conception of what he’s doing most of the time, he’s just having fun, or chilling out, or eating strawberries (but only the little ones!), or wrestling his Dad, or pointing at “a wee ant!”, and all the other things these tiny humans do whilst they learn how their world works. Meanwhile, if he farts and you giggle, you’ve set him up to think farts are funny. It’s a minefield!

We have been mindful of screen time with Jack as he grows up – it helps that he prefers being out and about rather than indoors most of the time – and, even when the TV is on, it’s mostly just background noise whilst he plays with his trains. He does love a Pixar movie though, which means that so far we’ve avoided CocoMelon and Peppa Pig… phew.

One day, when Jack was still a baby, able to sit up but not much more, we’d been watching TV and noticed he was starting to look at it, all the colours and movement no doubt catching his eye. Intrigued I started looking for something that might be better for him and stumbled across a show on Disney about a cartoon dog called Bluey.

And so it began.

I’d seen Bluey mentioned before in passing, no doubt on Instagram or Twitter, but hadn’t watched it. By the end of the first episode I was engrossed and as Jack has grown he’s started to enjoy it too. Interestingly his two favourites are….

Hang on, before I get into that, let me explain a little bit about Bluey for those who have yet to experience this wonderfully silly and sentimental show.

Bluey is a dog who lives with her sister, Bingo, and her Mum and Dad (Chilli and Bandit). The live in Melbourne. They have a house and a garden, and are (I’m guessing) a fairly typical middle-class family. The show centres mostly on the two girls as they play with their Mum and Dad, but frequently takes a little detour into the thoughts and moments their parents are experiencing. As a parent I can confirm that they get most of this stuff absolutely spot on.

Suffice to say that Becca and I have both shed happy, sentimental tears more than once. We have also laughed and giggled and right now it’s definitely in my top 10 TV shows EVER. It really is that good. Even if you aren’t a parent I think there is a lot to take from it, and most of the episodes are only 7 mins long so if nothing else it’s a nice way to slob through an hour or so on the sofa.

Anyway, back to my boy… there are two episodes he loves, neither of which have much in the way of dialogue or complex storyline. One is Handstand which focuses on Bingo trying to do a handstand, the other is Rain which has no dialogue at all. Both of them offer the same lessons though, to keep trying when you are doing something new, and for parents to forget about being the parent for a while when their kids are around.

They are wonderfully cleverly crafted animations, Handstand is a clever looping of events in the background, Rain is a much simpler idea beautifully sound tracked. There is a calming effect to these episodes, a simple focus that I really hope Jack is picking up on.

As for the rest of Bluey, the Dad gets things wrong and apologises, the Mum gets some much needed reassurance that she’s doing a good job, and more recently there was a 28 minute episode that makes me tear up just thinking about.

Of course the show isn’t a mirror to our own parenting approach but it’s not all that far from how we try and be for Jack. The show deals with large themes in smart and heartwarming ways, a lot of which the kids watching won’t even understand fully but you get the sense that even they will understand that there is some significance to the moment that passes between Chilli and Bandit when, during a ‘play’ the girls are doing, a balloon that is thrust up a t-shirt to act as a pregnant bump pops too soon.

I mention all of this purely because it’s a wonderful show that never fails to entertain me. I am also enjoying other TV shows – Ripley, Dark Matter, Palm Royale, The Bear – but Bluey is the one that is resonating the most as a father. There is a reason that there are so many mentions of the show on Instagram, with most of them being takes on ‘when you realise you are still watching Bluey even though your child went to bed an hour ago’.

Bluey, give it a shot, whether you have kids or not, I almost guarantee you won’t be disappointed!

Plus, “Aaah, Biscuits!” is the best non-swear swear I’ve heard for ages!

July 4, 2024

The Guilty Father

It’s early Sunday morning, it’s been a ‘night’ and my plans for Sunday were looking a bit rocky. I was up early, drinking a coffee and going over all this in my head. I felt conflicted, and a bit desolate as I couldn’t seem to find a good solution. It’s something I’ve noticed creeping into my thoughts more and more when it comes to pretty much anything to do with my son and my wife. I am old enough to be wise enough (which isn’t all that much) to know that there is rarely a clear path when life throws up the little hiccups it seems to enjoy.

A quick summary then:

Dad guilt: my son woke up on Saturday night at midnight and was wheezing and crying and threw up (a little, just cos he was coughing). He wanted his Mum, so she “slept” on the floor with him next to her last night. She was up at 5am to go to work. She was already exhausted, now this.
Friend guilt: I convinced my mate to sign up to cycle 55 miles at Etape Caledonia. I got injured, couldn’t train, so he’s doing it solo. His first cycling event. Ugh.

The plan on Sunday morning was for my mother-in-law (AKA Granny Morna) to stay over and look after Jack while Becca is at work, so I can head up to Pitlochry to surprise my mate at the finish line. But if he’s ill, despite the fact he went back to sleep ok, he still lost a couple of hours of sleep so at best I thought he’d be a tired and grumpy, at worst he was getting ill again. The revised plan was to let him sleep as long as he needed and take it from there, and trust that he’d be ok so I should head off to Pitlochry. He normally gets up between 7 and 7:30, but we thought we’d let it go to 8:30.

My train was at 8:20am, so I would have to leave the house at 8:10 at the latest to get the train.

Now, I know mother-in-law can handle a tired toddler (she raised two kids of her own after all) but if he was ill then I decided to cancel going to Pitlochry. I wanted to be there to help.

My problem was that, if I wanted to get to Pitlochry in time to catch my mate finishing the cycle event, then I’d have needed to leave before he woke up so I had no way of seeing how he was when he woke. Becca was convinced he would be fine, but without seeing it for myself I knew I would just feel awful if I’d taken off and then it turned out he was ill.

After all, my plans were optional. It was going to be a nice thing to do for my friend (he’s one of the 3 I’ve had for 30 years!) and it would mean a lot to me to support him. Plus he didn’t even know about it as it was to be a surprise so I figured that while I’d be personally disappointed, my mate would’ve been none the wiser.

There I sat, going over all the scenarios in my mind (I know, I know) and then a noise from upstairs. Jack was awake! 7:20am. I went upstairs and he was sitting there, smiling at me as I knelt down next to him. I asked him if he wanted to come downstairs with me and he throw his arms up ready for me to pick him up. He seemed fine, he was fine! I made his breakfast, fed the dogs, Granny Morna came down and that got even bigger smiles from Jack and then, content that he was fine I announced that was going out (technically I said I was ‘going to work’ cos he seems to accept that when either one of his parents has to leave the house). He said ‘bye bye Daddy’ and we waved at each other through the window as I walked down the garden path.

On the train to meet another friend who was going to drive us up to Pitlochry, I sat and pondered how I get my head around making decisions when there doesn’t seem to be a ‘good’ one to make. Logically I can tell myself that sometimes making the decision is the only thing you can do, and then adjust to the consequences. Logically I can tell myself that the vast majority of the time, no matter what scenarios I think through, by and large things work out just fine. Logically.

But I still felt guilty. Guilty that Becca ended up sleeping on the floor, when it was me who went through when Jack first cried out. Guilty that Morna might not have a great morning with Jack and it would be a struggle (even though he seemed fine). Guilty that Becca would have Jack until I got home mid-afternoon and she does so much.

Logically, again, I can tell myself that I’m a good Dad. I do what I can, when I can. I spend time with him as much as I can. I work full-time but start super-early just so I can make it home in enough time to play with him after dinner, before bed. I look after him on Saturday and Sunday mornings when Becca is working, I love him more than anything in this entire world.

But that guilt, wow it weighs heavy. And whilst I know all of this will pass, and that whilst he has yet another ear infection and we will have another week or so of struggling to get him to take his antibiotics, that too will pass.

It’s probably been the hardest part of learning how to bring up our son. Always the feeling of doing more for him, doing things differently, learning and growing whilst I fumble from day to day. I’m bad for not setting time aside for myself but right now this is the most important thing I’ll ever do, so why do I need time for me? Why shouldn’t I concentrate every spare minute I have on our amazing child? Thankfully my wife keeps me in check but that also brings a level of guilt, that she is having to ‘mother’ me as well when she was so so much to think about all the time!

The title of this blog wasn’t an accident. I am very happy, and very aware of my imperfections, and whilst I don’t settle with them, I do sit with them, study them and try and find ways to improve upon them to at least iron them a little flatter, file the sharp edges a little more every day. It’s been my mindset for a long time now. And having Jack arrive in our lives brought it into sharp focus, all those little things I didn’t like about myself, not the big scary horrible things, but the ones I notice but let slide because they weren’t hurting anyone (else), suddenly become things that I could pass on to my son.

So I strive to be better, and yesterday that meant sitting with all those guilty feelings and understanding them. shrinking them down to what they actual were, feeling them get smaller and smaller until they disappeared.

There will be more times like these, but I am more and more confident of being able to navigate them, of showing up and dealing with them with an assurance in my own mind that I will do the right thing most of the time. And when I don’t? I’ll apologise, learn, and it’ll be better next time.

Not easy but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

May 13, 2024

Busy busy

I’m almost approaching my first year at Allied Vehicles and I’m busier than ever but, looking back I can see how far things have come since I joined. It’s a very small team, in a very fast paced environment and a lot of what I’m trying to do is help mature our own processes. With a couple of new people joining our team it’s brought a lot of this into focus, both how far it’s come, and how far we have to go. And that’s before we get into all the Business Analyst work I’ve got going on. I was sad when my time with Virgin Money came to an end but in hindsight this new job has been a boon!

It does mean that between my work, and having to be in the office 3 days a week, and spending time with my son, that I’ve not always been the best at finding time for me. I’ve barely been out on my bike, nor managed more than a few runs as, barely halfway through Couch-to-5KM I developed a bit of a niggle in my knee which meant I had to rest for a few weeks, got a physio session to sort it but still means I had to out of doing Etape Caledonia this year. I feel doubly bad for that as I’d talked two of my friends into it and, as one of them also dropped out, my mate is now doing it on his own, his first organised cycle too!

Elsewhere, Jack continues to amaze and delight. He is enjoying a daredevil stage at the moment which is wonderful and terrifying all at the same time, and he flits between being barely a toddler to a young child in an instant, it’s quite startling. We are very lucky that we have a good routine that he understands so for the most part (I mean, he’s a toddler) meals, bath time and bed time mostly go without a hitch. And I’ve just jinxed it…

In a couple of weeks we are heading up north, and will be sleeping with him in a tent. It will be his first time (technically his second but he was still a baby the first time on Mull) so it’ll be interesting to see how he adjusts to it, and how the adjustment goes when we get back. That said, with all the fresh air, and the fact that Granny and Grandpa will be there too, we are pretty confident then sleep won’t be a problem for him as he’ll be exhausted.

Heading into the summer months and on into October, I’m aware that my son is heading towards his 3rd birthday. He’s increasingly independent and we trust him and can leave him ‘unattended’ (in the next room!) to happily play with his toys, or stoating about the back garden looking for ‘wee spidurrs’ and ‘weuyrms’ and hopefully a ‘wee ant!’.

And, inspired by my unstoppable force of nature of a wife (who’s currently smashing her C25K, and slotting in the odd yoga session when she can), I’ve even managed to sort out a few cycles for myself and will be signing up for the local gym soon too. I’m 50, not getting any younger etc etc and definitely not getting any more flexible, or stronger, or lighter with my present, very sedentary, lifestyle. I want to be around for many years to come to enjoy watching the person my son will grow up to be so I need to start taking better care of myself. And yes, I’m posting this wholly for accountability purposes!

Fit for 50 was a goal but I’ll take Fit for 55 if that’s what it takes!

May 9, 2024