farmdoc's blog post number 187

Disraeli famously said ‘There are lies, damned lies and statistics’. Having written a PhD thesis, and doing work which turns on the critical evaluation of data/evidence, I look at all statistics with scepticism until proven otherwise. I thought I’d never be surprised by one – until last Monday when the Australian reported a survey revealing that on average Australian fathers spend six minutes alone with each of their children each week-day. That’s 72 seconds per week-day. I’ve never studied child developmental psychology, but intuition tells me all infants and children (and adolescents and young adults too, for all I know) need adult love, attention and role modelling. If so, then suboptimal paternal contact – an average 72 seconds per day is definitely suboptimal – will result in maldevelopment, with variable consequences depending on circumstances. I’ve previously written about what a dreadful father I once was. It’s entirely possible I was under the 72 second average with each of my daughters. I’m ashamed. I did what I could with the resources I had – which on both counts was pitifully little. I can’t undo the past, or I would. But for me it’s never too late to acknowledge a failing – no matter how huge, as here, or how tiny – sincerely and respectfully apologise, and try hard to do better in future. Try bloody hard. Very bloody hard.

farmdoc's blog post number 47

Each November my sharefarmer Sharon shears our ewes. As the shorn ewes enter the paddock, for a few chaotic minutes the lambs don’t recognise their mothers sans wool. Then, gradually, what Sharon calls ‘mothering up’ happens, and quiet returns. Parenting. The books, magazines, courses, programmes, seminars, DVDs and podcasts on the topic, are testament to our instinctive need to parent well. The issue, of course, is defining well. Babies don’t come with an instruction manual, and there is no manufacturer’s product helpline. So parents do the best they can, often handicapped by their own upbringing. Fortunately babies and children are pretty resilient. And fortunately for sweetheart Vivienne’s and my four daughters, their mother was a superb parent during all those years when their father’s parenting was positively harmful – yes, worse than neutral. Only in recent years, after I got my personal act together, did I begin to be a half decent parent. Nowadays I aim to be dependably available to my children but not enmeshed in their lives, to rejoice with them in their successes and support them in their disappointments, to respect them as equal adults, and to respond positively and predictably no matter how I feel and what is happening in my own life. In short, to love them. Oh, and I almost forgot. To reach for my wallet on demand.