On Father's Day

05 September 2022

Welcome to 'Stray Thoughts', where the Eureka Street editorial team muses on ethical and social challenges we've noted throughout the week. Before we were married, my wife and I would have an unofficial monthly tradition where we’d head to Lygon Street and, in no particular order, have dinner at Tiamo, a meandering browse through Readings bookstore, cross the road to watch a film with a glass of shiraz at Cinema Nova, and then over to Brunetti for a late night coffee and cake. It’s not something we’d plan on, but rather became a default setting for a reliably beautiful evening. Needless to say, we don’t do that anymore.

Thinking about it reminds me of an episode of the ABC children's cartoon Bluey called ‘Fruitbat’ where Bandit, the dad, dreams about playing touch football because he never has time to play anymore. The episode reveals that for Bandit, putting a momentary hiatus on his dedication to touch football is insignificant compared to the joys of raising his children, Bluey and Bingo.

That resonated, because there’s a modern narrative around fatherhood being about sacrifice and loss that deserves some scrutiny. I recently read an article where the writer observed how new fathers are frequently heard vocalising hardships, grieving the loss of former pasttimes, and never really saying whether they were satisfied with their life choices, let alone whether life is better with a child.

That’s both surprising and not. As a parent, you see friends less often, you go out less often, sleep is uniformly terrible for years. But there’s something else there that’s harder to articulate and appreciate. There’s a bottomless well of joy that wasn’t there before. In my experience, life as a father is, by orders of magnitude, so much better than it was before.

The losses are more visible; we don’t spend evenings drifting between cinemas, bookstores and well-lit cafes in lively, inner-city suburban streets. But the expansive, transformative joys outweigh any forfeiture. Now, nine times out of ten, I would opt to spend a few ordinary hours faffing around with my kids, drawing pictures, making Hot Wheels tracks or playing café than heading out to see a movie, no question.

Maybe the idea of reorienting life so it’s lived for others gets a bad rap. But it’s not an unpleasant way to live. In some sense, the sacrifice and the reward are indistinguishable. What do you think? Does our culture sufficiently recognise the life-giving joys that come with sacrifice?

David Halliday is

ARTS AND CULTURE

On Father's Day

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