Samantha Brick thinks she has it bad being an attractive woman. Try being a hot dad.
I took my baby girl to the local café on Saturday. We had barely sat down when a waitress came over and gave me a banana for baby and a cup of tea for me. “On the house” she said with a big smile. I smiled back and as she sashayed away she gave me a wink.
You’re probably thinking ‘what a lovely surprise’. But while it was lovely, it wasn’t a surprise. At least, not for me.
This kind of thing happens all the time.
Throughout my life as a dad, I’ve regularly had women hit upon me. Once, a well-dressed lady bought me a chocolate cookie when I was standing behind her in the queue at the bakery (it was yummy, although looking back maybe it was intended for baby), while there was another occasion when a charming woman paid my bus fare and slipped me her phone number as I struggled to pull the pram on to a bus. Another time, as I was walking through London’s Portobello Road market, I was tapped on the shoulder and handed a lovely teddy bear (it turns out baby had dropped it in the gutter moments earlier).
And whenever I’ve asked what I’ve done to deserve such treatment, the donors of these gifts have always said the same thing: its so nice to see a man spending time with his baby.
I am no Brad Pitt but I do have two legs, two arms, two eyes (well four actually – I wear glasses) a brooding lopsided grin and a baby in a pram. I am irresistible to women. I am a hot dad.
It is embarrassing. While playing the tickle monster game with baby in the park I am asked by mothers, not all of them single, if they can be chased and tickled too. They coo and swoon as I push baby on the swings. Sometime there are so many gathered around me that baby starts to cry. As I comfort her all they do is swoon more.
If you’re a woman reading this – or, more importantly, looking at my picture – you will know exactly what I’m talking about: you are probably already writing a marriage proposal.
If you are a man, I’d hazard that you’ve already formed your own opinion about me — and it won’t be very flattering. For while many doors have been opened (literally) just as many have been metaphorically slammed in my face — and usually by my own sex. I know how Samantha Brick feels. You almost certainly find me a threat – a threat to your career, your relationship, your masculinity.
Time and time again jealous husbands have frozen me out of their lives. “You’ve ruined it for us” they say ” I never changed nappies now after seeing yiou dio it she says I:m not a real man.”
Take last week, out walking baby a mate who I wnet to school with passed by in his car. I waved — he blatantly blanked me. Yet this is someone who I have known for over 30 years, and who I have been down the pub with on countless occasions.
I approached a mutual friend and discreetly enquired if I’d made a faux pas. It seems the only crime I’ve committed is not leaving the house with a bag over Baby M. He doesn’t like me, I discovered, because he views me as a threat. The friend pointed out he is shorter, heavier and has never changed a nappy.
And, according to our mutual friend, he is adamant that something could happen between his wife and me, ‘were the right circumstances in place’, even though I’m happily married.
Perhaps you’re a father yourself, and have experienced a fraction of the bastardness I’ve encountered at the hands (and once or twice, the boots) of insecure, embittered males. Maybe you can in some small measure empathise with how difficult it is to live in a society where a man is constantly expected to be a good dad, but is then punished for being better than anyone else.
Is it any wonder that David Beckham moved his family to the US?
