Life outside my family has both positive and negative effects on my role as a father. On the positive side and perhaps stating the obvious I work to earn money and this helps us to have a happy family life. Work can inspire and provide a sense of perspective. Having friendships outside the family gives me confidence and time out from routine life. I also experience new things that I can share with my family (as they do with me). On the negative side, life is busy and outside demands can restrict time with my family and sometimes puts a disproportionate burden on my wife. Obtaining a good and fair balance is not always easy but I think that a full and varied life makes for a better father.

It’s very hard to say how being a father has changed my life in the outside world, as each person only gets one life and mine has (happily) included children. Who knows how things would have turned out if I hadn’t become a father? However, I do sense that my attitudes to everything have changed quite significantly in these last sixteen years (since Tom was born). I have become more comfortable in my place in the world and come to terms with, and even delighted in, the transience of things. I appreciate the natural world more and more and value love, honesty and integrity over ambition and success. Maybe all this is just a consequence of getting older. On balance, I do think being a father has had a big effect on me. As a father, there is so much giving and taking that it is impossible to remain unaffected. Most importantly, children make you look outside of yourself and I think that spills over into everything that you do. So I hope that now I’m more open and tolerant with my friends and colleagues, more willing to admit to my mistakes and more able to share the joys and sorrows of life. Father of 3 children, age 45. 

My son was born four months ago. I had anticipated becoming a father for a long time: he arrived early but I arrived late. Perhaps I would have become a parent sooner if I hadn’t spent the past ten years as a teacher. Teaching didn’t exactly put me off having children, but I imagine that if you work all day in a sweet shop you probably don’t want to come home and stuff your face full of chocolate.

Had I been a parent before becoming a teacher, I would have been a different teacher. As a teacher, whatever age the kids in your class may be, everyone else’s children either look much too young to teach or much too old. As a parent maybe I would have seen the whole picture – the ten-year-olds as five-year-olds and as babies, and I would have understood them a little better. Similarly, when you look at someone else’s baby, all you see is a baby. When you look at your own baby, you see everything at once – a baby, a child, a teenager, a young man, an old man – and you see yourself at all these stages too. One day it will be him wheeling me along.

Most people worry about what other people think of them, whether it’s people you’ve known for years or people you pass on the street. Sometimes, we try to give the impression that we’re something we’re not: richer, happier, more confident. When I walk along pushing my baby’s buggy in front of me, I feel certain that I am presenting an accurate picture of what I am really like. I’m not worried about what other people think – from the outside, all babies look the same, and so do their parents. My identity isn’t dependent on where I live or what job I do; it’s defined by my role as a father. I’m happy about that. I don’t feel I need to impress anyone anymore. It probably looks like the baby is the only thing on my mind and most of the time that’s true. Father of 1 child, age 38. 

I work in an IT customer service department where we have to deal with people all day long. I bring some of those daily influences when dealing with my children. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. There are no set of rules one can apply, I cannot put the knowledge I have gained outside of my family structure and apply them to my children. I can bring knowledge and discipline as a father, but implementing this is a difficult task.

I have a strong-headed girl, she has known what she has wanted since she was three years old. My boy also cannot be persuaded, but he will eventually do as I have suggested half an hour earlier. So, in the end, it’s a compromise. Children have their own personalities and as a father, I have experience and knowledge, so we have to do some trading. Give and take is the best policy.

My life outside the family is usually in the head. It is the outlook of one’s life and individual experiences; this is the core of the making of personality. What I have learned? What is good social behaviour and what is bad; values of life; friendship; value of money and moral values – all these affect my judgement when I am having discussions with my children. Father of 2 children, age 50. 

Working culture is sometimes an odd thing. Having a child has definitely made me work harder. It has also influenced my perception of the day-to-day. Clients can get so irritable about menial day-to-day problems and business issues. Since Red’s been around, I’ve had a much clearer idea of what it is that really matters. And it’s a nice simple, easy-to-grasp kind of philosophy. It makes the working day even easier to deal with and home life even more enjoyable. Angry and irritable customers need to spend more time with a small person and have a laugh with them. They might then discover what we’re all here for. Father of 1 child, age 29.