Far from the traditional caricature of being lazy, disinterested parents, modern-day dads want to just as involved in bringing up baby as mums. With that in mind, Han-Son Lee, founder of leading millennial dads parenting website DaddiLife.com, has just published a comprehensive guide for new dads and dads-to-be: You’re Going to Be A Dad! The New Dad’s Guide to Pregnancy and the First Year of Fatherhood.
To mark its publication, we spoke to Han-Son, himself a proud parent, about the book and why it will help both men and women become the best parenting teams.
Q. How would you sum up your new book, You’re Going to Be A Dad! The New Dad’s Guide to Pregnancy and the First Year of Fatherhood?
A. Modern dads are equal parents and want to be told more than just ‘don’t forget to put the beers away’. This book is a result of five years’ understanding dads and their challenges, offering fresh insights from 50 in-depth dad interviews and a week-by-week overview of pregnancy, covering all the essentials from bump to baby through to baby’s first year.
Q. Your new book is deliberately different from other dads’ parenting guides. How would you describe most books aimed at new fathers, and why did you decide to go in a different direction?
A. Dads are certainly going through a generational shift when it comes to their day-to-day parenting. We’re becoming more equalised across all the different parental tasks, and fundamentally being actively involved right across every aspect of our children’s lives.
This is a radical departure from an image and perception of dads which is decades, even centuries, old—where dad’s were expected to ‘just be at work ’while mums did the vast majority of the parenting. This very traditional ‘black and white ’split of work and parenting means that images of dads coming home, expecting dinner on the table, and giving their children a pat on the head before curling up on their favourite armchair have stuck around as a stereotype for far too long.
In reality, the experience of modern-day dads is a total opposite of the perception of being a secondary parent. Dads in the DaddiLife community and beyond are active, involved and every bit as involved as their partners. Many still have the same struggles as their partners do at work, too.
Unfortunately though, many of the dad books available still treat dads as a secondary parent, and we needed to move away from that, and into a guide that not only reflects dad as an equal partner, but also one who has his own challenges and issues that we want to go beyond the surface level of.
Q. Your new book is obvious intended for new dads, but how can new mums benefit from it as well?
A. The book is fundamentally about how dads and mums can be one team throughout. We first look at the science of what mum is going through, from a dad’s perspective, and also cover dads’ own psychology and a number of helpful insights from our interviews with over 50 dads worldwide.
Q. Your book is the culmination of many years’ research. Can you explain more about the research you and the DaddiLife team conducted for the book, and why this was important?
A. We’ve interviewed dads every year at DaddiLife—for their experiences at home, at work and beyond. We’ve interviewed nearly 5,000 in the last few years, and have included quotes and insights in the book from over 50 dads’ interviews to show just how diverse early-stage fatherhood is.
Q. The new book goes step-by-step through the whole of the pregnancy, and beyond up to the end of baby’s first year. Why will learning so much about their partner’s pregnancy, and child’s development, help new dads become better fathers?
A. It provides a much more rounded view of all the key things going on for him, as well as those around him.
Q. This is your first book, and also the first publication from DaddiLife. What has the feedback been like so far?
A. It’s been so, so well received and we’ve heard a number of stories around how its helped dads already.
Q. It is not uncommon for new dads to suffer from post-partum depression, although they are less likely to speak openly with their partner about this. What signs should women look for, and how can they best help a partner in this situation?
A. In our interviews with over 50 new dads and dads-to-be, it’s clear that dads go through so much more under the surface than many see (and where many other dad books don’t go beyond, either). But dads struggle to be truly open with their feelings and what they may be going through.
As an example of that, many of the dads we spoke to discussed times in the pregnancy and the first year with their new babies where they struggled. Many struggled with severe anxieties and many had signs of post-partum depression, but those same dads also felt that they didn’t ‘deserve ’to feel the way they did because it was mum who’d done all the ‘hard work’.’But what was interesting was that once they opened up to their partners, they were all relieved that their partners were nothing but supportive, and it made for much stronger relationships with them, too.
When dads are visibly more reserved, and perhaps quieter than usual, it is often a clear sign, and likewise when dads seem more irritable than usual. It’s hard to distinguish PPD from baby blues, so if you do notice it, just a conversation starter of ‘Is everything OK?’ can usually be such a welcome question.
Q. You are the founder of online parenting hub DaddiLife. Why did you decide to launch the site, and how is it doing today?
A. I started DaddiLife because when I became a dad everywhere I went online seemed very much like a mum’s world. There are over a million mum blogs and yet only still a relative handful of dad ones.
DaddiLife started as a small online community of like-minded, modern-day dads. It’s since grown to be one of the largest platforms for fathers anywhere in the world. The community are active daily, and the website covers a huge range of topics and areas—all written for dads, by dads.
We have over 150,000 dads in the community and continue to work with like-minded partners to expand the dad voice.
Q. You interviewed more than 50 first-time dads for the book to learn more about what they would do differently the next time round. What was the most common response you found?
A. The thing that was so refreshing was that there wasn’t a common response. We’ve interviewed dads of twins, dads who have been through IVF, as well as a variety of other backgrounds. We’ve covered a range of areas from mental health through to sympathy pains, post-partum, partner support and so much more. But each insight is split into the relevant part of the pregnancy/first year journey.
Q. Your book is the first to take in the impact of Covid. How do you see the virus changing parenting, and how can couples best prepare for this?
A. The Covid-19 pandemic has only accelerated what started a decade ago.
With many families new and old being forced to reassess their own work/life routines, many new fathers have reported just how much they’ve enjoyed being able to work with their partners to establish routines that means for an even more equalised role—particularly with younger children.
So whether that’s splitting up the work day, or taking on certain morning or evening ‘shifts’, more dads have had a chance to experience and own their new work/life routines with their families.
It hasn’t been perfect for many, and the tension for parents with older children (school age upwards) of home-schooling and the like has created much more tension for some families, but dads on the whole have got to experience and own so much more of their new family dynamic—and many are wanting to retain some form of that structure moving forward post lockdowns.
It’s also no coincidence that in the UK there’s now an estimated 250,000 stay-at-home dads—a huge rise of around 20% of that just in the last decade or so. Covid-19, and the long-term effects of it, will likely accelerate that even further.
You’re Going to Be A Dad! The New Dad’s Guide to Pregnancy and the First Year of Fatherhood by Han-Son Lee and published through DaddiLife Books is out now on Amazon in Paperback and eBook formats, priced £11.99 and £8.99 respectively. Visit www.DaddiLife.com.
Tagged in Parenting