How long have you been a father? Was it how you imagined? And has it shifted from having one child to two?

I remember sitting on the steep wooden stairs leading up to the bedroom in the garden shed my parents moved our family of six in to when times were rough. I must've been eight or nine and hadn't experienced the move as a downgrade in any way. Sure, we were wearing extra layers of clothing to keep warm, even indoors, and we took turns bathing in the plastic inflatable swimming pool my mother filled with kettle after kettle of boiling water on sunday nights, but the new abode came with a lot of extra freedom, too. Long summer nights playing in the forest, without supervision, and sneaky visits to the village sweet shop gave those days a golden halo.
I was pondering, as I was sitting on those steep stairs, what kind of man I would become one day. Was I going to grow a beard? Would I wear suits like my grandfather or was I going for the dark denim Canadian tuxedos my dad wore since losing his job at the opera? Everything was so unclear, everything was possible.
One thing I had resigned myself to, was that I probably never was going to be a father. In the years and phases that followed, school, art school, a rock'n'roll life on the road, that resignation remained.

Did my trepidation come from the idea that my own life was too infantile, filled with trivial things like drawings, late nights and pop songs, for me to take up such a monumental responsibility?
All I know is that one evening, in a hotel room, I suddenly realized that I needed to become a father, that this was, as of this moment, a real possibility, a necessity even.
I remember calling my girlfriend to make my big announcement. She has no memory of this event to this day.
A year later our first daughter was born.
I realized with the arrival of this small person that my fears had been about other things. Taking care of my daughter turned out to be something I could do without any effort. Loving her was inevitable. The incapable man child I had imagined myself to be faded into the background, nothing but a clumsy caricature of a male cliché.
Five years later, one month before Covid would put the world on pause, our second child was born. A second child makes fatherhood more like a job, less like a new adventure. It also grounds me like nothing before.

Has having children led you to redefine your sense of yourself? Was there a specific moment you'd like to share when something changed inside you?

I sometimes laugh at how seriously I took myself in my twenties. I had all the time and space in the world to fret about things that weren't real, hadn't happened, would probably never happen. Being a father has cured me of these imagined maladies and fearful daydreams. These days I spend my days making sure my children are okay and the space under their beds remains a monster free zone.

Do you see a difference between fatherhood in your generation and your parents' generation?

One reason I didn't see myself as a father, was that I didn't want to be an absent dad. My father, and many fathers of his generation left the big tasks and important decisions to their wives. As soon as I knew I was going to a father, I knew I wanted to be present. I'm glad to say that I have managed to be a presence in the lives of my children, from the moment they wake up until it's time for a bedtime story.

Do you find parenting is still very gendered in a man-woman couple or have roles changed? Do you feel your role as a father to your children is very different from the role of your wife as a mother?

Many things have changed, when I compare our child raising style to the one of my parents' generation. I'm very involved in everything, from putting on nappies to bathing them, from packing lunch boxes to braiding pony tails. I am, however, not overjoyed to report that much of the managerial tasks such as doctor's appointments, play dates, and official documents are mostly taken care of by my wife.

Has your understanding of masculinity — yours and others — changed from having raised different genders? Was it challenged?

I was secretly thrilled when I learned that both my children were going to be girls. Having been a son all my life, growing up with brothers and the looming presence of a father, left me slightly wary of become a father of sons.

Girls felt easier, somehow, less charged with Freudian heaviness and strife.

When my second child started to identify as a boy, I found out that once again, I had been afraid of nothing but tired clichés and preconceptions. The new and sudden surge of masculinity in our family has turned out to be a wonderful revelation, one that has rejigged my own sense of what it means to be a male presence and role model.