When is a dad not a dad? 

This question has bugged me for years now, but I guess that perhaps that’s normal – particularly as someone who lives in the shadow of divorce and the endless ritual of weekend ‘appointments’ with my children. 

Once upon a time, I never would have given it a second thought.  I had always ‘been there’ and simply assumed that I would always be captain of the ship that steered these young lives towards adulthood.

I never once thought, back in the day, that we would end up shipwrecked.  I never imagined, washed up on the shores of a strange land, how everything I had taken for granted would be challenged.

So what makes a dad?

Do we lay claim to this honorable role by virtue of our biological connection to these young lives?  Do we command their love as a by-product of what we do – day after day, year after year?  Are we, in other words, as uniquely important to our children as we like to imagine?  Or can anyone with the right level of commitment and dedication lay claim to the paternal wheel?

Philosophers have argued this point – albeit at a higher level – for centuries.  It’s called the old doing versus being chestnut.

In 1995, a better man than me, Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French Elle and the father of two young children, found himself completely paralysed, speechless and only able to move one eyelid.  With his eyelid he ‘dictated’ a remarkable book that reflects deeply on the question on what it means to be human – and what it means to be a dad.

Describing himself as ‘something of a zombie father’, Bauby gives us a deeply moving account of his Father’s Day meeting with his children, Théophile and Céleste.

“As he walks, Théophile dabs a Kleenex at the thread of saliva escaping my closed lips.  His movements are tentative, at once tender and fearful, as if he were dealing with an unpredictable animal.  As soon as we slow down, Céleste cradles my head in her bare arms, covers my forehead with noisy kisses and says over and over, ‘You’re my dad, you’re my dad,’ as if in incantation.

… Until my stroke we had felt no need to fit this made-up holiday into our emotional calendar.  But this time we spend the whole of our symbolic day together, affirming that even a rough sketch, a shadow, a tiny fragment of a dad is still a dad.” (The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly, 1997)

It is hard to imagine the depth of feeling and haunting sense of loss that lies between the lines.  And tragically, there were no more Father’s Days for this family to celebrate as, two days after the publication of his memoir, Bauby passed away.

So what does make a dad?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that there are no easy answers – no one-fits-all recipe for this ‘parenting game’.  But one thing I can say for sure is that Bauby got it right - a tiny fragment of a dad is still a dad.

Even if all we can do is tell our children how much we love them with the blink of one eye.

Have you spotted the pattern yet? 

Launching their careers in a blaze of sexual appeal, social angst and rebellion against the status quo, there comes a time when almost every male performing artist will decide to give up the campaign and travel upon a more reflective path.

More often than not, the experience of becoming a dad is the turning point; opening up a whole new world of vulnerability, responsibility and emotional turmoil that is just too good not to sing about.

There are lots of great examples out there to choose from.  Who can forget Cat Steven’s melody of advice from a father to his son?

It's not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to go through.
Find a girl, settle down,
if you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

And if that isn’t to your musical taste, you really can’t go wrong with Sting.  He has an uncanny ability to capture those everyday parenting moments in haunting, harmonious lyrics:  

Hush child,
Let your mommy sleep into the night until we rise
Hush child,
Let me soothe the shining tears that gather in your eyes
Hush child,
I won't leave I'll stay with you to cross this Bridge of Sighs
Hush child,
I can help the look of accusation in your eyes
In your eyes

French singer-songwriter, Pascal Obispo, got in on the act too with his smash hit, Millésime, following the birth of his child, drawing parallels between fatherhood and the producing great wine:

Tu es mon millésime
Ma plus belle année
Pour ce bonheur en prime
Que tu m'a donné
Je suis à jamais ta terre
C'est ça être père

You get the picture.  And most of us dads will, at some time or another, have been moved – perhaps even to tears – as these poetic portrayals of parenthood resonate with our own stories and bring meaning to the father we are and the father we are trying to be.

Watching Peter Andre on the television this week, however, I saw another variation on this rather lucrative theme.  Somehow, though, I felt that what I was watching was a far less glamorous, far more complex, dramatization of what it means to be a dad these days.

As if anyone didn’t know, the celebrity Couple that was Peter Andre and Katie Price split up earlier this year.  Those of us who might have enjoyed watching (even making fun of) their media-obsessed relationship over the years suddenly found ourselves watching a very different kind of drama: divorce TV. 

We were into a new kind of story with complex human themes emerging.  And at the heart of the story, a song that somehow seemed to capture the pain and deep, deep irony of the whole situation - a love song of unconditional love, written by a dad for a child that, since the split, was no longer considered his ‘own’.

It’s not the best song in the world and certainly may not be to everyone’s taste, but personally I respect the fact that Peter Andre is prepared to wear his heart on his sleeve:

I was already there, just in another place
Destiny had brought us face to face
What I didn't realize, how you'd change my life
Turning from a boy to a man, becoming a father before I became a dad
I wish I was there for your first breath
I wish I'd have held you for your first step
But I'm here now…

The message of the song is clear.  Here is a man who has stepped into the role of ‘dad’ for a child who faced many challenges ahead and desperately needed any kind of unconditional love.  It was a fairytale, from beginning to end.

Yet divorce always betrays the fairytale as a myth.

I have to be honest.  Watching Peter Andre record the video for this latest song on TV this week, I was struck by a man who seemed not to be your average ‘pop star’ but a man on a journey; a step-dad, struggling with the fact that the child he had come to love as his own was no longer present in his life as before.

Being a dad is tough.  We all know that.  Being a step-dad is tougher.  A lot of us know how challenging that can be.  But being a step-dad to a child in the context of a relationship breakdown is perhaps the toughest job of all.

And in that sense, I think Peter Andre happens to be doing pretty well.