Julian Cole

Here is a question for fathers. Do you consider yourself to be a walking wallet? This description surfaced in one of the Sunday newspapers this week, and it set me thinking.

It may be that your wallet, like that owned by this column, is a battered receptacle containing one dog-eared driving licence, a couple of bank cards, long-forgotten receipts, vitally important addresses scribbled on scraps of paper and never looked at again, an old passport photograph of a female personage known in a marital connection, an anaemic-looking donor card, an RAC card, squash club membership, an old library card... and absolutely no folding money whatsoever.

So perhaps it would be better to think of fatherhood as an empty wallet. But that would not be fair either, as mothers might just as likely respond that their lot is to be nothing other than an unburdened purse.

The walking wallet description comes from the United States, like lots of other phrases with strong legs, and it surfaced as part of a report on a Home Office initiative to help foster a nation of 'actively involved' dads.

New Labour is set to launch a programme called Fathers Direct, which is an odd name for a start, as it sounds like a particularly paternal bank, or possibly an association for the more assertive sort of dad.

The aim is to tackle negative stereotypes of fathers as abusive or uninterested in their children, which is certainly a fine idea, as all too often fathers are forgotten until they are hauled up to be accused of any number of marital offences. Some fathers do go badly wrong, neglecting their families or even inflicting violence on their partners and their own children, which obviously is appalling.

Yet beyond that nasty fringe there are legions of muddling along dads, doing their best to be good fathers, though uncertain of exactly what this entails, as no one ever got round to telling them. It is wrong to moan about the wretched Nintendo being on again? Or to remonstrate about falling over the ten-year-old's trainers, which have been left in the middle of the front room again? Or to chase the children outside into the fresh air (or as fresh as York has to offer)?

Muddling along dads can be found in the park trying to read their newspaper while their offspring do something inadvisable on the swings. Or pulling out what's left of their hair as the children skid on the shiny floor in the supermarket, despite being told not to do this on every single shopping excursion in living memory.

But, then, it's all part of being a dad, a condition which despite everything is much more enjoyable than it is irritating. Once you've stumbled on the chaotic joys of fatherhood you hardly ever yearn for a quieter life, which by now would probably seem rather too quiet.

Fathers Direct will be run for the Home Office by Adrienne Burgess, who says that she intends to "tackle the invisibility of all the good fathering which goes on".

Well, I wouldn't argue with that as such, even if on occasions it's easy to feel as if you are in fact an invisible father, especially when you are trying to communicate with the children when the television is on.

It is possible to worry that the Government is again straying into social engineering, with the intention of turning out on-message dads who do what they are told. Yet a government which did nothing about the family would be guilty of culpable neglect, and dads certainly play an important role.

Two years ago New Labour came to power promising to stick to tough spending limits already set by the Tories.

Now the Tories say that if they are elected, they will match Labour's spending plans on health and education. It's no wonder people sometimes dismiss politics as a cynical and opportunistic line of work.

29/4/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.