Daddy Cool: 'Middle-class men want it all, just not all of the time'

IT was a lovely scene. A total of 54 adults with sprogs, all bouncing and rhyming at their local library. Ageless, classless, and multi-ethnic childcaring Glasgow. A smattering of grannies, two women in hijabs, several earth mothers - complete with flowing, flowery robes and, it seemed, babies permanently suckling - and a wee lassie with tattooed knuckles. And me of course, the sole representative of maledom.

I wasn't quite sure how to assess my otherness. On arriving, my first thoughts turned to guilt. Over second child syndrome. My boy Corin is new to this yet nearly 11 months. His now four-year-old sister, Sylvie, was a regular on the circuit by then. As these pangs subsided, a certain self-consciousness gripped. I didn't care for looks from the earth mothers. I feared they thought my son was a beard so I could come and watch them getting their baps out. Quickly thinking better of that, honestly, I started feeling rather pleased with myself. What a great guy, what a new man, what a modern dad to brave a female-dominated world for the sake of my child's development. What a tool, I then realised, on replaying my inner thoughts.

I know instincts, feeding and maternity leave make these midweek sessions easier for female parents. The fact more blokes don't go is not for these reasons, or because they might feel they are outsiders. It is because they can't be bothered. And though I enjoy singing nursery rhymes (though I wish in my group they would get that it is "just let your feet go clippity-clop" in Horsey Horsey not "just let the wheels go clippity-clop", aargh!) I'm not all-in when it comes to bringing up our weans and keeping house. I'm not even 50 per cent in, as is true of all the working men with working partners I know.

My wife Sara is completing her PhD. That means her heading to the library three times a week straight from her job that pays better than mine. In turn, I have to pick up the weans from nursery, make their dinner, bath them and put them to bed. Woopy-doo, you might say. Shamefully, I have peeled more potatoes in the past three weeks than my previous 43 years. Pathetically, I have started smoking again, which I gave up at Corin's birth.

The Daily Mail-style dissing of women is that they want it all. That's crap. It is a certain type of middle-class man that does. We want to seem all New Age, all involved in every aspect, all equal. We want it all, then, just not all the time. Not when there are couches to be sat on and backsides to be scratched.

That can hurt with a potato-peeler in your hand, by the way.