It’s the morning after Australia Day and
I’m walking H in his pram along the path by the beach in Byron Bay. It’s just
on 6am and the sun is coming up, so what sort of people do you think you would
come across? Did I see young partygoers still reveling or people asleep on the
beach?
No I came across a number of Dads doing
exactly what I was doing – pushing their child or children through the first
light of the day. I didn’t see a single mother doing this. H and I walked for
about 45 minutes that morning and I think we saw a dozen different Dads with
strollers. I never really interacted with any of these other men aside from the
‘manly nod’ and a brief greeting of “Morning” or “G’day”. However, I analysed
them all and I passed judgment on them as to why they were out at that time of
the day looking as they did. Many of these Dads looked as if they had enjoyed
Australia Day, probably at one of Byron’s pubs watching the cricket, a little
too much. Now they had the job of walking their child who had been woken early
or had an interrupted night’s sleep because of Dad’s snoring and or late night
partying to give Mum a rest and the chance to catch up on some sleep.
After our walk I got back to the motel room
we had stayed in the night before and woke Sane Mum from her extra slumber. I
went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror and I could have passed
the same judgment upon myself as I had just done on all those other Dads. I was
unshaven, bleary eyed and generally a little disheveled. The thing is I went to
bed at 8pm the night before because we were sharing a room with H and once he
was in bed it meant so were we! Ok I’d had a beer and a glass of wine with my
dinner and I’d checked the cricket score on my phone once about 8:30. This was
as close as I’d come to the big night I’d pictured all these other Dads as
having.
I’d passed my judgments on all these other
Dads by thinking of the stereotype of what they looked like before 7am on the
morning after a public holiday. Was I right about these Dads having had a few
the night before or had they had an enforced early bedtime in a tiny motel room
with kids asleep in travel cots? Having seen how I looked in the mirror that
morning I know I won’t be so quick to pass judgments and label fellow Dads with
stereotypes as I was before.
Now don’t get me started on the two pairs
of legs I saw coming out the windows of a beat up old car down by Byron’s beach…………………..
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