It’s official: nearly half of UK dads don’t get back from work until after their sprogs get to bed. The Daily Mail today put this down to the frantic pace of modern life.
However, most fathers know the real reason why they’re not around to put their little ones in their cots; putting a child down is an ugly, drawn-out process with more noise and bodily fluids that a man is designed to take with any number of permutations of the following: food, cry, bath, shit, cry, change, cry, bottle, cry, sick, cry, cry, cry.
And what could be better than avoiding the insanity than ‘not being able’ to get back from work on time. For some dads, they really cannot break the chains of their desk, and for them, perhaps, bedtime may sound like a nice prospect, but for most, it’s all about displacement activities- the most popular of which are as follows:
1. Stopping in a pub for a pint and a quick read of the paper (the alcohol quickly soaks up any sense of guilt that they might have felt)
2. Parking the car down the road from their houses and having a quick cat nap (finally they understand why Classic FM exists).
3. Walking home instead of driving (The further they live from work, the more dad time they get).
4. Arranging all business meetings to begin at 5pm (It may piss their colleagues off, but by hell, is it worth it)
