Does your idea of quality time entail spending hours tinkeringunder the bonnet of your pride and joy, unmolested by such outsideinfluences as family, friends or even football?
Then you probably possess a Haynes Owners Manual, the Bible ofthe car enthusiast.
Generations of amateur mechanics have grown up with theseindispensable books. And, although many of them will have cherishedand loved their cars like newborn babies, it's unfortunately often adifferent matter when it comes to the real thing. Sad though it isto have to say it, but millions of so-called modern men stillwouldn't know one end of a child from the other, which can lead tosome pretty unfortunate consequences, one imagines.
Cars and babies do have many parallels however. They both needfeeding and washing, they can't go anywhere without you, they'redamned expensive to run, they can bring you previously untold joyand they'll all break your heart eventually.
Until now. For those clever people at Haynes have come to therescue with an Owners Manual for bewildered fathers. It's written bythe president of the British Men's Health Forum, Dr Ian Banks, whoalso penned last year's best-selling Haynes handbook, Man. Banks, afather-of-four, describes it as "a bit of a joke", but with aserious, practical side to it. Rather than take the New Man approachto fatherhood, it goes straight to the nuts and bolts of thephysical workings of the infant human.
Banks's book will not tell you how to ensure your offspring is aperfectly emotionally balanced model of serenity or a child prodigywith a penchant for Mahler. It will, however, provide a step-by-step guide to coping with a plethora of everyday baby ills, fromcradle cap to itchy feet and all the other stuff in between.
"I don't want to make dads experts in baby talk or the variouscures for nappy rash," says Banks. "I want to give them handy tipsthat will help them cope, not turn them into virtual mothers. Themessage is they can play a fuller part in caring for baby withouthaving to hang their masculinity on a hook." Well, that's a relief,eh?
Putting the 'man' in 'manual'Does your idea of quality time entail spending hours tinkeringunder the bonnet of your pride and joy, unmolested by such outsideinfluences as family, friends or even football?
Then you probably possess a Haynes Owners Manual, the Bible ofthe car enthusiast.
Generations of amateur mechanics have grown up with theseindispensable books. And, although many of them will have cherishedand loved their cars like newborn babies, it's unfortunately often adifferent matter when it comes to the real thing. Sad though it isto have to say it, but millions of so-called modern men stillwouldn't know one end of a child from the other, which can lead tosome pretty unfortunate consequences, one imagines.
Cars and babies do have many parallels however. They both needfeeding and washing, they can't go anywhere without you, they'redamned expensive to run, they can bring you previously untold joyand they'll all break your heart eventually.
Until now. For those clever people at Haynes have come to therescue with an Owners Manual for bewildered fathers. It's written bythe president of the British Men's Health Forum, Dr Ian Banks, whoalso penned last year's best-selling Haynes handbook, Man. Banks, afather-of-four, describes it as "a bit of a joke", but with aserious, practical side to it. Rather than take the New Man approachto fatherhood, it goes straight to the nuts and bolts of thephysical workings of the infant human.
Banks's book will not tell you how to ensure your offspring is aperfectly emotionally balanced model of serenity or a child prodigywith a penchant for Mahler. It will, however, provide a step-by-step guide to coping with a plethora of everyday baby ills, fromcradle cap to itchy feet and all the other stuff in between.
"I don't want to make dads experts in baby talk or the variouscures for nappy rash," says Banks. "I want to give them handy tipsthat will help them cope, not turn them into virtual mothers. Themessage is they can play a fuller part in caring for baby withouthaving to hang their masculinity on a hook." Well, that's a relief,eh?
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