Bad Dad Blues

How a completely unprepared man managed to wing raising three kids

For the last few weeks, my inbox has been filled with Tales from The Tunnel: dads relieved to hear that things will be changing soon, some wondering if they’re ready to venture in for the first time, others coming out of the darkness and wondering whether to head back in for a second, third or even fourth time. This week’s essay is from Shihab S Joi, author of the Fallen Muslim newsletter, who reflects on raising two children during his hazy party days before heading back for a third bite of the cherry.

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L-R: Leela (9), Maiya (27), Shihab and Otis (20)

I’ve often felt like a fraud.

That’s not to say I am one. Genuine fraudsters have plans. I’ve somehow stumbled along, blagging it. If you lined up all my friends in the mid-nineties and asked which one was best equipped for impending fatherhood, the correct answer would be “none.” But I was easily the one most detached from responsibility.

In 1995, at the age of twenty-three, the girl I was starring in a play with fell pregnant. I didn’t do the “get rid of it” thing that stoners who can’t handle reality do. It happened to two of my best friends at university and the lesson everyone learned was to back off and let her decide. Enlightenment, however, did not stretch to wearing condoms.

Amanda was seven years older than me—she’d done the yuppie city slicker thing and was all set to embrace the spirit of Brighton hedonism when we met. I was meant to be the gateway boyfriend. Her Daily Mail-reading mother—who had no qualms about pointing out I was exactly what she feared when her daughter quit the city for the sea—was the first to suggest I get a job. The only people I knew who worked were actors, and they had no money; and the only people I knew who had money were dealing drugs, which wasn’t a job.

“I could work in a video shop?” I romanticised the notion of working at Flixx, telling people Predator 2 isn’t as bad as you might think. So what if I’d never had a job before? How hard could it be? I strutted into Flixx, bursting with conviction and bubble gum—who needs a CV when you’ve got a smile this cheeky? The guy living my dream behind the counter took down my name, my address, then informed me I had several unpaid late fees and an unreturned copy of Bright Lights, Big Titties.¹

Out of options and desperate, I turned to my mother. All she wanted to talk about since I graduated was the why and when of employment—maybe she had a how. Plus, I’d have to break the news sooner or later that I was going to have a baby, jobless, out of wedlock, to a white woman seven years older than me. She got me a job at a British Asian newspaper and I spent my days writing about all the wild things British Asians got up to.

And so, armed with my first ever paycheque, we had our daughter Maiya. Let’s cut the crap here—Amanda had Maiya. All I did was celebrate. A massive bender was called for—I hear they call them “dadchelor parties” these days. Mine went on for around fifteen years. My thinking was: “I’m twenty-three. If I let fatherhood turn me into a, well, father, I might end up resenting this bundle of fluff,” so I balanced my time between work and party in London by week, and friends and party at the weekend. Maiya was practically raised in pubs, festivals and parked up in rave cloakrooms. I’m talking crap again, of course. A lot of raves didn’t have cloakrooms.

It’s no overstatement to say Maiya saved my life. Some of my best friends went down the rabbit hole of addiction, but my need to buy her things to compensate for not being there necessitated that I stuck at my job. The combination of leaving parties at 5 am to be bright and playful for when she woke up with weekly deadlines that had me stuck in an office for forty-hour shifts meant I couldn’t put in the hours it would take to get properly hooked. Maiya gave me a purpose, a point: to see things more clearly through the passing joints raised like mountains in the fog.

Seven years after she was born, Amanda and I were going through a good patch in an on/off relationship where the off kept wondering why it was placed second, seeing as how—both alphabetically and realistically—it ran the show. But Amanda and I accepted that when it comes to raising a kid it’s sometimes good to stick to the proper order of things. “I want another baby,” she announced. “You’re a wanker, but I’d rather not have two different wankers to deal with, especially when there’s no guarantee the other one will be as good a dad as you.” It was too much of a melange of passive aggressive, manipulative and complimentary for me to refuse.

And so Otis came to pass. It was a joyous time. And then I went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like having an affair with a girl a dozen years younger than me. The upshot of that being I was a shit dad to Otis. Texting reassurances to my girlfriend at the same time as fending off accusations from the mother of my children while ignoring my little boy pleading, “Play?” will haunt me for the rest of my life.

If I thought I had the fatherhood thing sussed with the girl, the boy made me realise just how much I’d blagged it the first time around. I put the hours in when I could, with many levels crossed on platformers and shoot ‘em ups, movies watched, cartoons drawn, songs sung, software downloaded, clips uploaded. There was this one time we even had a conversation. When the time comes for him to evaluate his childhood and my role in it, only he'll know whether any of that’s been enough. I’m braced for the “you weren’t there” chat, and I’ll let him come at me with all guns blazing. That Otis is a non-confrontational introvert doesn't make things easy either. We talk a lot in our family and get in each other’s faces. When someone doesn’t, our instinct is to suspect something’s wrong or fear a secret plot is being hatched. Most of the altercations between us have arisen from me reacting to what I imagine Otis was thinking, then me defending myself, sometimes in an empty room.

Things improved once I met my now wife Priya, who welcomed Maiya and Otis with open arms, free as she was of the jealousy my younger ex felt towards my children. This meant I could stop feeling like I was leading a double life and start acting like a family again. Both kids were big fans of Priya, respectively playing bridesmaid and ring bearer at our wedding, and the welcoming loveliness of our home in Brighton helped to repair the tatters of our time together in the break-up years. When Priya fell pregnant, I feared the delicate relationship between father and children could fracture at the drop of a baby, but my kids took the news of another Joi joining their ranks admirably well.

“As long as you don’t treat her as your favourite,” Otis warned casually.

Maiya and I agreed when Otis was born never to have a favourite. It was easy, given my experience of never being picked as anyone’s favourite in my family. Muslims openly express a preference for their favourite family member, with no thought to how the lower ranking might mess with the other kids’ heads. My mum used to introduce my brother Pertho and me by saying, ‘Meet my son Pertho.’

How did my older two feel about me going from freelance father to full-time dad, I wondered? “We got the fun you,” Maiya was kind enough to start with. “You didn’t do the stressy school run, make us eat salad, take us to swimming class, or come to parents’ meetings or…” I gestured I got it, but she continued, “‘...turn up on sports day, sort out playdates with other parents, or make us go to bed on time.

Then, as Maiya turned 18 and Otis 13, we moved to a little village in the arse-end of France after my wife got a high-flying job across the border in Geneva. I became the primary carer for baby Leela. Raising her in a village without a pub, no friends and an Internet connection so slow I could imagine tortoises crawling by giving me the “wanker” hand signal, I raised this one properly. Games, stories, lessons, conversations, all passed on soberly from 6 am to 7 pm for four years before she started school. That little girl, now nine years old, worships the ground beneath my feet.

Maiya was fine with me giving the new arrival my full attention. She was off to university with a boyfriend she went on to marry, and I was no longer the main man in her life. Otis, not so much. I had him over in France or stayed in an Airbnb in Brighton over the holidays, and they rarely went well. He was distant, uncommunicative, unreasonable—as much a nightmare as any other freshly-turned teenager. Many a visit would be spent with each of us in different rooms. But then Priya gave me what has to be the best advice an absentee father of a teen can get:

“Stop trying to Dad him your way. He has every right to be angry that you’ve never been around. If you want to connect with him, stop pushing and start listening. Find out what he wants!”

And so I did. I took an active interest in his world, things I’d previously dismissed as bollocks—trading cards, Manga, money-sucking mobile games, endless YouTube videos of people playing said games. But there was also a love of hip-hop—I would find out years later he was into it because I used to play it all the time when he was a nipper. I took him to terrible events hosted by YouTubers and anime stars, and—the point where we really connected—to see Eminem at Reading Festival when he turned 15.

Standing awkwardly at the back, he was visibly impressed when I dragged him to the front: Watch and learn, kid; this is my world. We talked girls, I let him swig on my beer, and he started to see me as what I am—a Fun Guy, so much better than a Shit Dad.  We haven’t fought since. A testament to our relationship? On his 18th birthday he designed tattoos for both of us to wear on our ankles: a Super Mario mystery box that reminds him of the games we used to play, back when he didn’t expect me to be any better.

Maiya is now 27, and Otis is 20. They still buy me that World’s Greatest Daddy mug every year. We spent last Christmas and New Year all together in India. They insist we go on a family holiday at least once a year—where they love nothing more than regaling little Leela with stories about their old man, leaving the three of them rolling on the floor laughing at my expense.

I don’t know how, but I must’ve done something right.

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3 things to read this week

1. “What The Evidence Really Says About Social Media’s Impact On Teen’s Mental Health” by Eric Levitz in Vox. You’ll have to have been living under a rock to have missed the relentless coverage of The Anxious Generation, the new book from Jonathan Haidt on smartphone and social media usage in teens throughout the Western world. It’s a complex topic, and the fallout from the book release has led to less, rather than more, clarity. Some accuse Haidt of “fueling moral panic”, whilst others—primarily those who live with teens—are relieved someone is finally ringing the alarm. This Vox piece cites several research papers whilst diving deeper into the points raised in Haidt’s book. Spoiler alert—it ends on a very unsatisfactory “Yes—phones are bad, probably not as bad as Haidt says, but we still don’t know for sure.”

2. “South Korean Company Offers $75,000 Baby Bonus Amid Population Crisis” by Micah McCartney in Newsweek. Babies—they’re kinda expensive! But what if having a kid could net you a solid nest egg? In South Korea, the number of expected babies per fertile woman is now down to 0.72, far below the replacement rate of 2.1, which is needed to sustain economic growth and a healthy economy. Local businesses have taken matters into their own hands, offering potential mums and dads a $75,000 bonus for each and every child they have. Nice work if you can get it.

3. “Bluey Gives Us a Sign” by Kathryn Van Arendonk in Vulture. By now, I’m sure you’ve seen “The Sign”, the epic 28-minute-long episode of Bluey that showed us the past, present, and future of a show we all adore. In a 2021 interview, creator Joe Brumm explained how the child actors who voice Bluey and Bingo—uncredited to protect their anonymity—are growing older; their changing voices making it impossible for the series to carry on forever in its current guise. The final episode of the season, “Surprise,” gave us some indication as to the future of a show—with a “who’s the daddy” conundrum that might keep Jerry Springer on the edge of his seat. “Maybe there’s a way through it, and I’m sure there is,” Brumm said, “but rather than pushing forward, it’s got to feel right creatively.” Roll on season four!

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Good Dadvice

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That’s it for this week. I’m halfway through a ten-day stint of solo parenting, which I’m sure I’ll write about sometime soon. So far, so good, although one dad in the community suggested “maybe they’re lulling you into a false sense of security before the weekend.” That hadn’t even crossed my mind. Thanks, I hate it.

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1. Editor note: I fact-checked this article. It turns out this is actually a movie from 1988. Who knew?