Editorial: The day for all fathers

So what does it mean to be a dad? As we arrive at Father's Day it is a question worth pondering. It is a long time since those old TV comedies (tragedies?) depicted new fathers pacing nervously in the hospital waiting room while their child was born, and finding out whether they had a boy or a girl only when the doctor popped their head in to make the grand announcement. Thankfully such scenes are now ancient history. Fathers make it a priority to be present at the birth, and their lives are immeasurably enriched by the experience. Of course that is just the beginning of the journey of fatherhood. Ask anybody who has navigated that journey and you will find it is a combination of challenging, worrying, demanding, rewarding, exhilarating, terrifying, funny, poignant, fascinating, and unforgettable. And ultimately one of the best things you will ever do. A child's needs change over time and that brings different parental responses into play. Eventually it means realising that precious and fragile little baby is now a fully grown adult and it is time to let go. It is a journey which Adrian Barich, Channel 7 sports presenter and a columnist for STM, reflects on in the magazine today. Barich always knew he wanted to be a father, and is now dad to Madi and Tom. He reflects now that he and wife Jodie could have welcomed a few more. The first time around — he was 31 when Madi burst into their world — he had the same doubts as most to-be dads. 'Do I even know what I'm doing?,' he remembers stressing. 'Am I going to be able to do this? But then you think, I'm not exactly inventing the wheel. It has been done a few times before.' 'You realise why everyone's so passionate about it,' he says. 'How small the humans are and how they end up becoming big, great giants — like Tom.' One parenting rule he set was as much for himself as it was for his kids: don't live your life through them. The hardest part of parenting turned out to be the part he knows matters most: letting the kids go and encouraging them to forge their own path. 'You know it's the right thing to do, but you don't really want to do it,' he says. It arrives in instalments, he says — the first time they took the car on the freeway on their own, the first overseas trip without him. He says he spent the latter more or less praying the entire time. 'You think you're never going to see them again,' he says. 'You're not ready for that letting go.' 'If it was up to me, I'd live with them (the kids) for the rest of my life,' he laughs. 'But I know deep down my role is to release them, to build them up and give them all the tools they need and then at some stage you have to let them go.' There are plenty of ways to celebrate Father's Day. But ask most dads across Perth and you are likely to find what they would like most is just to spend some precious time with the kids enjoying a slice of family life.