How my Early Years experience prepared me for fatherhood
Having worked in early years for over 12 years, I wanted to share the experience I have as being a man in childcare and how it prepared me for fatherhood.
Men make up just 3% of the entire early years workforce in the UK. It can be isolating, lonely, and the profession seen as a ‘female orientated’. However, I have loved every minute and found working in early years to have so many benefits.Here, I look at the impact that working in early years has had on my own parenting.
One of the biggest decisions we make in life, is having a child. It changes the dynamic of relationships, finances, time management to name but a few. The dialogue, whether it be internalized or between a couple, questions like ‘is now the right time?’ (spoiler, there’s never a right time), ‘are we ready?’ and the greatest of questions – ‘are we cut out for it?’
Preparation for the ultimate test can never really be contextualised, until you step foot outside of the hospital’s ever revolving doors, and you look back to watch the comfort blanket of the health care service drift away. Then the world stops for that moment and the realization hits – that small, perfect child sitting fast asleep in the car seat is your responsibility and the rollercoaster of life propels you headlong into twists, turns and ultimately Fatherhood.
Luckily for me, the preparation process for fatherhood started 8 years prior to the birth of my son. My career in early years has been varied, going from early years practitioner, forest school leader, early years teacher and eventually manager before joining North Tyneside Council. The firsthand experience and knowledge has given me the opportunity to apply this to my everyday life as a father. I would often call this ‘life experience’. Before entering the world of Early Years, I’d never changed a nappy, I was unconfident around babies and had never even simply played with a child on their level. I had young cousins, but they lived far away, so when first stepping foot in an early years setting back in 2012, I was going in blind.
My first impressions were negative. I remember feeling lost, almost isolated. I trained as a primary school teacher and didn’t truly understand what it was like to work in early years. I began working in the toddler room, which felt a world way from a key stage 1 classroom. The realization hit, when I was stood motionless in the middle of the room with 20 children running around. Staff who are passive soon get found out, so I had to learn and fast. Although I lacked confidence, I ensured that I observed the experienced members of staff at work, and how they engaged. After a short period of time, I remember my room leader saying, “you’re one of the experienced members of the team now”, not just an indication of the prolific staff turnaround, but a complimentary nod to how I had quietly transformed into an early years practitioner.
One of those questions while preparing fatherhood, is what type of father they will be. Perhaps outdoorsy? Sporty?
Cerebral? Will there be a strict routine or free-flowing? Are you going to be risk averse or managed? These are all questions we face, and we don’t truly know the answer until we are in the now and then.
In my own vision of being a father, I considered myself as being a more cerebral idealist, teaching my child the ins and outs of the world through literature. However, having spent a large proportion of my career as a forest school leader and, outside in the woods, I found that I was far more outdoorsy than I could ever have expected. Looking back, this was unsurprising and maybe subconscious, as I spent most of my youth being outside playing football, on a bike or in woodland. What early years did give me, was the knowledge and confidence to manage controlled risk – explaining to someone the benefits of climbing a tree several metres in the air or using a bow saw to cut wood, often results in utter disbelief.
I’ve used my ‘life experience’ from nursery to scaffold my own parenting and to compliment my wife’s unbelievable maternal instinct. This includes setting up engaging activities, even ‘continuous provision’. The toys and resources that we buy for our son, will often be those I know have been invaluable in a nursery setting.
Although we can learn about behaviour management, the practical experience cannot be replicated. As a man, I’d often be seen by practitioners as the ‘disciplinarian figure’, which was a source of irritation for me because it was far from the truth and unhelpful. Countless times I have heard ‘watch out, here’s Mark’ or ‘Mark’s here now, he’ll tell you’ as a threat of discipline. I cannot stress the importance of positive reinforcement, so if a member of staff did use me as a threat, I’d go down the route of positivity rather than tyranny. I wanted to be a positive role model and demonstrate positive behaviour. Because of this, children tended to gravitate towards me and look to me a strong role model.
From an academic perspective, completing my PGCE, forest school training and early years initial teacher training gave me the knowledge of theorists. Which in turn, gave me the knowledge of brain development from birth to 5 and knowing those first 1000 days are incredibly important. Other aspects, such as Analysing schemas, ways of learning and simply the art of play. I recently completed Solihull Training (I would highly recommend it to anyone), which was a fascinating insight into brain development, parenting techniques and interactions. Something which stood out to me was that the connection between son and father can take a little time, due to the connection that the mother has already established (we also had Covid to contend with, I was a key worker). 9 months in the womb gives them a head start, the nurture process has begun, and it can sometimes leave the father playing catchup. My wife is an incredible mother to our son and their connection was, and still is, extraordinarily strong. I think working in early years gave me the knowledge to truly appreciate this and to understand how to connect with a child.
To summarise, I would always recommend to men work in early years to consider it a career and to gain those invaluable parenting skills before having a child of their own. After all, being a father is no easy task, however I genuinely believe working in early years prior to becoming a parent, equipped me with the tools, confidence and life experiences to prepare for the best and most rewarding role of all – being Dad.
