Fatherly feelings to the fore

Press, 22 June 1981, Page 14

Fatherly feelings to the fore

Paul Levy, of the ‘Observer’ tells an old husband’s tale

To the alarm of hr r doctors at John Radcliffe Hospital at Oxford. my seriously pregnant wife insists on driving herself to London every Wednesday afternoon for antenatal classes. It is not that she is spurning the superb local services, but. that she is yet another convert to the school of Betty Parsons. We find ourselves embarking on parenthood gingerly, as suits our advanced ages. We are both a little antique to be having a first child now, though there are definite advantages in my wife being prima gravida geriatrica.

However, the disadvantages are great, too. We are both appallingly ignorant about the birds and bees, and the country matters most philoprogenitive friends of our age take for granted., So Betty Parsons has become the person who not only teaches my wife her

breathing exercises, but who also dispels old wives’ tales, imparts more recent medical lore and gives the precious gift of reassurance. And now she does the same for me. I haven’t yet suffered the ideal of going to Betty Parsons’s “Fathers’. Evening,” but I shall take it in good part when my number comes up. as I feel I am already acquainted with the lady. . .

It took me less than an hour to read Betty Parsons’s “The Expectant Father” (Quartermaine House, £1.95), which she subtitles “a practical guide to pregnancy, and childbirth for the anxious man.” Now, I am not exactly anxious—in fact, I probably appear insouciant But I am obliged (if a little chagrined) to admit that, before reading this thin paperback, my knowledge of obstetrics was a little elementary. I know now what the placenta is and does, and my conception of the process of labour is a good deal less fuzzy. ' So lam less likely to panic at the first contraction. No, I’m really not “anxious.’’ But I cannot deny that' Mel Caiman's nervous illustrations to Betty Parson’s book do convey some truth about my condition.