Hi Sol

The only Qualification anyone needs to write for this site is to be a Father, which would make Scott 'Qualified'.
If more experience is what you are after I am a father of three. I do not doubt Scott’s qualifications; this site came out of there being next to nothing out there for fathers.
The advice Scott gives is just from his own experience, as the site is open to all fathers to share their experience of what has worked for them, or not worked for them.

Thank you for your comment; it is a timely reminder of why DIYFather came about

- Eric

Hey Scott,
I'm not sure you're quite experienced enough to be running this site... you have 1 newborn child. I would like to see some experienced Dad's writing articles... ie have been through the spectrum of fatherhood with great hindsite. I myself have 3 and the first time around is a learning curve, the second time you try a few different things... the 3rd time you have it pretty sorted. I think once you're up to 3 or 4 you're qualified to give advice to others.
Cheers
Sol

Whoa, Lance. Great story. Had me laughing out loud many times :-).

And I bet you felt/feel a whole lot better getting THAT off your chest.

Hey Peter, I wasnt meaning to come across defensive but I must ask the question "Do women think they know more then men in relation to babies and children"? As a SaHD and director of a couple of companies I would like to think that I have a pretty active role in Pypers life, and that I would know just as much or if not more then my wife on certain subjects relating to wellbeing and upbringing.
I guess that was my point to the article even if it was articulated in the best way!

Heya Scott, you seem a little defensive to me. If you thought she was being a tad superior you shoud've taken the opportunity to show how knowledgable you were!
Start spouting off what a crap store this is offering nappies cheap that weren't popular and not having nappies that people really needed etc etc. or whatever. Show off!

I think you missed an opportunity to further the cause for SaHD's.

I normally say this to women, lol, but with the utmost respect, I think ya need ta chill out a bit, mate. She was only trying to help.

Then again you WERE tired and hungry and that can make people grumpy, who am I to judge.

Wow - a kindred spirit!

As I've mentioned once or twice before, I am a dad who spends a lot of his 'off time' with his kids and one who has a wife with her own business, requiring me to spend time on my own with them - including catering to their need to go places and do things (and my own with regard to keeping up my end of the 'home duties').

Supermarkets still appear to be the domain of the woman. Likewise clothing shops, childcare specialist shops (eg: The Baby Factory) and anywhere where a father has to make an informed decision for his youngster and a woman is manning (excuse the vernacular) the counter. I have two girls, so this makes things interesting as women in these positions appear to believe that blokes know NOTHING about little girls' needs, wants or dress sizes and should stick to doing projects with nails in them......

.......like I don't have experience buying for an older model that's just a bit curvier........

However, this story is about Countdown in Papakura (where I live). Now I have been around Countdown multiple times a month and they seem to go through a revamp of their shelving about once every six months or so and a major store refit of some description once every few years. Currently they are performing some MAJOR refit or other and it's causing chaos beyond belief for anyone attempting to find anything they would regularly purchase, but I digress. This story is based the last time they did a refit of their counters and decided to modify where SOME things were, in certain aisles, at the same time.

Like yourself, I was looking for nappies. Like you, there was an excellent special on. However, I had my eldest along with me at the time and she was a reflux baby who would scream blue murder and projectile vomit about 45 minutes after feeding. This continued until she was about 2 years old and still plagues her occasionally now at 6 if she does not drink enough water. It's an historic family ailment - and this particular instance she was 6 months old and the doctors were not listening to us (claiming it was colic or some other incurable minor ailment that they couldn't be bothered spending time on figuring out as they reckoned she would grow out of it). She was also teething at the time and those of you who have not experienced the joys of 'teething poos', you've yet to really live.....

It was a time of hell, but as I did not have one more nappy to put on her backside when she filled the one she was in, I had to go. On my own. And as luck would have it, they ALSO were out of stock of the ones I wanted.

A well meaning shop assistant was alerted to Kristyn's occasional cry of discomfort as she was coming up on the 35 minute mark since her last feed and the joy was beginning. The issue being that the nappy aisle had moved three along and was no longer marked as such and time had marched on regardless of my wishes for it to just stop until I found the things and got safely home again.

The woman asked me if I needed help. I told her I needed nappies. She proceeded to show me the most expensive brand on the shelf and tell me all about it as if I had never seen one before, let alone knew anything about where to put the item on my daughter. This took yet more time.

Kristyn started getting a little more urgent on the reflux front. The matronly soul informed me that she was hungry and needed feeding. I told her that Kristyn had reflux and I needed to make a purchase of the nappies required and get home before things got desperate and could she please have a look out the back for the ones on special that I wanted.

She looked at me as if I had just farted during communion at her wedding and suggested that if things were so desperate that maybe I should just buy the ones she was showing me and go. I exploded. I told her that if her store was in order, aisles were marked accordingly, stock on special was laid out BEFORE it ran out (or an 'out of stock' sign was put up when it wasn't available any more), I could have been in, out and home in the time it had taken me to FIND the aisle - and could have actually done the whole thing twice in the time it had taken for her to tell me crap I already knew and argue with me instead of make it easier.

I preached about the lack of customer service, the ridiculous situation that the stupid supermarket had put me (and other shoppers) in with it's random and illogical stock relocation and the fact that women seem to believe that they know best for a baby they do not know, and even when the father knows more, he is ignored because "Women Know Babies Best". I sermonised about my experiences with blatant feminism and reverse chauvenism and decried the lack of a Mens Liberation Movement through which we would prove ourselves more than equal to the task of raising babies as our partners (among other things). I screamed for her to just do as I asked PLEASE so that I could take my now screaming child home and have a coffee and a smoke before I lost it completely and grabbed the trolley I had in front of me and systematically crashed it into everything that would fall down and break.

She got the message.

When the spots had cleared from in front of my eyes, I was aware of a strange sound that was an undercurrent to the cries of my distressed daughter. It was a standing ovation (although to be fair it could HARDLY be a sitting one) from a group of men, who also had kids in tow, who were standing in front of a group of stunned women and staff members with HUGE grins on their faces.

While the woman was getting my nappies and the men were telling me how much they agreed with my sentiments and were rapt that someone had finally blasted someone on it (and maybe it was the start of something), Kristyn took the opportunity to fill her nappy and began screaming with even more gusto. The woman returned, I grabbed two packs from her arms, turned on my heels, walked toward the counter, was admitted to the front of the queue, paid for them and left.

Just for reference, if you have a baby with a full nappy, hold it up at chest height to carry, instead of leaving it in the stroller. It's AMAZING how many people will let you past and how quickly the teller will ring the items on......

No words were said by any women about anything to do with my outburst, although I did get some pretty disgusted looks from the teller, but that might have been due to the reek emanating from the base of my baby. All the women seemed to recognise a parent on the edge and just got out of my way. Good judgement on their part.

It's the only time I have really let fly at anyone about this disparate bias by the fairer sex toward men and their ability to do anything other than play with their kids or "look after" them for a limited time. I use inverted commas because it appears there is no way they believe that our looking after them is as effective or as good as what they do - like we skimp on it some how.

Since this outburst, I have been known to tell busybodies to mind their own business and remind them that their high-horsed antics are based on their interpretations of a child they know nothing about and to stick to their own families if they want to criticise. On one occasion with one particularly nauseatingly patronising cow, I told her EXACTLY which orifice on her person that she should be inserting the superior tone and denegrating and snide comments she was making about my ability. I then went on to ask her if she would appreciate criticism of her mothering efforts in the same manner.

I AM a father after all. I KNOW what I am doing. We should take on this fact and remind others of this when they criticise. I personally have had enough.