JohnMadden's Blog

I wasn't totally paying attention to the argument going on both next to and behind me in the car the other day; I know that AJ was insisting on something, and Mrs. M was insisting that he'd have to wait. After some back and forth AJ gave an exasperated sigh. "Fine," he said in the tone of voice I was expecting to have to wait until his teens to hear. Not ten seconds later, B, the...

Overall, I think I do okay as a dad. I can give advice. I crack jokes that have AJ hyperventilating with laughter and my wife rolling her eyes. I can cook healthy meals and dish out the 'don't tell mum' treats. I occasionally get delusions of being 'cool' when AJ's friends shout "HI AJ'S DAD!" when I drop him at school and birthday parties. There's no...

Not long before my daughter was born I was chatting to someone about cartoons. I'd like to tell you that this was due to us both being parents, but in reality it's where conversations inevitably go when you're in your thirties and nerdy enough to wear superhero t-shirts in public. We'd been comparing notes on what we watched growing up (she's from an entirely different part of...

You can tell when AJ is serious about something when the pencils and paper come out. It doesn't happen often – we're in the midst of a phase where writing and drawing fit squarely into the category of homework, and homework is (I've been told) "lame." But when he has a plan he writes it down. He draws a diagram. And he lets everyone know. In pride of place on one of his bookshelves...

Of all the things I've learned this week, by far the least surprising is that I have a Dad Bod. This isn't surprising because a) I'm a dad and b) I occupy physical space (and therefore have a 'bod'.) But apparently Dad Bod is now a thing and it has its own Twitter hashtag and everything (#dadbod0– I just can't figure out if it's a good thing or not. For those of you...

"Do you at least know what kind of car you're looking for?" Mrs. M sounded understandably exasperated. "Not really," I said, clicking on to the next page of results on the website. "Something cool." In coming to terms with what that second little blue line meant for our family and for our plans, we looked out at our little red hatchback and agreed it had to go. The days when four of us slid...

“You don’t know what you’re in for with three. Three is much harder than two.” “You’ll be grand – the change from one to two is much harder.” Ever since we announced that we were having a third child, pretty much everyone who has been down this road before us has offered one of those pieces of advice. I suspect the ‘three is much harder than two’ crowd are simply out to scare...

It started when I mentioned wanting to go to London. For a few years in my early twenties I’d gone every time I’d accumulated enough for an overnight bus and a bed for a few nights. But life and finances and a back that won’t take the bus anymore had widened the gap between trips until, bar a few hours in the city on a caravan holiday in Kent the previous year, I couldn’t remember when...