The Family Life Of Simon Barnett

By Peter Moore

Sometimes when a celebrity claims to leave a job so they can, “spend more time with the family, ” what they really mean is “my contract didn’t get renewed.” But when Simon Barnett left Telebingo in 1998, there could be no doubt — it really was so he could spend more time with his partner Jody and their two (and now three) daughters.

Peter Moore talked to him.

Some people who go on about the importance of family have trouble remembering their children’s birthdays. Simon, by contrast, not only knows his kids birthdays (he was at each of their births), but he can talk extensively about the pros and cons of the different parenting books and courses he’s read and attended.

The youngest of the Barnett brood, Isabella, was just 12 weeks old when New Father and Child caught up with proud father, Simon. We asked him how he found the experience of her birth.

“I just wouldn’t miss it. It was an amazing time, really… [but] it’s hard watching your partner go through that… But it’s just absolutely miraculous… it just blew me away.”

Simon and Jody decided not to find out the sex of their third baby before it was born. “I was a bit more anxious to find out what sex we were going to have… because we had two girls.

It didn’t bother me at all [that Isabella was a girl]… As long as they’re healthy, that’s the main thing, but I probably checked a bit more closely the third time just to be sure,” he laughed.

The couple is considering a fourth child, but not because they want a son. “Truthfully, it wouldn’t bother me at all if we had a fourth girl… They’re lovely.” If they do decide to go for baby number four, it will be in part because Isabella has tugged on their heartstrings. “She’s so cute… it would be really sad if that’s the last time you see them at that stage.”

Not that fatherhood has always been plain sailing for Simon. “I was so nervous after our first child that I didn’t want Jody to come home from hospital because I knew that as soon as we got home, we got home, we were on our own…

After five days, she was saying “Honey, I’ve gotta come home.” I said, ‘No, I think perhaps if you stay here, that’d be good, for a little bit longer.’ [She replied] ‘I’ve got to come home — they’re telling me I’ve gotta go home.”

Once mother and daughter come home, dad was definitely a concerned father. “The first night [home] Samantha woke up and she was crying and I rang the hospital… at about 1:00 in the morning, and I said, ‘Look, I’m a little bit concerned about my baby’s crying,’ and I held up the phone to Samantha and said, ‘Is that normal?’

They said, ‘that’s perfectly normal, everything’s fine.’ Half an hour later, I rang up and said ‘I spoke to someone before and they said it was normal. I don’t think it’s normal. Have a listen to this,”‘ Simon laughs at the memory. “I was so freaked out! I’m a bit more relaxed, now.”

Sam is now five and her younger sister, Sophie, is three. Simon is pleased to report the sisters have no jealousy of baby Isabella.

“They love Isabella, they just always want to hold her and kiss her and now they’ve got their own [toy] baby, so they practice feeding their [toy] baby with their toys.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that there’s no conflict. “They have their blues,” Simon concedes. Sometimes it seems, “everything is ‘mine’ and ‘my toy.'” But it’s nothing dad isn’t used to. “I just think, man, that’s so like my brother and I.”

Still, Simon does his best to keep a peaceful household. One conflict-free technique he uses to get the children to keep their room tidy was learnt from a parenting course. He tells the children that he’s the seargent-major and there’s going to be an inspection. Sam is Soldier 5, and Sophie is Soldier 3.

“You make a joke of it and.- They have to march and they have to salute you and you have to salute them… They made a great job — you know, there were things under the bed and there were sheets hanging out, but they’d really tried… and I saluted them.”

“So now… if they do something [good], I’ll salute them, or I’ll go, ‘hail to Sammy, she’s great.'”

Sometimes, a salute doesn’t quite cut it, though. Sophie has trouble sleeping through the night, so Simon tried a star-chart. Each night she sleeps through, she earns a star, and ten stars earns a present. “That worked for the first couple of weeks, it was good,” Simon explains.

“But then it was like a too-long process… so now I go down to the Two-Dollar shop and I buy a yo-yo, and a wee ring, or a wee Chinese fan or something, and if she sleeps through the night, I’ll give her a little toy… If I did that for a year, it would cost me about $600, so I don’t want to do it for a year,” he laughs.

“But once you’ve broken that cycle and got them to sleep for a week, then by and large, they say, you’re home and hosed… so last night it worked, the night before it didn’t. The week before it did. So we’ll keep that up.”

Simon has three years left on his “Si and Phil” radio breakfast show. After that, he muses about the possibilities. Parenting education is something he is passionate about. “I suppose that’s a bit of a dream of mine.

Maybe if I do get back into television… I would maybe like to do a parenting programme.”

Next: Tots And Toddlers