Seperated father, Housedad and Grandfather.

Brian Edwards, Father of five and grandfather of three, has done a lot of parenting in his time. He’s also seen a lot of changes.

35 Years ago when his first child was born in Scotland, he discovered that, “fathers were regarded… as something of an irrelevance and a nuisance… babies were to do with mothers, not fathers.”

Things changed over the years that his children were born, so that by the time that 011ie, Brian’s youngest, was born, he was able to get permission to watch.

“But the nurse” said ‘hold on, I’ll just get you a white coat’ or a white hat and a mask or whatever you have to wear… and by the time she got back, he was born.”

Nine years ago, Brian finally got lucky with the birth of his first grandchild, Jesse. He didn’t watch the moment itself, but he was there, “right up to [it]… and immediately afterwards.” Brian saw what he was missing out on with the birth of his own children. “It was extraordinary,” he recalls.

“What a wonderful occasion… We were in there, and my daughter came back with the baby and we were in a nice room and a bottle of champagne was opened and drunk by the doctor [and] us. It was everything you could possibly want, it was just marvellous.”

Just as his birth experiences got better over the years, so did his parenting experiences. He separated from the mother of his first two children, Laurie and Naomi, when they were still very small. This introduced Brian to the world of “Sunday Fatherhood” and the quest for “quality time”. He found that backfired, however, because of the “huge pressure to make sure everything is good.”

It wasn’t until Naomi and Laurie were adults that Brian found his relationship with them really blossomed. Brian was able to spend more time with his next three children, Rebecca, Sean, and 0llie.

In fact, in the late 70’s when their mother was working part-time, Brian stayed home with 0llie, and even took him to work. Day care wasn’t really a consideration for the Edwards family. “I like the idea of parents being able to stay home with small children. Parents of whatever sex,” Brian explains.

But Brian found that staying home didn’t just benefit 0llie. bad got a lot out of it, too. “If it’s humanly possible for men to be home with their small children… I, having done it for a couple of years, would highly recommend it.”

Looking after 0llie didn’t just mean Brian stayed home.

It also meant 0llie went to work. “I found that a wonderfully enriching and bonding sort of experience,” recalls Brian. He was making a programme called “Edwards on Saturday” at the time. “Television is of course… well, it was, a very sort of liberal easy-going environment to work in.

I would be going in for meetings with producers and researchers and things and, you know, sit around and drink coffee and tea and chat. Nobody minded that there was a three-year-old there. Everybody was comfortable with that.” In fact, colleagues even helped out by entertaining him and taking him for walks.

Unfortunately, this isn’t an option for everybody. “I think most men’s jobs simply don’t allow that. You just can’t bring your baby to the office,” Brian acknowledges. He urges men to explore the possibility of job sharing or working from home, if possible. “I think the nature of your relationship [with your children] is quite different if you’re able to do that.”

Brian is pleased to see that society values fathers more these days. He believes, “we’ve clearly become more forward- thinking, more aware, more sensible,” about the importance of fathers to children, “particularly for sons… in role modeling.”

Now that society’s views have changed, Brian’s role has also changed — from parenting, to grandparenting.

This has given him a third chance and it’s been the best experience yet.

In his book “Brian’s Week,” which is dedicated to his three grandchildren, he wrote: “Grandchildren offer us a second chance at parenting, an opportunity to do things better… As a parent, I was ungenerous, intolerant, authoritarian… As a grandparent, I am a wonderful parent… I realise that yelling makes everyone unhappy and solves nothing.

I know that a child will eat when it needs to eat. I do not see my relationship with my grandchildren as a battle of wills, and if it is, I don’t mind losing. I am more generous, more relaxed, more understanding. I’m cool!”

Yet Brian isn’t naive about his newfound parenting skills. He freely admits, “it’s easier to be cool when you know that in a few days they’ll go away again…”. Brian describes the difference between parents and grandparents like this: “[when you’re a grandparent], you’ve learnt a hell of a lot.

You’ve realised the futility of a lot of behaviours you were engaged in when you were a parent. You probably mellowed, to put it more simply.”

“I find it more rewarding being a grandparent.”