The Road to Fatherhood
The road to fatherhood isn’t always rosy. Image: Anna Shvets
Reporter
“I'd be lying if I didn't say there are days where I don't feel terrified, scared and clueless.” The Chaser’s Chris Taylor
A brand-new season of LiSTNR’s Birth, Baby and Beyond, the go-to podcast for new parents is out now and features the incomparable midwife, Cath Curtain, who has delivered thousands of babies over her famed 47-year career and worked with 50,000 families during COVID.
Added to her depth of insight, Chris Taylor shares his journey to fatherhood with the listeners getting a chance to hear the first-hand experience of becoming a dad through his eyes — a podcast season for all new dads, and dads to be.
The Australian creative is best known as a member of The Chaser team and as creator and producer of the critically acclaimed Foxtel/Binge drama Upright starring Tim Minchin. One of the country’s best storytellers, Taylor shares some of his most raw, challenging and hesitant moments as he becomes a dad.
In episode one, Taylor tells how it took five years for him and his wife to fall pregnant, and the importance of sharing their struggle and why so many don’t.
“I think a lot of dads probably approach conception thinking, this is the fun bit where I get to have a lot of sex. Lots and lots of sex, and in nine months, we'll have a baby. While I'm sure that’s true for some, I think a lot of other dads like me might discover that the reality can be quite different,” Taylor says.
He adds that the five-year path to conception was at times “traumatic and harrowing and depressing, anxious, frightening — an existential crisis”.
Taylor and midwife Cath Curtain discuss why couples traditionally wait for 12-weeks until they share the news of a pregnancy. Curtain says this was due to a societal norm, tinged with an old-fashioned hiding of loss.
“It’s if you lose the baby, then you don't have to tell anyone, which is so bad because when you lose a baby, what you want is family around,” she says.
Taylor holds nothing back and asks Curtain about masturbation, including whether a man should stop if trying to conceive.
In the second episode they discuss the miscarriage Taylor’s wife experienced, how it affected them as a couple, and him personally.
Birth, Baby and Beyond is one of the country’s most listened to podcasts with Curtin bringing more than four decades of experience to guide new parents through the highs and lows of pregnancy, birth and the complexities of parenting.
Where previously the podcast has had the birth mother at its centre, in this season LiSTNR focuses the lens on dads; exploring the facts, fiction, questions, concerns and hopes of the dads who navigate their own unique, challenging and rewarding journey through pregnancy, birth and parenting.
