Irish politician Aodhán Ó Ríordáin reflects on becoming a father at age 41 and the emotional journey of watching his daughter grow up amidst a socially charged political climate.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin: ‘I was 41 when Anna came along ... Being a dad hadn’t crossed my mind’\“I remember worrying a lot during the pregnancy. I didn’t get this Hollywood moment, when the baby’s passed to your arms and there’s this huge rush of emotion apparently. I didn’t get that. I think with mammy there’s a natural physical bond immediately, and for the father there’s an overwhelming sense of uselessness, really.” The birth surprised Ó Ríordáin. “They come out purple . . .
I wasn’t expecting that. And then you expect again that there’s like 14 people in the room, and there isn’t. She came out purple and then it’s ‘do you want to cut the cord’, and I was ‘absolutely not, no – I want my first mistake to be something else than that’.” Anna was born during the referendum on the Eighth Amendment, Ó Ríordáin explains. “All the talk during the time was about pregnancy and about women’s rights during pregnancy and then she’s born and you’re ‘is she a second-class citizen because she’s a girl, because she’s born in this country?’ And this was a very emotional campaign, and you try to divorce your personal circumstances from it, but you couldn’t. “I am conscious of feminism and of the girls I taught, in the school in which I taught, because I taught in a profoundly disadvantaged area. And so you are aware of the subtleties around inequality . . . and the subtle expectations of girls versus the expectations of boys.” Anna being an only child isn’t something that concerns Ó Ríordáin as she has plenty of friends from school and extra-curricular activities. He does observe, however, that “she knows what buttons to press. She can say ‘Daddy’ in a very cute little way that melts my heart. “She’s well able to stand up to me and she’s well able to give out to me. There’s always leaflets in the back of the car. There’s always canvas cards or letterheads, or leaflets I’ve been giving out around the plac
FATHERHOOD POLITICS FEMINISM REFERRENDUM IRELAND
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