Learner Dad: I don’t enjoy sitting down for toy time or board games with my kids

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It was our son’s birthday recently. I find birthdays stressful because the house fills up with plastic toys from well-meaning friends and relations. Normally I go all hippy on them and start complaining about the effect of cheap toys on the environment. I think this is part eco-concern and part jealousy because I only ever got one toy at a time in the early '70s. But mainly it’s because once the toy has been dropped off by a well-meaning relation, I’ll be the one who has to show my kids how to play with it.

I t probably rules me out of Parent of the Year, but I don’t enjoy sitting down for toy time or board games with my kids. I have chubby fingers, failing sight and I flunked every single aptitude test that involved shapes, so making stuff is a complete head-wreck. (And, anyway, my wife likes making stuff, so I don’t want to interfere with her fun.) As for board games, they go on too long for everyone. The kids like Monopoly for three rounds of pass go, and then we all drift off our separate ways. It’s probably just as well – the property market is tilted against young people, I don’t want my kids growing up thinking they’ll be able to buy a house.