A selection of the opinion pieces I’ve been commissioned to write for Metro.co.uk. The focus of my writing for the site has been upon gender roles, fatherhood and parenting.
“As parents, you really can’t win! The truth is, in the vast majority of cases, parents only allow screen time to be the WD40 of their day – it oils the wheels during periods where other essential activities are taking place – distracting mum or dads attention. Yes, in the past there were no screens, I get that. But the past wasn’t always as ideal as some people choose to remember – it was also a place where unattended babies in buggies were dumped outside shops and tots were left to ‘cry it out’ in their prams out of earshot (at the bottom of the garden). The world’s changed – not all of it for the worst.”
For the full piece click here.
Chris McGuire Metro.co.uk: ‘I won’t take the iPad off my toddler, it’s a great parenting tool’.
“I’m a stay at home dad, and while I’m usually tucked up by 9pm — ready to deal with a two-year-old son who thinks nothing of waking the house at 5am — last night I watched Love Island, enticed by the prospect of seeing how the male islanders fared in the infamous baby challenge. When a task is made to look easy, that’s how you know someone is really good at something. Last night, the Love Island fellas made fatherhood look hard. Am I being too tough on this collection of walking, talking, Ken Dolls who had seemingly fathered plastic babies? I don’t think so. They made it look hard because, frankly, it is.”
For full piece, click here.
Chris McGuire Metro.co.uk: ‘As a stay at home dad, the men of Love Island disappointed me with their traditional views’.
“I still remember the whistling in my ears. A sudden sense of the world being unsteady and the ground coming up to meet me. Landing hard, I was knocked out. Moments later, my eyes opened as several feet walked away. ‘You showed him,’ said an excited voice. The thing was, he hadn’t shown me anything. I still don’t know what I was punched for. It was my first day at secondary school, and a sixth former (aged 18) had decided to attack this clumsy, naive 11-year-old, excitedly chatting about comics to some mates. My only crime seemed to be being bigger than my aggressor. But, though the size of a man, I was very much a child. This incident was the first of many. Persistent bullying became the background narrative to my school years.”
For full piece, click here.
Chris McGuire Metro.co.uk: ‘Bullying caused me to change who I was to avoid punches – my son will not suffer the same fate’.
Chris McGuire: Writer 