CONGRATULATIONS to the men of Ferryhill. They - well, a few of them - have been back to college to learn how to be good dads.

Bishop Auckland college launched a childcare course specifically for men and it seems to have been a great success.

But will that, and similar courses, lead to many more stay-at-home househusbands? Possibly not. Especially not when children are still babies.

The Government is trying to get more dads involved in the full-time care of their children. Under proposed plans, maternity leave will be extended for a year and the second six months could be transferred to dad, who will get paid £102.80 a week for six months.

At present, paternity leave is limited to just two weeks and only 20 per cent of men opt to take it. Partly, no doubt, it's because the pay's too low. But that is not the only reason.

Very few men - however loving, devoted or totally besotted by their children - are entirely happy taking care of babies full time. They should be. But they're not. Of course, many women aren't either - which is why 70 per cent of mothers of babies under a year old are back at work.

But we have, at least, a small advantage - millions of years of conditioning, that even a generation of equality and a century of feminism can't quite beat.

This means that even when three-year-old tomboys go racing off on the playgroup motorbike, they will usually have tucked their doll up in a cot first, while the boys will have cheerfully flung their Action Men into the furthest corner without a second glance.

Translate that into real babies and you can see you have a problem.

For most women, caring for children is a first instinct. For most men, it isn't. Much as they love their babies, most dads, I guess, are relieved to get away from the messy world of the newborn and back into the grown-up world of work.

Even when both parents work, it's invariably the mother who organises the childcare, the swimming things, buying shoes. Even in those families where there are full-time fathers and working mothers, I bet the working mother does more for her children than a working father would.

We are living in a rapidly changing world and we're all struggling to adapt. Men who are fighting all those centuries of conditioning need to be applauded and encouraged.

But will men, even those who could afford it, be happy to take even six months on low pay to look after the baby?

Somehow, I doubt it.

THE average women's handbag and contents is apparently worth over £550. Gosh.

Just checked mine out. The bag itself was an expensive present. But the contents... mainly torn tissues, crumpled receipts, old lottery tickets and pens that don't work. There's a mobile phone the size of a brick and a couple of Euros left over from holidays.

But in the otherwise almost empty wallet, there is a wodge of family photos, going back years. Monetary value nil - but to me worth far more than a mere £550.

Published: ??/??/2004