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Is it ever OK to miss your baby's birth?
John Barnes watched the Liverpool-Chelsea match rather than seeing his child born. Does a father's absence from the delivery room matter?
John Barnes . . . widely criticised for his decision. Photograph: Colin McPherson for the Guardian No one could accuse the former footballer John Barnes of being anything other than cool, calm and collected about the birth of his seventh child. But there's admirably relaxed – and then there's shockingly laidback. When his wife, Andrea, gave birth to their son Alexander on Sunday, Barnes wasn't by her side, helping with her breathing patterns. He wasn't in the hospital corridor pacing up and down nervously. He wasn't even in the nearest pub, nursing a pint and clinging to his mobile phone in readiness for any 100-yard dash that might prove necessary.
No, when his wife gave birth, Barnes was in a TV studio commentating on a match between Chelsea and Liverpool, his former side. The news of the birth came through in the first half, and presenter Richard Keyes announced it live on air, before asking Barnes whether he fancied heading off. Barnes's answer was straightforward. He'd stay for the second half, thanks. He carried on watching Liverpool's 2-0 win, before leaving for the hospital at some point before the game's end; "quite rightly", said Keyes, "he should have gone earlier."
The reaction to his decision was swift and brutal. Online he was branded a lowlife, a complete berk, a wanker, and many less repeatable names. There was support from a few quarters, with suggestions that his decision had won him major "man points" and made him the ultimate lad. But generally, this wasn't a popular decision.
Barnes is by no means the only father – or celebrity – to have stayed away from the birth of a child in recent years. In 2008, the Chelsea goalkeeper, Petr Cech, was stuck in the UK while his wife Martina gave birth in Prague, and rather than flying immediately to see her and their new baby, he played in a victorious Carling Cup semi-final before setting off. He later said he regretted missing the birth, "but my daughter decided she was coming in the middle of the night, and there was nothing I could do about it".
At least Cech was apologetic. Gordon Ramsay has been anything but. He has spoken repeatedly about missing the births of his four children, saying he thought his sex life "would be damaged by images like something out of a sci-fi movie – skinned rabbits and conger eels coming at me from everywhere. I didn't want that to be in my memory. Seeing a woman in distress, screaming at the top of her voice, pushing, pushing, pushing, and sweat, sweat, sweat? I'd rather be stark bollock naked in a steam room with 50 vegans."
Barnes's decision begs a few questions, however. One is whether any job is more important than being at your child's birth. The obvious answer seems to be that some might just about warrant a pass, but football punditry, indeed football playing, definitely isn't on the list – whatever players might have done back in the 1960s, when men were men, and women had to squeeze a whole new human being out of their body without a sniff of complaint or support. The fact is that giving birth is, by definition, a life-and-death situation, and so it's only jobs that involve similarly high stakes that really apply. As a quick guide, they are:
• If you're a surgeon in the middle of a quadruple heart bypass, then yes, fair enough, finish that operation, close up that chest, and head off.
• If you're a firefighter, at a fire, pulling screaming babies from a blazing building, then put it out, certainly.
• If you're a member of the police, called to the scene of a horrendous road accident, then yes, wait for back-up before you go to the hospital.
In short, we're talking about the emergency services – and only when they're actually at the scene of an emergency. The other reason you might miss the birth of your baby, of course, is if your partner has specifically asked you not to be there, and as Mervi Jokinen of the Royal College of Midwives points out, we have no way of knowing whether this was the case for Barnes. "It's expected that men should be present," says Jokinen, "but that doesn't actually suit every relationship. Women should have a choice, and they might get more distressed if they're worried about how their partner is coping."
But it's one thing to be away from the delivery room at your partner's request, another to be miles away carrying on nonchalantly watching a football match. That's what, on the face of it, seems really strange about Barnes's behaviour – that he didn't even appear distracted by the thought that his wife was somewhere across town, without him, in hospital, having just had the most profound and frightening experience a human being can have.
I ask Jokinen whether she thinks fathers who attend the birth of their children have a closer bond with them, and she says that "it certainly sets a precedent. Birth is such a miracle that I don't think any human being could be unmoved by it. When you see your newborn actually coming into life with that first breath, you share that moment and both of you will always remember it. You share the closeness of knowing that this is your child."
• Is it ever acceptable for someone to miss the birth of their child?
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John Barnes watched the Liverpool-Chelsea match rather than seeing his child born. Does a father's absence from the delivery room matter?
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- Kira Cochrane
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 November 2010 20.30 GMT
- Article history
John Barnes . . . widely criticised for his decision. Photograph: Colin McPherson for the Guardian No one could accuse the former footballer John Barnes of being anything other than cool, calm and collected about the birth of his seventh child. But there's admirably relaxed – and then there's shockingly laidback. When his wife, Andrea, gave birth to their son Alexander on Sunday, Barnes wasn't by her side, helping with her breathing patterns. He wasn't in the hospital corridor pacing up and down nervously. He wasn't even in the nearest pub, nursing a pint and clinging to his mobile phone in readiness for any 100-yard dash that might prove necessary.No, when his wife gave birth, Barnes was in a TV studio commentating on a match between Chelsea and Liverpool, his former side. The news of the birth came through in the first half, and presenter Richard Keyes announced it live on air, before asking Barnes whether he fancied heading off. Barnes's answer was straightforward. He'd stay for the second half, thanks. He carried on watching Liverpool's 2-0 win, before leaving for the hospital at some point before the game's end; "quite rightly", said Keyes, "he should have gone earlier."
The reaction to his decision was swift and brutal. Online he was branded a lowlife, a complete berk, a wanker, and many less repeatable names. There was support from a few quarters, with suggestions that his decision had won him major "man points" and made him the ultimate lad. But generally, this wasn't a popular decision.
Barnes is by no means the only father – or celebrity – to have stayed away from the birth of a child in recent years. In 2008, the Chelsea goalkeeper, Petr Cech, was stuck in the UK while his wife Martina gave birth in Prague, and rather than flying immediately to see her and their new baby, he played in a victorious Carling Cup semi-final before setting off. He later said he regretted missing the birth, "but my daughter decided she was coming in the middle of the night, and there was nothing I could do about it".
At least Cech was apologetic. Gordon Ramsay has been anything but. He has spoken repeatedly about missing the births of his four children, saying he thought his sex life "would be damaged by images like something out of a sci-fi movie – skinned rabbits and conger eels coming at me from everywhere. I didn't want that to be in my memory. Seeing a woman in distress, screaming at the top of her voice, pushing, pushing, pushing, and sweat, sweat, sweat? I'd rather be stark bollock naked in a steam room with 50 vegans."
Barnes's decision begs a few questions, however. One is whether any job is more important than being at your child's birth. The obvious answer seems to be that some might just about warrant a pass, but football punditry, indeed football playing, definitely isn't on the list – whatever players might have done back in the 1960s, when men were men, and women had to squeeze a whole new human being out of their body without a sniff of complaint or support. The fact is that giving birth is, by definition, a life-and-death situation, and so it's only jobs that involve similarly high stakes that really apply. As a quick guide, they are:
• If you're a surgeon in the middle of a quadruple heart bypass, then yes, fair enough, finish that operation, close up that chest, and head off.
• If you're a firefighter, at a fire, pulling screaming babies from a blazing building, then put it out, certainly.
• If you're a member of the police, called to the scene of a horrendous road accident, then yes, wait for back-up before you go to the hospital.
In short, we're talking about the emergency services – and only when they're actually at the scene of an emergency. The other reason you might miss the birth of your baby, of course, is if your partner has specifically asked you not to be there, and as Mervi Jokinen of the Royal College of Midwives points out, we have no way of knowing whether this was the case for Barnes. "It's expected that men should be present," says Jokinen, "but that doesn't actually suit every relationship. Women should have a choice, and they might get more distressed if they're worried about how their partner is coping."
But it's one thing to be away from the delivery room at your partner's request, another to be miles away carrying on nonchalantly watching a football match. That's what, on the face of it, seems really strange about Barnes's behaviour – that he didn't even appear distracted by the thought that his wife was somewhere across town, without him, in hospital, having just had the most profound and frightening experience a human being can have.
I ask Jokinen whether she thinks fathers who attend the birth of their children have a closer bond with them, and she says that "it certainly sets a precedent. Birth is such a miracle that I don't think any human being could be unmoved by it. When you see your newborn actually coming into life with that first breath, you share that moment and both of you will always remember it. You share the closeness of knowing that this is your child."
• Is it ever acceptable for someone to miss the birth of their child?
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30 Oct 2010
Experience: I chanced upon the daughter I gave up for adoption
21 Sep 2010
How to separate without hurting the children
19 Jan 2010
Grandparents get easier route to see children in family splits
10 Jan 2010
Increasingly, the rarest experience in family life is undivided attention | Madeleine Bunting
. The first one you have to be there. The second one you want to be there. By number 12 he maybe beating traffic going in the opposite direction
Paul Marin -19 is one thing, 20 is a whole other matter. It gets even worse if they win the UCL. *groan*. 
05/18/2011.MU fans naah cough, but all a unuh a vomit?-Lazie 1/11/2015
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