Dad-Lit, it seems

This weekend I read The Child in Time by Ian McEwan, which I was surprised to see acknowledged itself as indebted to Christina Hardyment's Dream Babies. I've not read my copy of Dream Babies yet, but will do soon due to the rave reviews I've seen by others. Anyway, the McEwan book was really wonderful, and perhaps my favourite of his since I read Saturday. (I really didn't like Atonement that much; is there a terrible place where they put away people like me?). I don't know that I've read such a thoughtful book by a man about parenting and childhood. And then without even thinking, I picked Adam Gopnik's Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York to read next. It seems I'm really on a Dad-lit kick, but I am loving the perspective. "Whatever the origins-- and I leave it to some meatier-minded cultural historian to trace them all-- what child rearing is, when you live it, is a joy. It should be seen as we really do feel it-- less as a responsibility imposed than as a great gift delivered up to us... [Children] compel us to see the world as an unusual place again. Sharing a life with them is sharing a life with lovers, explorers, scientists, pirates, poets. It makes for interesting mornings."