HOME TRUTHS: 'THERE ARE TIMES WHEN SHE WILL COME IN AND ASK, 'WHAT DID YOU DO ALL DAY?' I FIND IT HARD TO ANSWER THAT POLITELY' 

Ian Mott (36) was made redundant from his job as a plasterer just before his twin daughters, Kate and Farrah, were born in August 2008.

He and his partner had thought that he would be the main earner once they started their family and she would work part-time. But they did not get that choice.

He was not unduly apprehensive about becoming the main carer when she went to back to work, as the two of them had been at home together with the girls for six months.

“It is not as if I was thrown in at the deep end,” he says.

“I was worried before they were born – could I handle being a dad and that kind of thing.”

He says it took a while to get used to the fact that it was his responsibility to mind the kids, make their dinners and do other chores around the house.

“At the start, all I wanted to do was sit down and watch telly – because I was at home like!”

It is stressful when the twins are “killing each other”, he says. “You get days when they are crying constantly and that can be hard as well.

“It is little things – like I was in the bank and they decided to pull over the leaflet stand. There are two of them and they egg each other on.”

If he has had a really difficult day, he will try to get out for half an hour to clear the head as soon as his partner comes home.

“There are times when she will come in and ask, ‘What did you do all day?’ I find it hard to answer that politely.”

However, the hardest thing was not having his own income. He thinks it is a male thing: “You don’t want to be dependent on anybody else.”

So he started a part-time business, using the Ford Transit van that

was sitting outside the door from his time in the construction industry.

The Mottly Crew (themottlycrew.ie) is an IKEA shopping and delivery service aimed at people who do not have the time, or live too far away, to get to the giant Swedish retailer’s only store in the Republic – in Ballymun, Dublin, close to Mott’s home in Finglas.

He delivers to Cork every weekend and works a few evenings too, enjoying the break from being at home with the girls and the fact that he can pay some bills with his earnings.

Although times are tough, he is glad to have this chance to be with his daughters.

He and his partner had always agreed that they would prefer if it was one of them who saw them take their first steps, heard their first words and took them to school on their first day – “rather than some stranger getting that privilege. You don’t want somebody else bringing up your kids.”

The girls regard him as the boss, he explains, “I would be the one who rules with the iron hand.”

Although they see less of their mother, “their mammy is still number one, it doesn’t change anything there”, he stresses.

Mott does not know any other stay-at-home fathers nearby with whom he could socialise.

It is easier, he suggests, for women to go along to toddler and parent groups because they are surrounded by other women. If he knew there would be other dads at a playgroup, he would feel more comfortable going along.

Maybe if there was a dads’ group, he says, they could go out and talk about day-to-day life, as well as the children.

However, he has noticed that when he meets up with friends in his native Cork, they tend to talk more about children these days.

“Before it was cars, football and whatever.”