I quite liked Ian Warden’s approach to this story. I gave him the Father’s Day duty this year and it was refreshing to read something quite different. I particularly liked how he wrapped it all up, after a discussion of Roper’s intriguing art: ‘‘All fathers of small children (or of fully-grown ones for that matter),’’ Warden writes, ‘‘know what it is to be left aghast and frazzled by being a dad. Nothing in our lives ... quite prepares our sex for fatherhood’s special blisses and special nightmares.’’

There’s so much written about motherhood that it’s easy to forget that in most instances there is a father involved and that he, too, sometimes struggles with the whole parenting thing. I guess, as a woman, it’s much easier to see it from the woman’s perspective.

In all honesty, we as women – as mothers – have no idea what is happening in the world of the men with which we have children. All we can ask for is that they love our children dearly and hope they love the mothers of their children dearly.

We can’t impose what that love is or how it is expressed. It might be totally different from ours, doled out in a totally different way. But it is their love and theirs to give – whichever way they choose. We have to credit them that.

Happy Father’s Day to all.