Because making time for yourself is one of the themes of my book, one of our newspapers interviewed me for a story they were writing about work/life balance for dads.

I don't profess to be any particular authority on dads per se, not being one and all, but I think I know something about parenting which is all being a dad is. It was weird answering the questions, almost like an out of body experience in that I felt like in talking about dads I was describing my own issues and my own life.

Yes there are similarities between the roles of mums and dads — they are both obviously parenting functions. But the weirdness for me came from my feeling that as a single parent I am not just a single mother but, despite my children seeing their dad regularly, a single father too. I had not thought about myself before as the father as well. But everything I said about the parenting and life balance issues for dads was exactly the same as it is for me.

One of the challenges for dads is finding a balance between financially supporting your family and being with your family. That is me, but I am the breadwinner and the nurturer. Married dads (and that is who the article was about) have someone else providing the nurturing while they are bringing home the bacon.

Another dad challenge is getting away from work to attend sports and dance practices, not just swan in at the end of the year for the final or the concert. Yep, that's my challenge too, and I wash the muddy sportsclothes and ferry the kids to and from sport and sew on the sequins and the numbers on the back of the footy jumpers, usually after midnight after the washing and the dishes.

And yet another dad challenge is finding some time for himself and his mates and my book emphasises the importance of this. But this isn't a dad-exclusive thing either.

Those of us who are single parents who work and parent full time know that often we are just keeping the balls in the air as best we can, hoping that tomorrow we might do better or it might be just that little bit easier. Trying to be two people, of two different genders, is a good day's work. A pat on the back for all of us.