Readers of our You tell us threads have asked for more articles written from a personal perspective. In this series, we've commissioned Cif commenters to write above the line about their own experiences. Each person will tackle a subject from a distinctive angle and make policy recommendations in the hope that they will inspire others to comment below the line. After examining mental health issues two weeks ago, we're now looking at fatherhood.

Due to the delicate and personal nature of the debate, moderation will be strict and personal abuse will not be tolerated.

Ally Fogg (aka AllyF)

My story: When our first child was born, the cards congratulated us on the arrival of our little bundle of joy. I don't recall any cards describing a little bundle of vomit, diarrhoea, rashes, phlegm and germs, with a temperature that goes up and down faster than a kangaroo on poppers. Somewhere near the top of the long list headed "Things They Don't Tell You About Parenthood" is the fact that even perfectly healthy young children get ill with astonishing regularity. When both parents are working, this is a source of constant stress and hassle – not just for their parents, but for their employers and colleagues as well.

Among the myriad unspoken assumptions about gender roles in our modern world, one of the most stubborn is that it is the mother who will suddenly drop everything in order to care for a sick child. My partner is a teacher, and so cannot easily call in absent or rush home. But I work flexible hours – it is rare that my appointment diary cannot be cleared in an emergency. I'm also fortunate to work in the community and voluntary sector, which is female-dominated and relatively family-friendly. Even then, I expect to see a raised eyebrow or hear a note of surprise if I take unplanned time off to care for a sick child. Men just don't do such things. I shudder to think what the reaction must be for those based in a more traditionally male environment.

My recommendation: If we accept that it is desirable for this gender divide to be broken down, there are some legislative changes that could help drive social change. At present either parent can take unpaid time off to care for sick dependants in an emergency, but it would be humane to expect employers to pay for the first day or two at least. Otherwise it will always make financial sense for the lower-paid parent (too often the woman) to take the pay cut. I'd also suggest that employers are obliged to fully inform employees of their rights in this area – too many people are unaware of where they stand.

Gary Phillips (aka Madeley)

My story: I have a son who is 11 years old and has Down's syndrome. When we adopted him, he was of primary school age and went to a special school. It seemed to go well, but we felt he wasn't being stretched educationally or socially. We decided to place him in a mainstream school, with one-to-one help. This started out fine, and we believed he was integrating and performing well.

Then we received stories of bad behaviour, defiance and even violence. One mother accused our son of putting his hands around another child's throat. I accept our boy is no angel, but we felt that some of the parents had set out to get him removed either through fear or ignorance, of which there still is a great deal when it comes to Down's syndrome. We moved our son again, this time to another special school. It's a good establishment with many sympathetic teachers and helpers. Specialists tell us that children with Down's syndrome learn pretty much all they will by the age of 11; if that's true, we have less than a year to get him to a level where his English and maths will serve him well in his adult life.

The main problem with his current school is the classes, which are a mix of children with moderate to severe learning difficulties. So far this year, my son has been hit by a flying chair twice and bitten several times. It's not the school's fault, it's a numbers game – too many statemented children, and not enough places. Despite everything, I love my son as much as any parent loves their children. To hear him read, to see him smile, to watch him play, makes me a very proud dad, and I wouldn't swap that feeling for anything.

My recommendation: Our son is a bright boy, but getting his education right hasn't been easy. We believe our son could be educated in a mainstream school, but are convinced the support isn't there, or the assistants not properly trained. Dealing with children with special needs is only an option for those taking NVQ teaching assistant courses. Perhaps it should be a compulsory module, as it's a fair bet they will encounter statemented children some time in their working lives. Special schools should also have staffing levels increased. The severely disabled would get the attention they need, while the milder cases such as our son would also benefit. I accept this costs money, but if my son was to get a job after his schooling, he would pay it back in taxes – everyone wins.

Jonathan West (aka JonathanWest)

My story: Some years ago my marriage disintegrated. It became a matter of when rather than whether I was going to leave. So how was I to keep up with my two children? No matter how much my ex-wife intellectually accepted that it was for the good for the children to maintain contact, reality proved to be different. I hung on as long as I could, so that they were at least well into their teenage years and could form their own independent opinion of me.

Once I left, I didn't press for formal arrangements to be made for visiting, but relied instead on contact by mobile phone and internet, supplemented by whatever arrangements could be made for trips out with them. This worked fine with my son. He's the elder, and he had by then figured that the marriage wasn't going to last. By the time I left, we could already chat about life, the universe and everything in between, and not much changed.

My daughter was a bit younger and was fairly hostile for a few years. I kept lines of communication open, didn't hold it against her, and waited. The change, when it came, was sudden. Soon after her A-levels, she and her mother had a massive row, and she moved out to stay with friends. When I learned what had happened, I phoned her and very gently asked: "Would you like to tell me all about it?" It was the decisive moment – she had expected me to tell her off, and here I was being nice and listening instead.

My recommendation: If you break up, know your rights so that you can fight for access if you have to. But if you can manage a tolerable arrangement without making a battle of it, there is more chance of getting it to stick. Most important, don't give up on talking to your children. Even if they are hostile, it is amazing what an occasional phone call can do to implant in their minds the idea that you do care really. They will remember it.

Edward Davies (aka ejodavies, but Edward usually posts under a different pseudonym he'd rather keep for himself)

My story: I may be a man, but Charlotte Church, Myleene Klass and I have a great deal in common. I like a sing-song, I'd look great in a bikini, and we all became parents within a few months of each other. But when I read an interview with Church shortly after the arrival of our first bundle of joy, I realised we weren't exactly singing from the same hymn sheet: "It's like she's always been here. I felt a bit weepy the other day because I looked at her, and she looked so lush and I thought about the birth and it was so perfect, so it was just with happiness."

Well, I looked at our three-month-old and thought about chucking him through a window. The birth was so far from perfect, and I thought I may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I had almost every single one of the listed symptoms of postnatal depression. So thank goodness for Myleene, the unlikely voice of reason: "I'm not going to sugarcoat it, everyone says 'Oh, our baby brought us closer together', but it didn't bring us closer together initially. It made me think 'Oh God, what have we done!' Sleep deprivation plays a big part. The responsibility is huge."

This was a reality I could identify with. Recent estimates put postnatal depression in new fathers as high as one in four, but the untold reality of total exhaustion, relationship strain and culture shock is near universal. But it passes. In my case, it wasn't medication that I needed but a good night's sleep and the realisation that some of my feelings were normal. Having a newborn child is just brain-meltingly hard at times. With sleep returned some sanity. Day by day I got used to this new reality and worked through mine and my wife's roles in it. We even have another child now.

My recommendation: Nothing does prepare you for fatherhood but I couldn't make a single NHS ante-natal class, I never met a health visitor, and received not one piece of formal advice on this monumental life change. Whether I was suffering from depression or just knackered and shell-shocked, the NHS does nothing to guide fathers through those killer early months. It does provide midwives, health visitors, antenatal classes, home visits, checkups, scans and postnatal support for mothers. These are all important, but while fathers are welcome to engage in this, none of it is aimed at them. I'd like to see fathers given legal protection to attend antenatal classes and at least one aimed exclusively at their questions.

Richard Hooker (aka translated)

My story: By the time our children were two and five, I'd been working on a career for about 10 years and my wife had defaulted into the role of full-time mother. With the children developing a degree of independence, she began to regain a certain autonomy. For me, fatherhood was restricted to making money and helping in the evenings and at weekends.

One night, my wife initiated a conversation. She told me that she loved me, but that the future she saw for herself was not one she looked forward to. Her problem was not with me as a person, but with the way our marriage had locked us into lives that prevented us thriving together.

Fighting the people our marriage had made us into could only happen because my wife identified and articulated the problem. She's strong, and that strength was given focus by feminist theory that gave her permission to require of herself more than a future of domesticity. Likewise, if I had not read parts of The Second Sex I'd have had a hard time framing my responsibilities. For me, one of Simone de Beauvoir's critical insights is that freedom is meaningless unless it can be made concrete: freedom has to be realisable. For us, being truly equal partners in marriage was not attainable through attempts to redistribute our day-to-day responsibilities more equally, but from a complete redistribution of power – we needed a revolution.

My wife applied for a job in the US (she's American) and got it. I resigned my job and we emigrated and I looked after our youngest child at home for nine months before finding work. It was only with this wholesale reconfiguration of the practical constraints on what motherhood and fatherhood could be that our marriage could become an expression of, rather than an obstacle to, our mutual love. Looking back, we discovered together that heterosexual marriage is an institution that configures relationships between people in a way that is inherently conservative. Without active resistance, married heterosexuals will find their lives defaulting into more or less unequal and predictable roles.

My recommendation: Remember that fatherhood in heterosexual marriage is as much a commitment to resisting obvious behaviours as to loving someone.

Steve Hill (aka SteveHill)

My story: In 2003, at nearly 50 and widowed after 27 years together in a childless marriage, I quit a City career and a Hampstead chatterer home life and fled to the Cotswolds to lick my wounds and set up a hobby business – music, my first love. I had a cottage for one and no thought of local schools or any such nonsense. In October 2006, I amazingly became father to a daughter, and in 2008 to a son. Now "semi-retired", I entered the bewildering, bizarre, breathtaking, beautiful world of babydom and pretty much became a stay-at-home parent.

After some initial qualms – surely it must be someone else's job to change nappies? – I rolled my sleeves up. I'm used to long hours, but I've always needed seven or eight hours of sleep a night. Nothing prepares you for going on four years of sleep deprivation. We don't do Gina Ford's Contented Little Parent book: if a child cries we see whether anything is wrong. They probably take advantage, a bit. I am acutely aware that my 30-something self, able to stay up all night, has given way to a 50-something who can't. I explain this to my 30-something wife. I learn discretion is the better part of valour: she's tired too. And, of late, she's also working.

It's odd being the balding old fart on the pre-school run among mums 20 years younger. Without a child on my arm, I would feel extremely undressed. But I wouldn't change anything. Poppy and Olly, for when you Google this: I love you to bits.

My recommendation: Compared to my parents' generation – and talking to other fathers I don't feel are exceptional – we seem to have come a long way. Is there further to go? I guess so. The social life for "househusbands" is curious when surrounded by other mums arranging pamper evenings with a beautician for school funds – not for me, thanks! And I sometimes wonder if they really want a bloke around if they set up a coffee morning, or arrange a kids' playdate. Maybe we've all got a little further to go? That said, I want what other parents do: the best for all our kids. They say it takes a village. The village includes men.