Across the land, men can be spotted talking in patronising tones to their offspring. Now, we have a word for it.

Are you familiar with the concept of mansplaining? Allow me to explain. It's when, without being asked, a man explains something to a woman in a condescending manner, even though she might well already know as much, if not more, about the subject. Do you understand now, love?

That right there was a textbook bit of mansplaining. The word was coined only seven years ago, but the phenomenon has been occurring since cavemen learnt to grunt at cavewomen about the right way to season a woolly mammoth steak. Men often get away with it by virtue of having a louder voice. Well, that and a sense of entitlement bred by centuries of patriarchy.

Many women will read this and wearily think "welcome to my life", while men shift uncomfortably in their seats and reassure themselves that they'd never commit such a conversational crime, so it must be all the other men who do it. Which is, let's face it, statistically unlikely.

I hate to worry you but I've noticed a new subgenre of mansplaining raising its patronising head. It's an epidemic in the nation's parks and playgrounds. It happens without warning on public transport, in museums, galleries and restaurants. It has even crept into our homes. Let's call it dadsplaining.

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Once you spot it, you won't be able to stop. See that harassed father on the school run, trying to summarise the Mars probe news he just read over breakfast? Dadsplaining. That divorced father in the cinema, whiling away the wait for Doctor Strange to start by recounting a detailed history of Marvel comics? Dadsplaining. See that earnest father in Pizza Express, giving an overlong account of why the Venice in Peril fund needs 25 cents from the sale of each Veneziana pizza? Dadsplaining.

When many fathers take charge of their offspring, they have a tendency to endlessly rattle off "fascinating" facts in an attempt to educate their little darlings. They start sentences with "Actually...", "Interestingly..." or "Did you know..." before launching into a lecture.

They turn into a textbook-on-legs, tweedy schoolmaster or BBC boffin.

They're so busy chuntering, they've failed to notice their child is staring gormlessly into space, waiting until Dad finishes "one of his stories" so they can ask to borrow his iPad.

I have two children (Charlie and Kitty, aged seven and five) and often catch myself doing it to them. In fact, I dadsplained the definition of dadsplaining to them while writing this article and asked if they've ever noticed. Charlie said: "Yes, you're always trying to teach me the rules of cricket or testing me on my times tables." Kitty got bored and wandered off to watch the Disney Channel.

The trouble is, men get confused between imparting knowledge and having a conversation. We're often over-compensating for being the more absent, more awkward, all-round second-best parent. We mistake reeling off half-remembered factoids for "quality time". We think quizzing them about dinosaurs, animals, geography (mainly mountains, rivers and capital cities) and history (mainly war) is meaningful interaction. It's not.

I'm becoming more vigilant about my own dadsplaining. When I caught myself wanging on about rugby rucks and mauls, I swiftly turned it into a pun about bums/scrums. Then listened to the kids' bum jokes in return. My partner, Alex, also tends to gently prick my pomposity if she overhears me doing it. Be patient with us, mothers of Britain. Show a little "fempathy", if you will.

We mean well. We're trying to engage, to share what we've learnt, pass down precious nuggets of worldly wisdom and help turn our adorable children into functioning adults. Sometimes we just find ourselves doing it in a droning, dadsplaining way.

Your own father probably does it to you, constantly banging on about bleeding the radiators, eating leftovers, maintaining the garden and avoiding the ring-road. Well, we've just inherited the habit. Except in the technology-dependent 21st century, men aren't nearly as practically capable any more, so we try to impart knowledge instead.

Most of us learnt dadsplaining by our fathers doing it to us. It's an unceasing cycle. A self-perpetuating dadsplain Y chromosome. What's a Y chromosome? Well, now, let me explain...