Dads worth more than £3,000 a year for help and advice

With Father’s Day around the corner (June 16), I trawled the net looking for inspiring things to do to celebrate the big day. Unfortunately, most of the suggestions were rather nauseating – write your dad a poem, plant a tree for your dad, ask him what he wants to do – so I decided to write about the value of our fathers and the other important men in our lives.

This brought me into contact with an interesting piece of research from Saga Home Emergency. I know, it probably doesn’t sound that interesting, but I thought it was, so here goes.

The study showed that fathers spend two-and-a-half days a month, on average, helping out or advising their adult children on a range of practical issues. 

The most popular reason people call on their fathers is to help with DIY, with 46% of children asking for help with this. Around 42% get their father's help with a home emergency and 40% get financial advice from their dads.

On average, women get three days and men two days of help a month from their fathers. When multiplied by the average male salary, this equates to a whopping £3,387 a year!

While those aged 18-24 appear to be the most reliant, around half of those aged 35-44 still regularly turn to their dads for help. Even when children reach their fifties, a third of fathers are still asked for help with DIY, money matters and home emergencies.

Chief executive at Saga Services, Roger Ramsden, says: "Perhaps, if an emergency should arise on Father's Day, children will remember to give their dad a break and call out an expert. At the very least they should pop round to make their dad a well-earned cup of tea!"

That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me - our dads certainly deserve to be treated this Father's Day; not just for the help and advice they give us, but for all they do year in year out.

Even better, you could sign your dad up for a subscription to Sorted magazine so he knows he is valued all year long. 

Alternatively, you could buy a bumper box of 40 copies for just £50 and treat all the guys who have touched your life!

How are you planning to spend Father’s Day? We’d love to hear your un-nauseating suggestions! Happy Father's Day to all our readers.

Are you a manly man or a Motorsexual marvel?

When I’m not working on Sorted magazine, I can often be found putting together news stories for financial firms. As I foraged for inspiration this week, I found three stories that grabbed my attention.

Although finance-focused, these snippets challenged some of the stereotypes we have of ‘manly’ men in the UK. I think they’ll grab yours too – particularly if you carry a manbag, own a bottle of fake tan or hate DIY.

Motorsexual Men risk lives behind the wheel

While attractive women, beautiful views and Facebook can prove distracting for some male drivers, recent research suggests a new danger is on the horizon for men behind the wheel.

Obsessing over a hairdo, applying fake tan and posing are the most common causes of near-crashes among ‘Motorsexual Men’.

According to the More Than research, vanity-obsessed male motorists have caused an estimated 2.2 million accidents on the roads in the last 12 months. On average, a vanity-related crash results in £653.20 damage to the Motorsexual Man's car.

Whether styling their hair (23%), inspecting their complexion (19%), pouting and posing (15%) or checking the brightness of their pearly whites (10%), the rear view mirror is a hazard zone for male drivers.

Furthermore, an estimated 1.3 million Motorsexual Men regularly apply facial moisturiser, fake tan and even male foundation when in control of a moving vehicle.

Around 2.9 million male drivers check out their reflections between five and ten times in the space of a single 30-minute car journey. With roughly 4.8 seconds taken up each time they do so, male motorists could be spending up to 48 seconds with their eyes fixed on themselves rather than the road.

Matt Pernet at More Than commented: "We've heard a number of cautionary tales of women trying to apply make-up when driving, but until now men fawning over their own appearance behind the wheel was an unexplored area.

“This research shows that Motorsexual Men are significant in their numbers and are putting their safety and the safety of others at risk by valuing the importance of their own reflection over that of the road ahead."

What do you keep in your manbag?

Almost two-thirds of men carry a ‘manbag’ at least some of the time, and because men are four times more likely than women to carry expensive iPads, tablets and laptops in their bags, the precious manbag could be putting men at risk of theft.

Around 18% of men listed a tablet or laptop as their most valuable item as opposed to just 4% of women, but the high value does not stop them from carrying these items around in the beloved manbag.

Meanwhile, the Nationwide research suggests not all of the lost or stolen possessions were of significant material value. Unusual items stolen from people's bags include: a flag from the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, an anorak, a blood donor card, hearing aids and a wetsuit. Items highlighted as most valuable by those surveyed included a kitten, a harmonica, secateurs and the manbag or handbag itself.

Martyn Dyson, Nationwide's head of general insurance, said: "People very often are unaware of how much valuable property they carry with them, especially given the increasing popularity of expensive smartphones, tablets and laptops.”

Home improvements or household headaches?

New research suggests very few men actually enjoy doing DIY. However, while less than 25% find it a pleasurable experience, around 75% say they would rather do it themselves than pay a professional tradesperson.

Around 6% say they would try to install their own boiler or double glazing to save money.

The Checkatrade survey showed that, on average, men in the UK plan to spend just over £4,000 on DIY over the next 12 months, and the most likely DIY project to be undertaken is redecorating. Interestingly, men in Sheffield are almost six times more likely to redecorate than those in Southampton.

If money were no object, a quarter of men would opt for a new bathroom or kitchen, although almost 50% believe an extension would add more value to their home.

Checkatrade managing director, Kevin Byrne, warns: “DIY is a tempting option, especially with the country in recession and bank holidays approaching. But be careful not to take on a job that really demands a skilled professional, otherwise it could cost more in the long run.”

Are you a Motorsexual man? Or do you consider yourself the absolute definition of masculinity? Feel free to share your stories/experiences in the comments below. And if you do carry a manbag, make sure it's got a copy of Sorted in it!

Men and the Church

Special guest blog with Sorted publisher and editor Steve Legg

Being a real bloke in the 21^st century is difficult. We suffer with man flu and many of us cried when England were knocked out of Euro 2012. Some men use moisturiser and eat fancy sandwiches with rocket in them. 

My dad knows how to tinker around under a car bonnet and change a wheel on the car. I don’t. I call out the RAC. I’m a disaster at DIY.

But being a Christian bloke is even harder. It seems to me that church these days is mainly geared for a particular type of person. I used to say women, but my wife assures me it's not her cup of tea either. Whoever it's aimed at, men don’t come and that’s a tragedy; because most men don’t want anything to do with the Church.

I think part of the problem is that we run meetings in buildings with embroidered banners and nice flower arrangements. Many men just don’t feel comfortable in that sort of environment with lots of singing, sitting down for ages and listening to long talks in a building that looks like something out of a Laura Ashley showroom. They feel uncomfortable with hugging, holding hands and sitting in circles discussing their feelings in a church context.

We also seem to have turned Jesus into a wimp with a beard. You know the sort of thing: gentle Jesus meek and mild, long flowing hair, blue eyes and wearing a white M&S negligee and sandals. He’d be nice enough to present Songs of Praise alongside Aled Jones, but he wouldn’t turn the world upside-down.

Statistically we’re told that the Church is made up of 70% women and 30% men, with 90% of boys leaving by the time they hit their late teens. I guess church didn’t quite match up to their spirit of adventure and turned out to be less Bruce Willis and more Bruce Forsyth. Men are looking for a challenge; they need the gauntlet to be laid down before them with a strong, motivating message that relates to their everyday life.

Jesus was a man’s man – a powerful, amazing, revolutionary bloke – and the first thing he did when he started his public ministry was to choose a bunch of lads. They weren’t professional, well-spoken good boys; they were a bunch of working class, down-to-earth blokes who constantly put their foot in it. But he chose them to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

Around 150 years ago, the Industrial Revolution meant many men went off to find work in mills, mines and factories leaving mainly women, older people and children in church, so ministers adapted services to suit the new congregations and church began to change. Add in a bit of Victorian respectability, send the men away again to a couple of World Wars and Bob’s your uncle, but church is no longer a place geared up to meet Bob’s needs!

The wars are over but the men have come back to find a church they don't feel at home in, so they choose to opt out altogether. It’s like going shopping with my wife – I just don’t want to do it.

To get men back and involved, we need to change the way we run church. Men often struggle in a classroom environment so that’s why Jesus didn’t sit them behind desks or hand out study guides. They did stuff together and learned along the way.

Jesus taught Peter how to step out in faith by getting out of a boat and walking on water – not by listening to a CD series, hearing a sermon or watching a documentary on God TV. That should be a valuable lesson for starters.

When it comes to reaching men for Christ, men love doing stuff together – team sports, fishing, pub quizzes, paintballing, DIY projects, curry nights, bowling, clay pigeon shooting and going out for a beer. 

If we build genuine relationships with men through active events we’ll put ourselves in a position to introduce them to a God who never sits still and who is relational to the core.

But I don’t think it’s about trying to create a masculinity that’s more to do with John Rambo than Jesus Christ, because we’re all different and that’s where some churches and men’s groups get it wrong; they forget that although Jesus sat round fires with fishermen, he cried with them too.  

The thing we do have in common is that all men crave warmth, honesty and authenticity. Most are genuinely interested in spirituality, meaning and asking deep questions. They want to know how to become better dads and husbands.

Sorted surveyed hundreds of Christian men and asked them what subjects they’d most like to see tackled in church. Family issues were top, followed by money, anger, sexual purity, addictions, pornography and gambling.

It shows men are looking for answers to important questions, but this doesn’t have to be on a Sunday at 11am in a cold building with a tall steeple. It’s a case of connecting with men where they’re at and showing them that Christianity is worth following, has real answers to tough questions and isn’t just for girls.