The great baby debate rumbles on

In journalism you skim a lot of stones into pools, and you never know which ones will bounce, which will silently sink, and which will make ripples. My post about Brett Lee’s baby dilemma – should he miss the first Ashes Test, or the birth of his first child? – has made more ripples than I expected.

Most of the comments fall into one of four groups. One lot agrees with me that Brett is in danger of missing one of the biggest moments of his life. Many of those who have written about this are fathers speaking from personal experience. That’s where I was coming from too. A birth is a huge event, life at its most vivid. It’s comparable to losing someone very close to you, only much more fun (for the new dad, anyway). If a top cricketer’s father or mother was on their deathbed, we would quite understand if the player missed a Test match to be there, and we’d be a bit surprised if he played on regardless.

Then there are those who think Brett is right to “put his country before his family”, as one contributor phrased it. Fair enough: it’s a matter of opinion. But this line has come with a few misconceptions attached. One post talked of “girly men”, another of “teary men”. Girly is a bizarre word to try and use as an insult in the context of childbirth. Many women go through more pain having babies than most of us men could stand. If anyone is being feeble here, it is the man who shies away from the maternity ward.

The third school of thought reckons I only suggested that Lee should miss the Test because I’m English. Anyone who wrote on that basis wouldn’t last very long as a cricket writer. I’m all for England players missing Test matches to be at the birth of their children. Michael Vaughan took a break from a Test to do so; Andrew Strauss missed a whole Test; Andrew Flintoff was planning to, until he unexpectedly landed the England captaincy. Personally I think Flintoff should have gone ahead with his trip home. The only good excuse for missing a birth is if you were, say, a heart surgeon with a life to save somewhere else.

The final camp says it’s nobody’s business but Brett’s and his wife’s. Certainly the decision is up to them and I would defend their right to take the view they have. But Brett did go public on the decision. He didn’t say “It’s nobody’s business but ours”. And he was right not to, because sport doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Cricket, more than any other sport, cuts into family life. This is even true of club players, but it’s especially true of the professionals. Down the years, these tensions have often been swept under the carpet, because top-level cricket has been almost exclusively run and reported, as well as played, by men. So when I edited the Wisden Almanack, one of the main articles I commissioned for the front of the book was a long look at cricket and family life. It was written by Derek Pringle, and entitled Don’t marry a cricketer.

Sport is always more than just sport – if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have meaning, we wouldn’t be discussing it, and Brett would still be full-time in men’s outfitting. Sport isn’t some distant planet: it’s part of the here and now. And the way top sportsmen live their lives can influence the rest of us. Andrew Flintoff has a new picture book out in which he has included a shot of himself changing his baby’s nappy. Flintoff is so revered that the photo will have ramifications in the world at large. It will make it a little harder for a certain type of dad to say “no, sorry, I don’t do nappies”. Or to think that anybody is “girly” if they do.