Even celebrities -- who 10 years ago would have considered their progeny a liability to their image as sexually attractive bachelors -- now regularly flaunt their devotion to their babies, hoping to gain sensitive-guy street cred. Maybe it started with Kurt Cobain and Frances Bean. Or maybe when Nick Hornby's novel "About a Boy" -- in which a frankly useless 30-something bloke invents a kid in order to impress women, only to find that fatherhood itself may be as fun as a good romp -- became an international bestseller. Whenever it started, you can now see images of father and child everywhere: Mark McGwire is pictured with his son on Safeway-brand cereal, and David Beckham, soccer superstar and husband to Posh Spice, made national headlines in England when he blew off training to be by his infant son's side when he was a touch feverish.

All of which makes it easier for a regular father to do regular things with his regular child without feeling like a social pariah or potential pedophile. Want to grab a coffee at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday with your child? You can, in the full knowledge that nosy cappuccino sippers won't stare at you, wondering a) why you're unemployable, b) why you send the wife out to work for you or c) what caused you to be convalescing. Because the fact is that these days, it's a whole lot more respectable to be a dad.

But after my own foray into fatherhood (five years of it as a single parent), I have to admit to feeling more than a little curmudgeonly toward this whole "New Fatherhood" trend. Where, I wondered, were all these ads, publishing outlets, corporations and celebrity endorsements in the dark days of 1992, when dedicated dads were vaguely seen and certainly not heard? When I read that the editor of Later magazine had declared fatherhood "the new rock 'n' roll," I had to face the fact that I was merely a Leonard Cohen in these raunchy days of Liam Gallaghers. I might not even be racy enough to count as a Mick Jagger. The effect on me -- basic insecurity -- was just what the advertising industry ordered.

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Suddenly I had to wonder: Was I not glamorous enough? Should I be better equipped? Was my backpack uncool? Had I, and millions of others, been doing it wrong over the past 20,000-odd years?

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