I was watching an episode of an old 70s sitcom the other day and was amazed by the outrageously sexist comments made by some of the male characters. If any man were to speak like that these days they could expect a slap around the face at the bare minimum. Yet despite this obvious progress, it seems we men are still fair game for a bit of ribbing from the opposite sex on certain matters. Two things spring to mind: “man flu” and “multitasking”.

To take the former, the implication I get from female friends is that whenever a woman is suffering from a severe cold/ flu then she must be really ill, whereas when a man complains of it he is putting it on. The theory goes that women have a higher pain threshold than men, something to do with childbirth apparently. I’m not going to dispute that for fear of a bulging outraged mailbox, all I can say is that last week I went down with something and I felt really ill for a couple of days.

Whether it was “man flu” or not, the fact is I am a stay at home dad and therefore I can’t afford to be ill. I don’t mean can’t afford to be ill as some “indispensable” office types might claim – you can just go home and go to bed. I have no such luxury. Last Friday I had to go out in the freezing cold on four school runs not to mention preparing meals for the kids and everything else that has to be done when you have children.

At times I felt about to keel over but I bravely soldiered on and before anyone says it, yes I think I do deserve a medal! I can’t believe if I was a woman I would have coped any better but short of having a sex change operation to find out (a little extreme) I guess I’ll never know.

Now, what about multitasking? The perceived wisdom is that women can multitask, men can’t.

Well if I couldn’t, I would not have lasted five minutes as a stay at home dad. As any parent will tell you, it’s a classic case of keeping all the plates spinning. Simultaneous nappy changing, cooking, cleaning and more, it’s all in a day’s work. Christmas Day is coming up, and that’s been the ultimate multitasking challenge for me for the past two years. As Claire works shifts for the NHS she has been pencilled in to work the past two Christmas days, from 7.30am to 3pm. This has meant not only a very early start for present opening, but for me to perform a dual mum and dad role on Christmas Day. That includes the cooking of the meal plus all the unwrapping and assembly of the new toys. That’s multitasking!

Fortunately Claire has this Christmas Day off so we can fall into traditional roles, though most likely the opposite of what you might expect. She will be on toy duty (I hate all those little fiddly plastic ties) whilst I am cooking the meal.

Jason Ayres is the Bicester based author of two books on parenting. You can follow him on Twitter @AusterityDad