Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1262267
12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JUNE 2020 NEWS David Muscat Fenech Adami is putting pen to paper in a call to arms for dads to step up. His blog themaltesedaddy.com is a chronicle of the new hands-on daddy generation, appealing not to have women carry the emotional load of 'doing it all' LAURA CALLEJA ONE father trying to balance out the scales on the big gender divide when it comes to parenting is David Muscat Fenech Adami. Father to almost-two year-old Sophia, the 29-year-old new dad on the block launched his own 'dad' blog – themal- tesedaddy.com – to help expectant fa- thers and raise awareness against the taboo of dads being part of a child's early development. "You find a lot of mummy blogs out there – talking about what's it's like to be pregnant, and how to take care of your- self – but there weren't many blogs from a father's perspective. So instead we at- tended courses, and I bought books try- ing to figure out how to be the 'perfect dad'," says Muscat Fenech Adami, whose wife Laura is now expecting their second child in August – another girl. "A few of my biggest concerns when I expected my first child was whether I'd be ready when she arrives, the things I needed to do, how to be a father – the list goes on. "I count us lucky because on the day of Sophia's birth we had a fantastic midwife. She saw that I wasn't just one of those fa- thers that wanted to sit on the side-lines and be unengaged. I was always asking her about what I could do – and she guid- JAMES DEBONO VIOLENCE in gay and lesbian relation- ships is just as common as in heterosex- ual ones, yet very few seek shelter from abusive partners, and professionals are not adequately trained to tackle these issues. Two out of three local domestic vio- lence shelters evaluated in a study on Same Sex Intimate Partner Violence (SSIPV) appeared to be not well pre- pared to cater for gay, lesbian and bi- sexual victims. With the exception of one service, shelters also do not have a specific plan on how to tackle SSIPV. This was jus- tified by it apparently being limited to only a few cases thus far. The study evaluated the services of three out of five shelters operating in Malta. Moreover, knowledge, awareness, and Daddy's cool about being 'mummy' Shelters unprepared for domestic violence among same-sex couples