Paternal sympathy for a heavenly host

Perhaps the most common example is the remora fish attaching itself to a shark.

The remora enjoys transportation and tasty leftovers, while the even-stevens shark gets very little out of the bargain (although, the relationship can sometimes stray into 'mutualism' if the remora is considered to be cleaning the bigger fish's denticles).

In the human world, an example of commensalism may be you and your child giving a neighbourhood kid a lift to school if they happen to live along your route. It's certainly no skin off your nose, it's just a wisp of give-and-take offered up to the universe along with all those billions of other daily gestures ranging from the solipsistic to the benign to the munificent.

If nothing else, life is just one long marathon of quid pro quo ending with a final, non-tax-deductible donation to the cosmos. We send our husks to be burnt and scattered to the four winds or mummified beneath the earth; there they lay, in darkness and silence, no loftier mass of molecules than those which make up various apparently lower-rung species burrowing blindly around us through all that muck.

While not yet classified as a species in its own right (give it time), Patricia Piccinini's spectacular Skywhale order is obviously of a far higher caste than we gravity-abiding bipeds, let alone all those subterranean creatures with which we end up ushering in eternity, and the artist's creations are once again bobbing about our collective conscience, gently prodding us to contemplate ourselves and existence.

Now out of the bag, Skywhalepapa - the masculine yang to the original Skywhale's feminine yin - is already fulfilling his provocative role and strikes me as a seven-storey salute to symbiosis.

Just like those remoras riding shotgun with sharks, the juveniles (Skycalves? Skysprogs? Skypoles?) hitching with Skywhalepapa seem to embody, at first glance, something which feels close to 'commensalism', maybe even 'mutualism'.

As a papa myself, however, I recognise that relationship for what it really is: 'parasitism'.

Piccinini reportedly intended her new balloon to represent the sharing of the parental load; a bloaty, blokey, floaty tribute to the nurturing spirit and, indeed, as those creepy little fingerlings crawl all over their put-upon carer, there's no doubt both his flippers are full but the overwhelming impression I get is poor old Shywhalepapa looks in dire need of an adult-sized dose of Combantrin. (Actually, better make it the whole packet).

It's at this point, I'm supposed to backtrack and say: "No, no, kids aren't leeches, they're great ... I love them ... I can't imagine my life without them etc, etc."

And, yes, this is true but, frankly, just like those remora fish, kids suck.

They cramp your style, it takes years for them to be able to mow the lawn (properly) or lift anything useful; they're querulous, quarrelsome, needy and expensive and they hold a binding mortgage on your heart. As they say, "You're only as happy as your least-happy child", something prospective parents should think about before making the transition from fur babies to humans, which come equipped with far greater life (and lifestyle) expectancies.

But no one should be surprised when a father makes such a statement because we just don't share the same bond with our offspring as our viviparous counterparts.

It's OK to admit this.

Dads (if we're lucky) meet the kids in the delivery room and spend the next bewildering couple of decades trying to convince our overly entitled house guests we are in fact an important component of the whole operation, while mothers, furnished with wombs, share a far more immediate and profound connection, something men can appreciate, if not completely empathise with, not that we want to.

It's theorised Ridley Scott's Alien endures as one of the most frightening films in history because it exploits the concept of 'male birth'. With some 'male rape' thrown in for good measure, the gender-hero-subverting space horror, with all its facehuggers and chestbursters, does indeed seem to claw somewhere around the same dark place of the male psyche which harbours a fear of the GP or seeking directions and a kind of parental imposter syndrome whereby we constantly question our ability to provide for our families.

That's not to say the vast majority of fathers aren't loving and affectionate and generous and it's also certainly not to suggest those parents who aren't biologically responsible for their children aren't the best mums and dads in the world.

All I'm saying is, show me a father and I'll show you a man who regularly daydreams about life before kids.

From the distant expression on Skywhalepapa's face (do I also detect a hint of brewing panic?), I reckon this is exactly what he's thinking as his partner drifts off to book club with her girlfriends and he's lumped with all those little pink lumps.

Perhaps Skywhalepapa is thinking about that night, back in 1999, when he and his mates hits Kings Cross hard? Maybe he's thinking about how he used to be seriously fit and could go to the beach without fearing someone would roll him back in the ocean or back up into the clouds? Or perhaps Skywhalepapa is just thinking about how much he misses his 1974 LH Torana?

I'd love to have a beer and a chat with Skywhalepapa at the pub (the kids can wait in the van, we'll bring out some lemon squash and packets of krill chips). I'm sure, like most paternal figures, he'd view his mystifying purpose in life as simply trying to get his progeny safely through metamorphosis, hoping the successes will outweigh the failures along the way.

Maybe over a game of pool (he can be bigs, obviously) I could tell Skywhalepapa about how, sometimes, your best days come completely out of the blue; like one outing a few years back, when saddled with my own three children in the city, instead of surrendering to the usual demands to invest in more landfill from Smiggle, I doggedly drove over to the NGA and we all experienced the Hyper Real exhibition featuring, coincidentally enough, many of Piccinini's mind-blowing works.

It was wonderful fun and I know the kids realised, that day, dad had provided them with a truly precious memory.

Not that the little blighters ever thanked me.