My friend Hurricane thinks that the quality of my life would be much improved if I experienced parenthood.

There's no greater feeling in the world than having a child, he says, adding that there is still time for me to squeeze in a baby, or try IVF, or even adopt.

Oh please, I tell him, eyes rolling. You're mad.

Do you not realise how old I am, I say. I'm past my biological baby-by date.

Besides, all motherly urges have long been expunged from me. I've zero maternal feelings. And, in fact, I've grown to rather dislike little people, especially when they are racing around public places all sweaty, smelly and loud. I've become quite the stereotypical child-averse single.

In any case, why would I want to sacrifice my time, freedom, money and beautifully laundered white bedsheets to have a child, and at my age too? I'd have to suffer him or her through years of diaper changes, school exams, holiday camps, pimple outbreaks, relationship woes and demands for bigger allowances. And to top it off, he'll be riding out his rebellious teenage years when I'm hitting 60.

You're out of your mind, I conclude.

But he doesn't get it.

You see, he is one of those super hands-on modern dads. (To readers who haven't read my earlier columns, he's a crush from junior college whom I recently reconnected with after 29 years. Hurricane was the nickname I'd given him when we were teenagers and it's stuck.)

He adores parenthood. He's probably one of those men who'd put down 'being a father' if asked to list his hobbies or life's achievements.

He's divorced, lives in Britain now, and his daughter, A, is four. He has custody of her on Wednesdays and Thursdays and alternate Fridays and weekends.

To be sure, A's cute. She's half-Chinese and half-Welsh and has beautiful huge black eyes, lovely lashes and an impish smile. When I met her, she was wellbehaved and easy-going too. She loves her meat and shocked me by polishing off an entire plate of crackling roast pork cubes.

Maybe because he doesn't spend every day with her and maybe because he had her fairly late in life, their time together is all the more precious.

He especially misses her after a weekend apart and says nothing beats the feeling of hearing her call out 'Daddy' when she spots him when he picks her up from school or creche.

'She's always happy to see me and jumps into my arms. That's such an incredible feeling.'

As a single dad, he does pretty much what mothers do. (No choice, really, but he relishes every aspect of it.)

He brushes her teeth, bathes her and washes and conditions her hair (more conditioner at the ends and less at the roots, I remind him. Oh, he says, I didn't know that.)

He shops for groceries and his basket always includes the fruits A likes. He cooks for her and it's usually some meat with vegetables and more fruit. He has rules like no chocolate except on weekends.

He buys her toys and dresses (she didn't like a purple winter coat he got and he had to return it) and takes her swimming and to cooking classes. He has started on Mandarin and chess lessons and ballet and piano are next. (Wah, I say, you're still very much a kiasu Singaporean parent, aren't you?)

He spends weekends taking her on long, long walks in the wetlands park. This summer they went camping by the beach, complete with huge tent and barbecue pit.

On one camping trip, she fell sick and he spent the night monitoring her temperature and regretting not packing for home earlier when she wasn't feeling well.

He rescued an abandoned kitten and surprised her with it. They spent days thinking of a name. She kept changing her mind.

On Halloween last month, they went to two parties, she dressed as a witch and he a monster in a black tuxedo.

He prefers her to sleep in her own room but she likes to steal into his. He'll relent and let her sleep with him, her head on his shoulder, or they'll chat and fall asleep in each other's arms.

His dream is to ride his motorbike along the Trans Siberian route all the way to Singapore with her at the back.

He says the love a man has for his child is different from that for his wife. It is a protective and unconditional love, and he says A's love for him is unconditional too.

To prick his happy fatherhood bubble, I say that this lovey-doveyness won't last, you know. Wait till she becomes a teenager and gets rebellious and sarcastic on you.

Maybe, he says, but I hope not.

I was just being mean to him, probably because of my own hang-ups.

I had a complicated relationship with my late father, who had a temperamental nature.

As a child, it was hard to deal with a parent whose moods you had to monitor and manage, who swung between being loving and mild-mannered one hour and shouting and angry the next.

All the things he did when he was in a bad mood overshadowed the many, many nice things he did when he wasn't, which was a pity.

I've always wondered what it's like to have a father who's even-tempered and reasonable, whom you can turn to with your problems because he'll understand, whom you're so close to you'll want to hold his hand even when you're an adult.

Fathers have traditionally been perceived to have a nebulous role in the parenthood equation.

Mothers are expected to be loving and to have a natural bond with the kids but fathers can choose to be less child-friendly. They can keep a distance, just bring home the bacon and no one's going to quarrel much with that.

But more and more men are committed to parenting and my office has its fair share of these modern dads.

Even a colleague who I always thought was a gruff type of dad took leave last week because his son was starting his A-level exams. He wanted to drive the boy to school.

Another friend couldn't hide his smile when his daughter SMSed him out of the blue one night to say 'Love you, papa'.

Still, I've no doubt that my father, who was more in the mould of the traditional dad, loved me as much as Hurricane loves A. He must have always wondered if he was doing enough for me and my siblings, and he must have worried about us constantly.

I told Hurricane that based on how he's doing, A's going to love him very much still when she's a grown girl and he an old man.

She'll remember him as her lean, tanned, shaven-headed, hippy-like dad on his motorbike when she was growing up, and how, when she was four, he surprised her one day with a cat which she called Ruby (for a while).

She'll remember the times he took her to the club to swim and that Halloween party one year when she dressed up as a wicked witch, and how he liked to make her walk and walk in the wetlands even when her poor little legs were so tired.

He told me that that was the most touching thing I've ever said to him.

I don't have any regrets not being a parent. But I'm glad I got to witness someone who is and who is doing a good job of fatherhood.

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This article was first published in The Sunday Times.