The United Nations marks World Family Day every May 15 and believes, for some reason, that men in the families are the key to helping raise healthy children.

“So, what pizza would you like?” I ask every weekend, going through the sheaf of menu cards on our bookshelf. It is very convenient that every time a new restaurant or a fast-food eatery opens in our neighbourhood, a menu with tantalising pictures of food is hung from the door handle.

“Pepperoni,” says my son, but my wife asks if there is a spinach pizza. We fell for that once and ordered it and a grinning delivery boy brought it to the door, presumably knowing that we were going to have a terrible dinner. When we opened the huge box, it looked like something out of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and looked like it was covered with algae and had washed ashore.

My wife, while making conversation, said very pointedly that a survey was done by a shopping outlet in Dubai and people felt that they should spend more quality time with their families. “They wish to spend time at home rather than go gallivanting in the night with their friends,” she said.

“It says here that 87 per cent of Dubai residents look forward to spending time with their families over the weekend,” she said.

“I wonder why a shopping outlet is interested in our quality time,” I said. “Maybe it wants us to spend our quality time spending our money and that would raise the quality of their life,” I said. “Hehe, and those guys who want to spend time with their families. Poor guys don’t have a life,” I said.

“I think they are bluffing. They know what happens over the weekend. The next thing you know you are sitting on a bench in some shopping mall with shopping bags strewn around you and looking at YouTube on the phone.

“UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his message on Family Day, said: ‘Leaving no one behind means leaving no family behind’,” I said. “I remember the time I forgot you guys at the mall and drove back home alone.”

“Look, the UN says a lot of things and nobody really listens. Those guys sitting in New York have even managed to get a World Oral Health Day on the international calendar. I think someone took a big payoff from the dentists to get that on the calendar and have us brushing teeth after every meal. Someone should do a Panama Papers on those guys,” I said.

“Anyway, why should the burden of raising healthy families fall on a man? Are we not doing enough over-time outside the home, already. The work-life balance is perfect at the moment.”

“What was your contribution to raising the kids,” asked my wife. “Most of the time you just plonked the kids in front of the TV and played video games,” she said.

“Wow, cool dad. Did you really do that?” asked my son overhearing the conversation and looking up from his tablet.

“Yes, they had great educational programmes like Sesame Street,” I said. “I was actually helping you guys learn. What do you get nowadays, violent cartoons? Someone, I am not sure whether he is from the UN, said the violence in the world today is because of children’s cartoons. I think the key to quality family time is better children’s cartoons,” I said. “Look, they are going a bit too far,” I said reading the report. “The UN is even having a panel discussion on: ‘Men in Charge. Gender Equality and Children’s Rights in Contemporary Families’.

“Wow, I have rights?” asked my younger son.

“Just play your video games. Keep out of this,” I told him.

Mahmood Saberi is a freelance journalist based in Dubai. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ mahmood_saberi.