Jonathan Dodd’s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
Freedom is a terrible thing. There is no such tyranny as that of having nobody to tell you what to do or not do, and no life as empty and pointless as one with no identified purpose or direction.
We all think of children as being blessedly free from responsibility or duties, except for those imposed by brutish parents, but I can clearly remember days during my summer holidays when I was at home and my mother was busy, trailing into the kitchen and complaining about having nothing to do.
Before the next task avalanche
I was such an ungrateful child. I know, because my poor harassed mother kept telling me I was, especially when I slunk off rather than staying to help her with any of the jobs she was struggling to complete before the next task avalanche started rumbling. I know, and she knew, that I had the perfect way to get out of helping her even if she made me start some job or other. All I had to do was make a mess of it.
When you have hardly any time, it always takes longer to show someone else how to do something than to do it yourself. I am thoroughly ashamed of my young self. I will add the proviso that I changed when I had the same trick pulled on me when I became a father. I think all parents accept that their little darlings can be tyrannical terrors when they glimpse any kind of advantage over poor old long-suffering us.
All right now?
Occasionally we score a victory in this war. I was once in the supermarket with one child refusing to leave the buggy, and the other one building a head of tantrum steam. It started in the vegetable aisle, possibly because vegetables were anathema and no sweets were in sight. I remember stopping and looking down at the small rigid body lying on the floor, feet and fists pummeling it and screaming. I remember saying – ‘I’ll be in the next aisle. Come and find me when you’ve finished.’
As the buggy-bound child and I turned the corner, I remember seeing a small group of old ladies gathering round the offending child. I stationed myself where I could see through a gap in the shelving and waited. The wailing stopped when all those unfamiliar feet and legs became apparent, and we were soon reunited. I looked down, said – ‘All right now?’ and we carried on with the shopping.
Three inevitable truths
I do know that not everyone could do that. The child was within eyesight at all times, and there were only old ladies in there, so there was no danger involved, and it illustrated to me the three inevitable truths of being a (hopefully good) parent.
Firstly, all your ideas of style and dignity have to be jettisoned. Having your sleeve used as a handkerchief, getting sick-trails down your back, and smelling of various unpleasant substances becomes par for the course.
With plain disapproval on their faces
You find yourself yelling at these small people at the top of your voice, you threaten them with terrible things, and you stop yourself the moment you notice someone looking at you with shock or horror or plain disapproval on their faces.
I say – ‘Stay with the project! Don’t let your own problems with the approval of others stop you doing what you know you need to do for the good of the future adults in your charge.’ We all know so-called people who were allowed to get away with murder as children. My case rests.
They forget everything
The second thing you need to throw out is the idea that you can ever rest or sleep in an uninterrupted and deep manner when you have children. You’re running in a marathon, with no training and no manual and nobody encouraging you or giving you any kind of sensible advice.
You can’t even ask your own parents, partly because you’re still angry about all those terrible things they inflicted on you when you were a child. And besides, all parents go through a mystifying change when they become grandparents, in which they forget everything they did or went through when they were parents themselves.
Facial-line-inducing, wallet-emptying
Suddenly these retired tyrants go all soft and doe-eyed, and their grandchildren, the traitors, suck up to them in revolting ways, often in return for sacks of sweets and toy gifts you’ve been refusing for months.
Your own children are hard work. Back-breaking, hair-whitening, facial-line-inducing, wallet-emptying hard work. And when they’re not slowly killing you, the worry takes over. You sit through films or meals out, not paying attention, because you don’t know the baby-sitter and the house might burn down.
And they resent it all
Then they go out into the world, these precious people in whom you have invested so much of your hopes and money, and they know nothing, but you know everything that could go wrong. And they resent it all.
The third thing is the extra stuff you do, beyond that mere minimum of care that you see being grudging handed out to other people’s children. The evenings spent at the swimming pool, or Tai Kwon Do classes, the horse-riding lessons, the trips to the zoo and museums.
The staggering along with all the paraphernalia
Then there are the holidays at the most expensive time of year, the time spent building sand-castles and snowmen, the staggering along with all the paraphernalia whilst unencumbered youngsters skip ahead and laugh at you because you keep dropping things and falling behind.
You find yourself staying up all night on Christmas Eve, because you were out for hours finding that toy that was sold out in the first seven shops. You colour and cut out, and watch terrible TV and films, read the same story in exactly the same way every night for three months, make costumes for parties and school assemblies, bake and clean and wash and iron.
So much more than exhausting
And you have to hold the line in the face of terrible campaigns for the latest trainers, or inappropriate clothes, or boy band tickets, amid food dislikes, bad behaviour, tantrums, impossible demands and emotional outbursts. It’s all so much more than exhausting.
And then you’re free. And then they’re out there, and they deal with difficulties and trials in a way that makes you want to weep and punch the air, because that’s the end result, the one you hoped for, and kept hold of despite everything, and your insides melt and you go back to your Horlicks and slippers, which are just about all you can cope with any more, and you’re happy. And proud.
It’s all about the work
People want to know what life’s all about. They ask – ‘Why?’ – a lot, but life’s really about making choices and having hoped-for outcomes, and working as hard as you can to shorten the odds against so many possibilities of failure. It doesn’t have to be children, it could be mountaineering, or running a business, or just loving someone, or writing columns for OnTheWight, or building a bridge. Once you get the idea, it’s all about the work.
And it’s always worth it. And sometimes it works too.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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