Growing up habits don’t ever really change, it is merely the reasons we do certain things that do. As a teenager, there are a few reasons that we won’t go into, for spending hours in the bathroom with a laptop. As a 30 year old bloke the reason is much less exciting, its pitiful in fact.
So it is here, that I sit, in my white tiled office that I make my confession.
I am hiding from my children. No I’m not talking, counting to ten “ready or not, here I come” hiding. This is full on – if you knock the bathroom door I will stay silently still and wait for you to give up and pop up to the shed to look for me! This should buy me another five minutes alone. The bathroom is the only sacred place in the house. It is the only place you can justify locking the door and attempting to ignore the chaos surrounding you, under the pretence of requiring the use of the facilities.
The problem with this is, there is no escape. These kids are not stupid. Princess Sarcasm practically listens for the door to lock, waits a few moments for you to settle in, then bounds up the stairs bangs on the door and anounces that she desperately needs the loo.
Bam Bam has a less subtle approach, he’ll do something like force the cat into the microwave, come to the bottom of the stairs, shout “ah cook a cat” and take a leisurely walk back to the kitchen and wait for the sound of of your feet thundering down the stairs.
It depends on the sort of day he has had how long he will give you before he turns it on.**
Any parent will understand the desire to escape their kids for a while, not all of them genuinely hide but sometimes it is a decision as to whether to disappear for half an hour or pack a bag, move out and return on the youngest’s 18th birthday.
The reason for hiding today is not the usual. The kids are actually on particularly good form. They have spent the last 20 minutes playing fetch. Yes you read that right. Princess Sarcasm has been throwing a ball of tin foil for Bam Bam to run after and bring back to her, which he has happily obliged in doing, with a wide smile on issuing the ball to his sister, like he’s genuinely pleased with himself. And I’m pretty sure I saw her giving him a biscuit after.
Basically for 20 minutes my son has been a F*cking Retriever. A messy, feral, ginger Retriever.
The reason for hiding today is that I am in trouble. The Wife is extremely pissed at me and it’s Princess Sarcasm’s fault. O.k well its my own fault but I would of gotten away with it if it wasn’t for them pesky kids.
Firstly I need to explain that I do not find bad language from children funny. I find it vulgar and feel that it taints the innocence of childhood. That being said I find it worse if the child knows that what they are saying is used to offend or that it is not nice. If they are simply mirroring something they have witnessed and don’t actually know what it is they are saying, you can’t really blame them.
You can probably already guess the reason I’m in trouble. Bam Bam was being particularly annoying today and it was not only me who his actions were troubling. After a while of his persistent noise, his sister exclaimed that he was “being a real d*ck head!”
We fell silent, trying to process what had just been said, which I now regret, as she proceeded to repeat it not once, but FOUR TIMES!
The wife was furious, not with the child… but me.
Funnily enough there was no confusion as to where it had come from. Anyone who has been told what happened has looked me in the eyes with disgust and not one has asked who could be to blame.
It probably doesn’t help that I am known for having a bit of a short fuse, so road rage is a regular occurrence for me. I do try to kerb my language around my kids, I do not want them to develop into foul mouthed, hooded 12 year olds, so my wife has had me replacing words like f*ck with fruit etc.
However sometimes in the heat of the moment, you find you have already said the obscenity before you’ve had time to think.
So it probably doesn’t help that a few weeks back when the wife got cut up by someone in the car and had to slam the brakes on Princess Sarcasm, that angel faced sweet child you see in the pictures, chastised her mother by shouting “f*cking idiot”
It’s bad I know, and I am ashamed. But you will all go through it one day. Every child will say something they shouldn’t as they don’t know any better. It’s how you deal with it and the lessons you learn from it that are important; and sometimes there are positives to consider.
Language and expression are an integral part of a Child’s developement and knowing the context in which a statement is made is a sign of intelligence.
So yeah, I will be that dad, I am proud of her, she was right, because he was being a massive d*ck head!
Not quite ready to tell the wife that just yet though. I’m f*cked if she finds out what Bam Bam said yesterday!
**No actual cats have ever been put in the microwave or cooked, don’t report me to the RSPCA
The Daddy Dreadfuls 