“Well, that’s not so bad, is it?” I say. “Toast on a CD? After all, they do look like coasters. They’re easy to wipe clean. In a survival situation, they’d be an obvious substitute for melamine picnic plates. I think that’s quite reasonable.”
“You just shouldn’t leave your lunch on my records!” Pete says, sounding a little bit emotional. A bit like a woman, I have to say. “I wouldn’t—” he casts around for a comparable event “—put a pork pie in your handbag.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you did,” I say, reasonably. I am very reasonable.
“I know you wouldn’t!” he says. “I’ve seen you put falafel in the glove compartment! You have very low standards of hygiene! After sixteen years, I accept that in you! I just don’t accept it in you on my stuff!”
“Is it so bad?” I ask. I’m rather hurt. I have improved my standards since we’ve been together. When I moved into his flat, in 1996, I brought two black garbage bags of dishes with me. Dirty dishes. That was by way of my trousseau. In one bag, there was an ashtray. Full. But I wouldn’t do that now. I have changed.
“You leave your dirty tights in the kitchen. I found one of your flip-flops in my computer bag. Yesterday, I took my Oyster card out of my coat and it had one of your blister pads stuck to it—I had to stand at Holborn peeling it off. You threw my Le Creuset oven glove out of the window.”
“I’ve already done a column on that,” I say. “To my mind, it’s been dealt with.”
“I came down after one drinking session and found you’d stubbed your fag out on Nancy’s special Little Mermaid plate,” Pete continues. “You try to squeeze the blackheads on my nose when I’m driving; you come in and start conversations with me when I’m on the toilet; you’ve ruined all the BBC Four reruns of 1976’s Top of the Pops by repeatedly saying, ‘I hope when the punks finally turn up, they’ve got GUNS and KILL J. J. Barrie.’ ”
“Is this,” I say, hopefully, “one of those arguments where you list all of the ways I’ve ruined your life—but, by the end of it, you feel oddly saucy, and the argument segues into some sex? Like in Moonlighting?”
“And you compare everything to Moonlighting, even though you know I’ve never seen it,” Pete says.
The pleasures in having children are uncountable. The touch of a sticky, starfish hand on your face. The walk to school where you merrily slag off half their classmates together. The mammalian joy in watching an ill child find comfort, and fall asleep, in your arms.
On top of this, if you’re a lighthearted newspaper columnist charged with taking a wry, sideways glance at life until life knows the fuck it’s been wryly glanced at sideways, they’re always good for rinsing out a quick 850 words on a tight deadline. If anyone calls it child exploitation, you can point out that the Lego Death Star costs £274.99—and so therefore who, really, ultimately, is screwing whom over here?
I REFUSE TO MAKE YOU GOODY BAGS. LEAVE BEFORE I SUMMON A POLICEMAN.
I am not a curmudgeon when it comes to my children’s birthdays. Not at all. I make them a card, I make them a cake. Let’s cut to the chase—I made them. I am a birthday originator. If it weren’t for me, they’d just be cardless, cakeless, aimless sperm.
But while there is no end to the amount of delight I am prepared to shoehorn into my daughters’ big days, I do draw the line at one thing: goody bags. I find goody bags unconscionable. I will not hand them out. I think they are the symbol of a decadent and corrupt regime. There is no logical reason why they ever have come into existence, or why we—as reasoning, sane people—should continue to support them.
In the sixteen, peaceful years my husband and I have had together, there are only two subjects on which we come to blows. The first is over his repeated, intolerable desire to own an oven mitt—MAN UP AND USE A FOLDED TOWEL. YOU DON’T NEED SOME MANNER OF PAMPER MITTEN TO GET A TRAY OF OVEN CHIPS OUT, YOU THUNDEROUS NANCY.
And the second is goody bags. Twice a year, it is the same argument.
Him: “Party tomorrow. Better get the goody bags ready.”
Me, reasonably: “Pete, as those children leave, they will already HAVE a goody bag. The bag is their own heads—and the gifts inside are the memories of a great day, spent violating a balloon animal man.”
Him, not listening at all: “I don’t want to put the same things in it this year as I did last year. Last year I did mini Rubik’s cubes. It’s got to be something different.”
This desire for “unending bag surprise” has led my husband down some unexpected goody-bag alleyways. Last year, he made every single kid at Lizzie’s ninth birthday a compilation CD of songs he thought they’d like. We never got any feedback on the ninety minutes of the “more accessible” works of Stackridge, Kraftwerk and psychedelic folk-jazz titans Pentangle—possibly because kids these days have everything on MP3, instead. They must have been intrigued by the odd rainbow coaster in their bag. Perhaps they thought it was a pirate Blue-ray of Avatar.
Pete’s problem is that he is essentially a good man, trying to make sense of a bad system—but he should never have been pushed into the invidious position of trying to get seven-year-old children into psyche-folk in the first place. Why on earth would a child attending a party receive, essentially, a gratuity? It’s like we’re tipping them on the way out the door.
Let me make this clear: I am not thanking them for coming. I’ve just laid on three hours of food, amusement, and tolerance in the face of Alfie taking over the handicapped bathroom at Pizza Express, and using it as his own private office-cum-hangout, much in the manner of the Fonz conducting his “business” from his favorite booth at Al’s Diner. I have also had to deal with Emily, who has explained her attitude to pizza thus: “I don’t have the pizzas with tomato sauce, or cheese, on. Not those.”
The message I have, to twenty-four departing children, is not, “Here is your treasure bag. I am grateful for this special time with you.” It is, “You’ve had your fun—now sling your hook, sunshine, before I summon a police constable.”
I don’t believe in children’s goody bags in the same way I don’t believe in “The Gifting Room” at awards ceremonies. People rocking up at the Oscars don’t need to be taken into a room full of high-end consumer durables and/or “pamperment experiences.”
By the time you’re walking down a red carpet, a kilo heavier from all the diamonds, all your life is basically one big gift. You know—Mariah Carey’s had a great day. She’s gotten out of the house, worn a nice frock, had a conversation with John Travolta she probably didn’t understand, and now she’s going home again. She doesn’t need a Diamonique-covered Magimix and some spa vouchers to sweeten the deal.
And yet this pointless giving of gifts continues, unstopped. Parents are brought to the edge of despair by it. You see them, the day before a party, wandering around shops with that “goody-bag look” in their eye.
“I just need a collection of stuff that comes to no more than £2 per child,” their posture is saying. “It honestly could be anything. I will put an apple, a box of tacks and a copy of the Express in there if I have to. I just need a quantity of stuff to weigh a child’s hand down as it goes out of the door.”
The honest, untrammelled reaction of a child, meanwhile, reminds you of the pointlessness of the whole thing.
“Oh,” they say, looking inside the bag. “This eraser is all covered in frosting.”
And then they throw the whole lot in the garbage can.
More parenting fury—this time, over the monolithic merchandising cash cow that is Charlie and Lola. At the time I wrote this, it didn’t seem appropriate to mention in The Times that I’ve “got my eye” on husky-voiced, awkward Marv—Charlie’s best friend—and would totally Mrs. Robinson him when he reaches the age of majority; some four years hence from his age in the books. Somehow, though, it seems okay to say it here. The italics oddly make it okay.
I HATE CHARLIE AND LOLA
In the early days of parenthood you aren’t, of course, so picky. In those first, panicking years, anything that entertains and diverts your children for ten minutes—allowing you such fripperies as falling asleep face down on the landing, or the time to slough crusts of spit-up from your unflattering parenthood pantaloons—is gratefully embraced. You would put on a DVD of any old toot for five minutes’ respite from a 3 PM toddler, who is freaking out, Gremlins-style, about contact with sunlight. It’s hard to explain to a non-parent how very low your standards—and, indeed, morals—become. Once, on one of the very worst days—when no TV show seemed to please them—I remember thinking, “Hitler apparently had a mesmeric oratory style. Audiences would listen, silent and rapt. I wonder if I could order something from Play.com.”
But they get older, it gets easier, and you can, finally, afford the luxury of quality control. You can begin to cast a critical eye over just what it is your children are staring at, saucer-eyed, and evaluate it in the same way you used to evaluate your own collection of music, DVDs and books.
And when I started to do this with my children’s very favorite program—one of the most famous and successful of the last ten years—I had a creeping realization: I hate Lola from Charlie and Lola.
There. I’ve said it.
For those who’ve never watched the program, the setup is this: Charlie and Lola are two middle-class, bohemian children who live in a world of eclectic Scandinavian textiles and irregularly-drawn eyes. Where their parents are, no one knows—judging by their house, mum is probably appearing on Newsnight Review wearing spendy shoes and analyzing Peep Show, while dad drops some rare Twinkletronica and Humbient grooves at an online nu-rave club, via Skype.
In their absence, bright, chatty, intolerable four-year-old Lola is being raised by her older, put upon, tousle-haired brother, Charlie. Charlie has a lot endure. “I am a fussy eater!” Lola declares, cheerfully—necessitating Charlie to spend a whole show renaming carrots “orange twiglets from Jupiter,” until his sister finally gets her tea down her. He has to rename mashed potatoes “cloud-fluff from the pointiest peak of Mount Fuji,” because Lola is a child who won’t eat mashed potatoes. A child who won’t eat MASHED POTATOES! Honestly, I have more tolerance for the Ku Klux Klan.
“I honestly, totally and completely can look after your dog!” Lola promises Charlie’s friend, Marv—immediately losing the dog, and probably getting Marv beaten that night.
“I am too absolutely small for school,” Lola says—crocodilian eyes calculating exactly how long she can play Charlie for a rube, wringing bribes and concessions out of him, before she finally knuckles down and goes through the school gates LIKE SHE KNOWS SHE HAS TO.
Charlie’s age is never specified, but he looks around eleven—on the cusp of puberty. That he has to spend his days humoring a girl who opens all his birthday cards, breaks his rocket, and thinks she’s Mariah Carey at her most mad (“All the world should have rainbows and ice creams!”) must, surely, be a ballache of titanic proportions. His parents have created a lisping, eating-disordered monster—and then left him to deal with it while they take their Pashleys to La Fromagerie, to choose between their two favorite ash-rolled goat’s cheeses for supper. Guys! Just get some Kraft slices and bail this kid out! Bail us out.
For the real basis of my hatred of Lola comes from her terrifying power as a role model to my daughters. She has raised intolerable expectations of what a twenty-first century child’s bedtime might reasonably consist of—demanding tigers drinking pink milk, lions to put the toothpaste on her toothbrush, and three whales in her bath before she’ll even deign to put on her pajamas. This is, obviously, roughly equivalent to pressing a button labelled “Drive all parents mad NOW.” It’s certainly not how I was raised. My bedtime ritual consisted of my mother pointing upstairs, and shouting, “GO THERE.” That was very much a ritual I intended to pass on to my own children, until this . . . termagant came along.
What will become of Charlie and Lola in adulthood? Although it’s theoretically too early to call it, Charlie’s clearly going to be a total hotty by the time he hits sixteen. Given his appearance and upbringing, he’ll end up forming an awkward, middle-class, Radiohead-type band, tour for a couple of years, then get a gig composing the incidental music for Skins. His early experience with a capricious younger sister will make him prime husband material, and his high-achieving wife will happily indulge his twice-yearly snowboarding sessions, and on/off weed habit.
Lola, on the other hand, will be one of the high-profile auditionees on The X Factor who tanks out spectacularly at Bootcamp, wailing “PLEEEASE, Simon—I absolutely completely and totally know I can do this!”
Yes. In thirteen years, Lola will be Zooey Deschanel’s evil twin.
Still, I’m aware that being a father is just as hard as being a mother. Especially when your kids start talking.
THE HORROR OF DADDY’S SPECIAL LEMONADE
I was sitting at the kitchen table last week, flicking through the newspapers, and observing just how many confusing and/or alarming things I could absorb before breakfast. Here was the news that David Cameron is apparently taking “anti-posh” lessons—surely an ill-advised move in the middle of an election campaign, given that, were it successful, the Conservative Party would be left with little more than a pair of trousers, and a name-tag reading “Dave.”
On the next page, another mention of how the Mayans believed the world would end in 2012—a theory which is now beginning to rattle me quite badly. What, I panic, in the name of Moses, is going to go down at the London Olympics? How badly wrong can an opening ceremony featuring Paul McCartney, David Beckham and Stomp go? The only thing that could possibly make the End of Days worse is knowing that its epicenter was in Stratford, and that all the disruption of building the East London Line had been a complete waste of time, after all.
But then I turned the page and saw a picture of convicted pedophile Sidney Cooke, and felt suddenly and enormously reassured.
Now he really does look like a pedophile, I thought to myself happily. No doubt about that. He’s a classic beast. He looks like he’s from some putative Deviant Central Casting Agency. If I saw him in a playground, I thought, there would be no doubt or uncertainty. I would be evacuating the swings immediately. So long as there are pedophiles who look as obviously up to no good as Cooke, there is less confusion and worry in the world. He has that certain, unmistakable, alarming “something” that sets the nerves jangling. Thank God for Cooke.
I turned the page in the newspaper, finally feeling more relaxed about the world.
But of course, that certain, alarming “something” is not just restricted to things that actually warrant alarm. Sometimes, we are alarmed by things that shouldn’t really be alarming at all.
I was given cause to reflect on this the next day, when we had some friends over. Lizzie greeted them in the hallway.
“I’ve been helping Daddy make his Special Lemonade!” she said, brightly. My husband does, indeed, make very good lemonade. As lemonades go, it really is quite special. But as I caught the momentary quizzical looks of my friends, I realized that the phrase “Daddy’s Special Lemonade” has a certain . . . dubious quality to it.
“I love Daddy’s Special Lemonade!” Lizzie continued, cheerfully, as we all went into the kitchen. The situation started to feel bad.
“It’s got limes in it,” I said, briskly. My husband, however, had already noticed the glances.
“Oh, I wish I’d never called it that.” He sighed, pouring lemonade out into glasses. “Daddy’s Special Lemonade was a bad idea. It’s like that tickle thing, all over again.”
The “tickle thing” was an unfortunate incident a couple of years ago, when we had to leave a playground after a very young Lizzie shouted, “Daddy! Tickle me in my special place!”
As it happens, her “spec
ial place” was a particularly ticklish spot under her chin—but the looks on the other parents in the playground suggested they did not believe this to be the case. We actually never went back to that playground again—which was a shame, as there was particularly good mobile reception there, and I used to read all my emails while she was on the slide.
It is a sad fact that, over the last few years, both “special” and “Daddy” have taken on a slight tinge of . . . unsavoriness. Menace. Perhaps it’s the racks of misery memoirs that have them in the title—Please Daddy, No; What Daddy Did; Daddy’s Special Girl—but two ostensibly benign words are becoming loaded with unhappy inference. To the point that, when I see a greeting card with “To a Special Daddy” on the front, I can barely repress a shudder. A Special Daddy? A Special Daddy must be the very worst. That’s some seriously gnarly ominousness. What manner of monster is Hallmark catering to?
As things stand, at this point in the twenty-first century, we’re on the verge of losing our innocence toward words “daddy” and “special.” I feel like homophobic bigots must have felt in the 1970s, as they watched the word “gay” slip from their vocabulary.
Lexical tectonic plates are shifting. Special Branch, the Special Olympics, the Specials, Special K—all will have to be renamed, as the word shifts from “something unique and significant” to “a terrible traumatic secret, such as would be a major plotline development in General Hospital.” As a consequence, the words “specialization” and “specialist” will sound little better than an outright admission of having studied evil at the PhD level.
As for Daddy’s Special Lemonade—we’ve told Lizzie to refer to it as Lime Surprise from now on. As a matter of some urgency.
“Mummy’s Special Lemonade,” on the other hand, is a much different beast. It’s a gin and tonic with a massive wedge of lemon.
IN DEFENSE OF BINGE DRINKING
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