Where, oh where oh where oh where, do small children get their boundless amounts of energy from? Last night, I took off to see my favorite action hero, Jason Statham, in the glorrifically un-PC “Crank 2,” a film so utterly and wonderfully tasteless that in 88 minutes it voraciously insults everyone for you without the dirty imprint of such stigmas staining your skin. Theraputic after an aggravating day? Oh I think so. Anyhow, Statham has a plastic heart for most of the film, and as such needs to ‘juice’ himself with violent amounts of electricity to stay alive until he finds his real one. Thus we see Statham connecting himself to car batteries, to power outlets and to power poles.It is not Tarchovsky or Kubrick, but it is supreme vulgar and escapist entertainment of the most visceral order. And as I drove home, chuckling at the sheer insanity of Statham’s energy, I resolved to make sure socket plugs were firmly in place back at home, because whilst the pre-schooler does not combust or punch Triad gang members to oblivion, she can certainly wear down her Mum and Dad with a relentless combination of action, question and sheer need. In fact, one of those relentless combinations was the reason i got in the damn car and drove to see “Crank 2″ in the first place!
Whilst said-pre-schooler’s combination is for the large part manageable and fun, there are times when it really isn’t. You know, as you sit on the throne trying to steal 5-10 minutes peace and quiet only to hear the mini-hammer at the door, banging away, asking for help with this or that or the other. When you’re trying to sleep later than 6 am, though to be fair my wife takes the brunt of that strain as her maternal hearing is better than mine (being a mater and all). When you’re trying to make dinner, when you’re trying to get ready to get out of the house, I don’t know, sometimes it seems like all the time.
And then comes the grumpy cloud. You turn into ever such a bit of a dick. Sarcasm rears it’s ugly head. And then bursts of frustration. You end up sounding like an Italian family having a dinner-time squabble, unintelligable high-pitched shrieks and grunts punctuated occasionally with the sound of your hands slapping against your ears.
And then comes the guilt.
Because let it not be ignored, every single parent feels guilt from time to time. Guilt that they cannot be more patient. Guilt that their reactions are not like the textbooks say they should be. Guilt that they cannot control their anger better. Guilt that they simply cannot be better people sometimes towards their kids. And unless it’s caught quickly and processed evenly, that guilt becomes anger in itself, and before you know it, you’ve wasted a few hours being grumpy and angry that you’re not the model of soothing parental perfection society always seems to pop out as it’s public face.
I’m not going to get new-age here and deliver a formula to tell you how you can avoid ever having these moments again. I am not a guru. And you know what? Even if I was and I told you I had the answer, I’d be a liar. Because the truth is, no-one has, and the deeper truth to THAT is because there IS no answer. It’s simply human nature. It’s simply the way it is. And the dark, dirty secret of life is that in EVERY house in EVERY city in EVERY country which has children, parents will sometimes feel ALL of those things just mentioned.
It’s not a popular thing to admit. Indeed, such is the fear in our society to admit that ANYTHING we do is sometimes imperfect that you can bet your last dollar no-one will admit as much to YOU at the sandbox, but it is a fact! Just like it’s a fact that everyone has had zits and that everyone has (and likely still does) masturbate. Well add ‘not being the greatest parent in the world always’ to that list, because for my money, the sooner all parents start accepting that they are, on occasions, unreasonable and even total dicks to their children, the better off we’d all be for it.
It’s not rocket-science figuring out why. The majority of parents are in their mid-30s, some in their early 40s. And unless you have a phlanx of helpers, chances are that by 7.30pm, your energy levels and expectations of the evening ahead are simply not the same as your children’s. Most of the time it’s fine; you’re ready, you’re able and you’re willing. But sometimes you’d rather drink battery acid, or go and sit in a dark closet with a pillow just to get some rest, or be out with your pals getting hammered, or be in Rio on a beach enjoying pina coladas and various vistas, or you’d rather simply not have to deal. And for a long time I wrestled with the disappointment I felt in myself for feeling like that (I still do occasionally, like this week for example). It didn’t seem right. It seemed wrong. I felt like I was a poor parent for not always being able to navigate around such emotions and aggravations. But this isn’t true. We can’t always be spot-on all the time, and show me someone who claims they are and I will show you either a) a liar or b) someone who has nannies and au pairs step in before they reach those times in the day.
A long time ago, when the teenager was in primary school, I came upon the notion that if I was in ‘dickhead’ form as I like to self-recognize (n.b. this is not a medical term) that i would immediately inform him and let him know that ‘Dad was a bit grumpy so please go easy on him and that it was nothing to do with him at all, that it was just Dad’s thing.’ At least, I reasoned, they wouldn’t think it was them.
And recently, with the pre-schooler, thanks to a heady combination of no-napping, early rising, extreme energy and the occasional wander down Anxiety Avenue, my exasperation (caused, no doubt, by my own lack of sleep time-table…fruit and trees eh?…) demanded that I dig deep and try to find something else. So we made a deal. If she wound me up, if I was too grumpy to her, if we were BOTH grating each other like nails on chalkboard, then even if we’d exchanged a cross-word or 20, we’d make sure we gave out a big, strong hug. A positive release of pressure and frustration. Because seriously, sometimes there’s nothing else left to do other than stew in it.
What it means is that I am still, sadly, inevitably and naturally, an occasionally inadequate dickhead in my dealings with the kids. It’s not right, it’s not wrong, it just ‘is’ part of normal, everyday life. And whilst it’s still hard for me to accept that, accept it I do as much as I can. At least now, along with the standard apology, they get a hug at the end of it all.
Yeah, well I figure my girls are gonna meet much bigger dickheads than me as they get older, so best they learn some coping mechanisms from the get-go.
And anyway, my far too clever for her own good 3 year old doesn’t let me get away with any grumpy behaviour. She simply turns all of our parenting strategies back on us:
“Now that’s not how we talk to each other in this house, is it Dad?”
Sometimes I wonder who is the child in our house. At least I still have the baby to lord over. For now.