Going out for dinner has always been a very enjoyable experience for me. Meeting friends at a restaurant or being invited round for a convivial dinner must rank in my top five of life’s great pleasures.
What has this to do with modern parents I hear you ask? Well, I’m coming to that. My partner and I are a childless couple – by choice. Most of our friends are childless couples. And that’s just the way we like it. When eating with friends, there are fewer complications if there are no children around. No special menus, no extra seating, no tantrums and no restriction on ‘adult talk’. It means that we as childless couples can enjoy a meal totally selfishly, without the worry of having to make allowances for the ‘little ones’.
This social arrangement works perfectly well until – one of those couples decides to have – a baby! Initially everyone is congratulatory about the new arrival – I mean it’s expected isn’t it? The female friends start exhibiting natural brooding behaviours; they coo and carry on at the baby, commenting on which parent it most takes after. That’s all very understandable and natural (if a little nauseating). After all, special hormones kick in when offspring are born; they bond mother with child and seem to spread to any females within range like a wild brush fire. The males are somewhat less effusive, preferring instead just to 'wet the baby’s head'.
Once the novelty of having a baby wears off, the new parents discover that socialising with the old gang becomes a little less frequent. After all there are increasing domestic costs, sleepless nights, and feelings of inertia brought on by the wearisome task that is child-rearing.
Now, wouldn't it be great if a new social order emerged, whereby new parents relinquished their seats at the restaurant table in favour of new childless members? That's what should happen. So why doesn't it? Well for some reason (and it has to be said that this is a relatively modern phenomenon), something odd happens to new parents. It’s as though the part of their brain that’s important for good socialisation atrophies and dies.
The new parents re-instal themselves into the childless group, bringing their kids with them! I don’t understand this at all. I’ve never once heard parents ask if it’s OK to bring their brats along to dinner; they just assume that everyone will embrace this incursion with enthusiasm. And I’ve yet to meet a childless couple who (when seriously pressed) are overjoyed at the prospect of having their evening ruined by a petulant pre-schooler. Very rarely will a child sit quietly at a table and not cause any trouble. Those that do are the exceptions; and let’s face it, when it gets close to bedtime, even a well-behaved kid starts being tetchy and troublesome.
Why can’t parents these days recognise the fact that children need a lot of sleep and need to be tucked up in bed early in order to rest from their daily adventures? Keeping a five-year old up until midnight is almost child abuse!
Now at this point I can sense the indignant braying of parents reading this, and I anticipate the inevitably dismissive statements like, “You’ve never had kids so you don’t know what it’s like!”
Well, boo sucks to you. You see I do know what it’s like because I have brought up two kids. Admittedly they weren’t biologically mine; but considering I dandled them on my knee, read them bedtime stories, tended their grazed knees, saw them off at their first days at school, and endured their weekly junior soccer and netball games, I believe I’m as qualified as any to comment on child rearing.
However, unlike 95% of modern parents who inflict their offspring on others, I understood the importance of adult time and child time. The only occasions my kids mixed it with the grown-ups was when an invitation would be made encouraging them to come along. Mind you, those invitations were rare and almost always made by people who already had kids.
When they were little, my kids knew that after dinner it was time to take a bath, and then it was time for bed. They didn’t always like it, but since when did the objections of a child mean that a parent had to cave in at the first groans of “Can I stay up and watch TV?”
Returning to the point about children and late nights, yesterday was a case in point. My partner and I were enjoying the Australia Day celebrations at the riverside home of friends. The day was enjoyable, there was lots of great food and wine, boat rides; I even had a go at crabbing on the estuary. A couple in their early forties were invited along with their three children, two girls and a boy, all under nine. The couple were educated, interesting and very pleasant company. They were both engineers, and I got on particularly well with the husband who shared my interest in Monty Python.
Most of the day the children were no trouble, although it has to be said they were the type of kids who are allowed to express themselves in whatever way they like, with only the most gentle chiding if they did anything silly or risky. You know the kind of thing - children whose parents have a hippy mentality to child-rearing.
The day was a long one and dinner wasn’t served till about 8:30, by which time the kids were becoming fidgety. All would have been well except for something that made me incandescent with rage. The crabs we’d caught had been cooked and placed on a big platter on the communal table well before everyone sat down for dinner. The hosts and the guests were off doing various things – cooking, showering, dressing for dinner. I was one of a few people sitting near the table enjoying a drink.
At the table were the boy, his mother and my partner's mum – the women talking animatedly about nothing in particular.
The boy, being bored and tired, thought it would be fun to start playing war games with the crabs, pulling legs off and generally mauling the poor crustaceans with fingers that quite possibly had recently been probing a nasal cavity - or worse. This all happened under the mother’s nose, and apparently with her complete approval! I didn’t know who I wanted to slap more – the child or the mother!
I have my own theory about why modern parents behave as they do. I have no doubt that double-income parents spend less time with their kids than they feel they ought to. This results in a culture of compensating, by including the children in every social function the parents attend. Single-parent families behave in similar fashion – but I can sympathise more with them. Not only do they have to compensate for going out and making a living, they have the added burden of compensating for the absence of the other parent – usually the father. Single parents, you’re not entirely to blame, but that doesn't let you off the hook. And it still doesn't entitle you to inflict your kids on us.
Also compensatory gestures are a good way of assuaging the guilt parents feel that somehow they aren’t doing enough 'parenting'. I have a solution for this, but it can wait for another rant. Here’s a clue though – I won’t make many friends with 'working mums' of double-income families whom I believe should be at home raising their kids!
Finally, a plea! Parents of young children – if you are going to choose to be parents, accept the price of parenthood! My parents made sacrifices to bring me up, why can’t you? Today’s youth culture of instant gratification shouldn’t apply to you; being with your kids should be gratification enough. And it certainly shouldn’t be others who suffer as a result of your selfishness.
Successful parenting in my opinion is about consistency. Kids like routine. Though they don’t know it, they even thrive on discipline (as long as that discipline is fair and not heavy-handed). Spend quality time with the kids, put them to bed early, and stop making excuses that life’s too hectic, work’s too busy and the mortgage won’t be paid unless both of you work. If you will buy a house you can’t afford and max your credit card out with plasma TVs and compensatory toys for the children, then you don’t deserve to be a parent. You don’t even deserve to own a dog!
The Gob
