The problem of discipline has never really gone away. It’s one of those things that’s constantly in the background but occasionally breaks through. When it does, there’s an outburst from me and we spend the next few days circling around each other like angry cats.
‘No, Christine, no! This is complete bullshit. If we’re going to play good-cop, bad-cop with our children, then I also want to be the good cop sometimes. You will walk over the things they have just dropped – without saying a word. You will watch them dirty, waste, and break – without saying a word. You will offer them a freaking menu for supper. What kids get a choice of food each day? If we’re eating chicken, they must eat chicken; if we’re eating pasta, they must eat pasta. We’re not going through the whole grocery cupboard just to find something they want to eat.’
‘But they’ll go to bed hungry.’
‘I don’t give a stuff! If they don’t eat for a week, that’s fine. As long as we provide adequate food, that’s it! I’m sick of always having to be the nasty person. They’re going to grow up to hate me if you’re always nice to them and I’m always shouting at them. It’s not fair on me. You can also take some of the pain.’
For the next few days, Christine tries. I hear it in the background.
‘Anastasia Margaret. You come here right this minute. Is this the way to leave your room? Who do you expect will pick up these toys? Me? Daddy?’
I’m not there but I see the scene in my mind. Anastasia is looking at her mother and thinking, Oh, dear, he’s given you one of his talks again.
We’re no longer a newly married couple with infants to look after; in retrospect, that was the easy part. There was a predictable but very limited range of responsibilities. Our infants have turned into children. It began with nourishing their bodies sufficiently, but now they can more or less nourish their own bodies. Their minds have opened up and need a different type of nourishment. They want facts, they want answers, they want bedtime stories.
‘Dad, please read us a story.’
‘Sure. Have you brushed your teeth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which book should I read?’
‘That one.’
I pick up the designated book. ‘OK. Here goes . . . would you like some water?’
‘No.’
‘I think you mean, “No, thanks.”’
‘No, thanks. Just a story.’
‘OK. Here goes . . . would you like another pillow?’
‘No! The story!’
‘OK, you’re right, here goes . . . hang on, I need some water. OK, I’m back. Where was I?’
‘The story, Dad!’
‘OK, here goes . . . hang on, Mom’s calling me. OK, here goes. Hang on, I need some more light. Are you guys ready, because I’m here now and I want to read you a story. I’m ready. Are you guys ready – because I am.’
‘Get on with it, Dad!’
‘OK. Let’s get going. Here comes the story you’ve been waiting for. It’s coming around about now. All set, then?’
‘Dad!’
‘Once upon a time the end.’
I stand up quickly, close the book, dim the light and walk out of their room without looking back. I smile to myself as I hear their giggles behind me and the word ‘dad’ mentioned.
But who needs a book?
‘Guys, would you like me to tell you a bedtime story?’
‘Yes, please!’
‘OK. Well, once upon a time there was a woman who lived in a tower and, one day, a handsome goat came and called up to her and said, “Let down your seven dwarves.” When the army came to restore order, the building they were travelling in happened to hit an iceberg because there was a really annoying woman on the front flapping her arms and singing. Once the woman had caught fire the posse needed a very long ladder to blow her off. On the way down her parachute didn’t open and she fell into a volcano. That might have been the end of her but fortunately reinforcements arrived. The reinforcements had to hang about for a while because of the speed of light but when they finally managed to teleport her back to the castle the handsome goat was gone. There was a big sign written with pixie dust where the handsome goat should have been. It read, “You need a bigger goat.” Good night, my beautiful children. Sleep tight.’
The word I hear as I walk away is, ‘What?’
I have put into motion a plan to kill my wife through stress. I’m hoping I can cash in the insurance and find someone younger and more flexible. Someone with tiny red underwear and artificial horns. I will need to start by causing a nervous breakdown.
‘Angus, tell your teacher that your mother told you the name of the plant that catches insects. When she asks you what it is, remember the name. It’s called a “Penis Flytrap.”’
‘Babe! You can’t tell him that. He will. Everyone will laugh at him.’
‘I’m planning on telling him to explain the difference between “indifferently” and “indecently”.’
‘He’s way too young for those concepts.’
‘No, no, I can explain it really simply.’
‘I don’t believe you. How are you going to explain those concepts to a six-year-old?’
‘I will tell you later.’
‘You were going to tell me how you were going to explain things to Angus. They’re not here, so tell me now.’
‘Oh, yes, that. You see, it’s like this: if you’re having sex with a woman and you’re in really deep – bang, bang, bang – and your balls are slapping against her bum – slap, slap, slap – then you’re “in decently”. But if you’re having sex with a woman and you’re in really deep – bang, bang, bang – and your balls are slapping against her vagina – then you’re “in differently”. And that’s the difference. I’m sure he will understand that. It’s dead simple. What? What!?’
‘Angus, tell your teacher that your mother told you how they choose a new Pope.’
‘What’s a Pope?’
‘He’s an important man and wears a pointy hat.’
‘Like Big Ears?’
‘Exactly like Big Ears! That’s very astute, Angus.’
‘Stop it, Babe!’
I’ve gone too far and I know it. We have agreed to disagree around the ‘G’ word, and have declared peace. I apologise. ‘I’m sorry, Angus. That was wrong of me. No, he’s nothing like Big Ears. In fact he is a very important man and he’s very, very important to a lot of people.’
‘Oh, OK. So how do they choose a new one? Why do they choose a new one?’
‘Well, the old one died and they need a new one. He’s an important symbol and needs to be there. But it’s very interesting how his replacement is chosen.’
‘So how do they do it?’
‘Well – and remember to tell your teacher that it was your mother who told you this – a whole bunch of cardinals lock themselves away to discuss it. It’s referred to as the Papal Conclave. They stay in a place called the Sistine Chapel where there are unbelievably beautiful paintings on the ceiling. Anyway, they talk and talk and talk and go through rounds of voting until there is a majority. That is called democracy. Each time they vote, they burn some stuff which causes smoke to rise through the chimney. Outside in the square there are thousands of people watching the chimney and television cameras allow the whole world to watch too. What everyone is waiting for is the moment when the smoke changes from dark to white. When the smoke does change colour it means that the new Pope has been chosen. Pretty cool, hey?’
‘What do they burn?’
‘They burn the old Pope.’
‘Babe!’
‘Hi, Babe, your hair looks nice. How was your day?’
‘Hi. Good, thanks. What are you doing?’
‘I’m just telling Angus a mediaeval knight’s story. I’m telling him the compelling story of Cameltoe.’
‘It was Camelot.’
‘No, that was a different story that involved a sword. My story is about the time when Sir Lancelot looked under the Round Table at Lady Guinevere’s camel toe.’
‘You’d better be joking, you’d better be joking! What if he repeats that at school? What if we start getting phone calls from his teachers? You’re going to deal with them. You. Not me. You.’
‘Relax. I am joking. Angus is not here. He’s outside in the tree house. You’re stuck with me, Babe. In sickness and in health, in sickness and in health.’
‘How many days until the end of the world, Dad?’ It was Angus asking me. I asked him why he wanted to know and, in his opinion, what exactly the end of the world was. He told me that the end of the world was the day that we – everyone – simultaneously died. In his mind it is the point at which God switches everything to ‘off’. I asked him why he wanted to know; he replied that he needed ‘to prepare’. I thought about how to answer and decided to tell him that, yes, I thought that knowing when the world was going to end would be very useful because we could then feed the pets and turn off all the taps. But he still needed an answer.
‘I’m not sure, Angus. I will ask someone and get back to you.’
‘Who are you going to ask, Dad?’
‘With a question of this magnitude, and this is a very big question, Angus, I’m going big – to the top. I’m asking God.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight. I will ask him when you go to sleep. I said “asleep”, not pretending to sleep.’
‘How will you speak to him?’
‘I’ll phone him.’
The next day the very first question to leak from Angus was, predictably, ‘Did you phone God? What did he say?’
‘Yes. I finally got hold of him. There is good news and bad news, Angus. The bad news is that the world will end one day. The good news is that it will be in twenty-five million days; that’s sixty-eight thousand, four hundred and ninety-three years. It will be a while. God says you must stop worrying about it and try to get some sleep.’
‘OK. Can we write it on the board?’
I wrote the numbers 25 000 000 on the kitchen whiteboard and every morning Angus pulls up a chair and subtracts a day. If it’s a tricky subtraction I help him. We both stand back and look at the number. It’s currently at twenty-four million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty-something days.
‘You’ve still got plenty of time, Angus. You can still squeeze in your education; in fact, I think that it would be a jolly good idea if you did.’
The unintended consequence is that Angus informed his friends that I have God’s telephone number. The intended consequence is that he happily goes to school safe in the knowledge that he has ample time ‘to prepare’. One day my beautiful child will check to see that I’m not looking and he will quietly rub the number out.
One plus one is equal to two, there are three sides to every triangle, Christine’s hair does look nice. These are facts and are beyond dispute. Each fact is an individual brick and a surprising amount of parenthood is merely stacking bricks. Thousands upon thousands of bricks, rising out of nothing, creating a pile of sorts. Very often a brick is stacked at the direct request of a child and comes in the form of the simplest question. When relaying facts – or stacking bricks – I am in safe territory.
‘What is a dog, Dad?’
‘A dog is a canine. It (usually) has four legs. There are many varieties of dogs, which are categorised into subsections called breeds.’
Stack, stack, stack. Several facts are stacked on top of each other and the pile gets a little bigger each time. If we parents merely kept to the facts each time we added our brick, we would just end up with a shapeless pile of bricks. But when we add our brick we often deviate from the bare facts and add something else.
‘What is a dog, Dad?’
‘A dog is a canine. It (usually) has four legs. There are many varieties of dogs, which are categorised into subsections called breeds. Male dogs are very lucky because they can lick their own balls. I would love to be able to lick my own balls. If I could lick my own balls I would lie around in the sun all day and do nothing but lick my balls.’
These are partly facts and partly opinions – my opinions. They’re part of my flawed personality. That a male dog can lick his balls is a fact; that he is lucky because he can is an opinion; that I would love to be able to lick my own balls is, again, a fact – but one that is known only to me.
I have not had this dog conversation with my children because they already know what a dog is. But if they didn’t, I would most likely stick to the facts and keep the opinions to myself. To decide on whether to give just the dry fact, or the not-so-dry opinion, I need to use something called judgement. Perhaps, to amuse myself, and stress my wife, I would let this opinion slip through. The relationship between fact and opinion is where parenting gets tricky because, if facts are bricks, opinions are mortar. It is the opinion that holds the facts together. It is the combination of fact and opinion that gives the structure and provides the shape. A parent can add his or her opinions to the small facts, with little consequence, but not all facts are the same size.
‘What is reincarnation, Dad?’
I can see straightaway that this is not a small fact, by any means. This question has paths leading directly to profound beliefs. I can easily stick to the dictionary’s definition when I give my answer. ‘Reincarnation is the birth of a soul in a new body.’
I can also hand the dictionary to my child and say, ‘Look it up’; I would do this regardless because sourcing information is a necessary skill and that’s what dictionaries are for. If I did this I would be helping my children stack another brick but not providing them with any mortar. Alternatively, I can give them some opinion on reincarnation; I can give them some of me.
‘Reincarnation is the birth of a soul in a new body, and let me tell you something: there was once a man called Frank Sinatra. Well, he was reincarnated as a cow and he now sings a song to the birds that sit on his back. It goes like this: “Egrets, I’ve had a few . . .”’ My children will not understand me and, even if they did, they would not find my opinion interesting or funny; Anastasia has already told me that my jokes are ‘rubbish’.
My children do not know how much of my time is spent with my mind racing a few seconds ahead of my mouth. To them I am a source of information. There is usually a quick answer to whatever they ask. Sometimes it’s informative and sometimes it’s amusing; sometimes it’s a fact and sometimes it’s an opinion. What they don’t know is the dilemma they put me in when the relationship between fact and opinion is less clear.