‘Mum, can I have a Gameboy for my birthday, please?’ asked Low the Elder a couple of weeks before he reached the monumental age of five.
‘No, honey.’
Bottom lip on floor. ‘But why?’
‘Because it’ll turn you into an antisocial recluse who will confine himself to his room, subsist on a diet of Quavers and lose social skills and all powers of communication. This will then result in the inevitable degeneration into a life of crime and destitution that will end only when you’re old, decrepit and alone, with thumbs the size of marrows.’
At least, that’s what I meant. In reality, I invoked the first response from the Parental Code of Democracy, Fairness and Logic.
‘Because I said so,’ I replied.
‘But, please,’ he wailed.
Time for the second response from the Parental Code of Democracy, Fairness and Logic – when under siege, take a deep breath, consider the options in an informed, intelligent manner… then panic and call in the cavalry.
‘Go ask your dad.’
Five minutes later, back comes wee hopeful face, big eyes, fingers crossed. ‘Dad says it’s up to you.’
The cavalry had obviously invoked the third response – the one that involves shamelessly passing the buck during watching of sport on the telly or when the question is in any way related to the reproductive process of the human race.
‘I’ll think about it, pet,’ I replied. Twenty seconds later I realised that he was still standing there. ‘What is it?’ I asked, puzzled by the Duracell Bunny’s longest ever stationary period. ‘I’m waiting until you’ve thought about it. So can I have one then?’
You’ve got to admire tenacity.
‘Please, Mum, all my pals have got them and they’re awesome!’
Awesome. Not even five yet and already he’s talking like a bit-actor in Baywatch, while demonstrating the first ever instance of being swayed by peer pressure. Nooooo! That isn’t supposed to happen yet. I thought peer pressure started somewhere around puberty and involved shoplifting, girls, or a sly cig behind a shed.
‘So can I, Mum, can I, please?’ snapped me out of my reverie.
Sigh. I want them to paint. I want them to play football from dawn until dusk. I want them to have long, informed debates about important issues like the deterioration of the ozone layer, global warming and whether Bob the Builder could whoop Postman Pat in a square go. I don’t want them to be sitting in a corner with a best pal called Super Mario.
But there’s no escaping the fact that these things are part of modern-day culture and, I pondered, surely as long as I rationed the use of it, then it couldn’t do any harm? Besides, if memory serves me right, Dr Robert Winston, world-renowned fertility expert and hirsute chappie from the BBC series Child of Our Time, concluded after extensive research that (in moderation) computer games improved kids’ hand-to-eye co-ordination and brain reaction times. Och, it must be fine then. I’d trust that man with my fallopian tubes, so surely his advice on all things child-rearing must be sound.
So I admit it, I caved, and when the brand new five-year-old opened his new gadget on his birthday last Friday his grin could have steered ships away from reefs and rocks.
I, however, was still in turmoil. Buying him a Gameboy instead of something more outdoorsy and practical caused a momentary resurgence of the parental guilt hormone. The same one that made me start up a fund to pay for the counselling sessions they’ll need when they’re forty-five, have a midlife crisis and it’s all blamed on the fact that their mother worked when they were children.
Anyway, I needn’t have worried. Sunday afternoon, he appeared in full football kit and announced he was going into the back garden for a kick-about. Yay! He hasn’t been completely overtaken by the cult of marrow thumbs.
‘Not playing with your new game then?’ asked I.
‘Can’t. Dad’s playing with it and he won’t give it back to me.’
It may be slow. It may be unreliable. But it’s great to see that in times of trouble, strife and Gameboy guilt, the cavalry gets there eventually.