On Parenting

Its school holiday time in Australia at the moment, not that you could tell if you went by the weather. It’s been wetter than an otter’s pocket along the east coast this week with flooding of Noah proportions in Queensland.

Many Melbournians head to Queensland at this time of year in much the same as Irish nurses and builders used to head to Spain in July. I guess all those Aussie holidays have had to be cancelled, which might explain why so many families are wandering the streets of Melbourne this week, searching desperately for something that will keep little Abbey occupied until her father gets home from work.

As someone who has reached the ripe old age of 45 without siring an offspring, I feel I’m in the perfect position to comment on the parenting of others. There is no greater smugness to be found than comes from the childless, after all.

Shopping is an activity that mothers enjoy. Department stores are air-conditioned and it’s a chance to kill two birds with one stone. It gets the kids out of the house and allows the mother pick up that Oprah biography that her thoughtless husband overlooked at Christmas. Little Abbey got lots of books for Christmas and despite the fact that she would have preferred something electronic, she has been fed a steady diet of propaganda that books are better than chocolate and are the best present a little girl could get.

Two weeks later her mother is standing in a bookshop trying to explain to Abbey that she has enough books already. Abbey throws back some surprisingly logical arguments.

“But you said I should read as many books as possible and I’d become the smartest person in the world”.

She then used the trick that children have been adopting for centuries. Ask for everything and then your parents will compromise by offering just one thing. In that way, the child can leave every shop their parent’s visit with their favourite thing from that outlet. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Abbey’s mother changed tactics. “You’re not getting a book because Mammy already bought you a sticker and a new hat”, highlighting that they had visited two stores already. “And you know that Mammy won’t buy you anything when you talk to her in that tone”.

Abbey smiled. One change of tone coming up. This was easier than getting a Happy meal out of Daddy on a Saturday morning.

Why do parents insist on bringing kids into stores that sell products aimed at kids and then get upset when the child wants something? How many adults could put up with being brought to pubs and told to sit quietly in the corner and ignore the services on offer?

Cafes are the main battle ground between the childless and the baby endowed. It’s got to the point where some places advertise unofficially as being “child friendly” and some make it clear that you’d better have a driving license if you want to get a cup of coffee.

God forbid that you find yourself in the wrong place for your lifestyle. It’s worse than a Muslim mistaking a synagogue for a mosque. The childless tend to stumble out of bed later on a weekend morning and really they don’t want any more noise than the sizzling sound of frying pig. Make the wrong cafe choice however and they will have to slalom past badly parked prams to find a table before listening to the deafening sound of wailing babies and sugar fuelled two year olds.

Parents have an uncanny ability to drown out the sound of their children. I shudder to think what would happen if little Timmy was saying, “Mammy, the house is on fire”. Because if Mammy was engaged in a deep discussion on the merits of Colin Firth’s arse in Pride and Prejudice with her fellow mammies, it wouldn’t matter if little Timmy himself was on fire.

Parents seem to think that their children are adorable when running headlessly around restaurants. Even when they knock over old ladies and toy with the idea of dipping their hands into the deep fat fryer.

You can spot the childless people at this point, clenching nervously as Timmy grabs the breadknife left carelessly on the counter or two year Jason investigates the multi plug set up behind the fridge.

Meanwhile, the parents tuck into their second Latte and treasure the chance to escape from their own children. Thankfully, there are many cafes in Melbourne where the pram is unwelcome. Apartheid is alive and well in the world of bacon and eggs I’m happy to say.

Australia is a land of immigrants and when they inevitably have kids, they naturally want to bring the offspring back to their homeland to find grandparents who will mind the child for two weeks while the parents go drinking with their friends. Therefore it is impossible to get a flight out of Australia without being accompanied by more babies than you’d find at a Brad and Angelina Christmas Party.

I’m a Qantas Gold member and one of the perks is that they sit you near the front when you’re flying economy so that you can get off quicker. This means that on a flight to Europe, you save five minutes on disembarking after listening to 23 hours of screaming children. Babies are seated up the front to allow their parents to use the cot contraption on the galley wall. Many adults find these long trips uncomfortable. Imagine how a baby feels, given that they do not have the option of sucking a sweet to balance the air pressure.

I don’t want to appear like a Grinch but airlines seem to be racing to the bottom of a low cost model. I’d pay extra to fly with airline that had an over 12s policy.

Maybe when I have my own kids, I’ll mellow. It would nice to have my own little terror in cafes and airplanes to annoy everyone else while I enjoy a latte or in-flight movie. In the meantime I’m sticking to my side of the line of apartheid and only venturing into cafes without prams stacked up in the door.