Cry songs.

I’ve mentioned before on here about how since having kids I cry much more easily now, usually at films. Along with a lot of other people, I think sometimes I feel like crying in general. But I've noticed recently that certain types of songs will also make me cry. They all seem to have something in common as well: regret. That’s what gets me about, for example, Magnolia. Man, that hits hard.

I think that’s my emotional Achilles’ Heel. Looking back on a life of promise unfulfilled. I don’t really feel that about my own life. I have a lot to be grateful for, not least a house I love, a wife I love even more, job, family – all the stuff that’s supposed to show you’re doing ok. Of course, I think generally using a metric like that to measure success is bullshit – it’s perfectly easy to be content without any of that. But my point, I think, is I’m not sure why this theme of regret hits me so hard. I think it’s also a wider theme – now I’m getting older it feels like the idea of looking back over a life evoked by music and film strikes a strong chord.

There’s something quite satisfying about being induced to have a proper cry as well, a kind of emotional release, so I do find myself fairly frequently revisiting the songs that trigger that reaction in me. Is that weird? I dunno, maybe.

The current crop of cry songs I keep going back to then:

The Kinks, Come Dancing. An ode to a long-demolished dancehall that was the centrepiece of an older sister’s happiest memories. “The day they knocked down the palais, my sister stood and cried. The day they knocked down the palais, part of my childhood died.”

Bruce Springsteen, The River. A life lived in a poor conservative working class America that went from few prospects to none at all for the sake of a fleeting moment of love and happiness. “All them things that seemed so important? Well mister they vanished right into the air. Now I just act like I don’t remember, and Mary acts like she don’t care.”

Joni Mitchell, Come in from the Cold. Feels like a cry from everyone who ever felt isolated and without love. Genuinely a wreck before the end of the first chorus. “We really thought we had a purpose, we were so anxious to achieve. We had hope, the world held promise, for a slave to liberty.”

Lana Del Ray, Gods and Monsters. Feels like a life deliberately thrown away just because of an inability to conceive of anything better. “You got that medicine I need, dope shoot it up, straight to the heart please. I don’t really wanna know what’s good for me, god’s dead? I say: ‘Baby that’s alright with me’.”

More misadventures in parenting.

Newsflash: Doing parenting right is actually impossible (everybody who is a parent rolls their and thinks 'tell me something I don't know', while everyone who isn't a parent thinks 'meh, bet I could do it'). Anyone that tells you anything different is lying to you. The only thing you can do, if you’re determined to do it right, is to do your best as often as you can and try your very best not to ruin them completely. I’m not falling for your social media updates that make it look as though everything is fine and dandy all the time and your kid’s a genius and you’re making perfect future adults. I call bullshit.

Raising kids is the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do, by orders of magnitude more difficult than anything else. Every day I get something wrong. Every day I mishandle something. There is so much stress I sometimes doubt I’m still completely sane. One idea to tackle our increasingly-desperate overpopulation problem is to vet prospective parents physically and psychologically to ensure their suitability. As the years have gone by I have felt more and more convinced that I would have failed such a test.

Obviously, there is the flip side to that. There’s plenty of good stuff – it’s as rewarding as it is frustrating, but sometimes it seems the rewarding part is because of them and the frustrations are all my fault. Case in point: Not long after going back to school this year, I was informed by our youngest that the school would be letting the kids dress up as their favourite Roald Dahl characters on his birthday. We discussed it on the way home and she told me that she wanted to dress up as Sophie from the BFG.

As these things go far too often with my brain, Roald Dahl’s birthday then completely fell out of my head before I could write it down or tell anyone else. The school usually let us know by letter – no letter this time appeared in the school bag. Predictably then, the day came around and we walk Emily to school in her uniform. I then start seeing other kids dressed up as Willy Wonka, Matilda, Oompa-Loompas and also a fair few Sophies. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that feels the way letting down your 8-year-old kid in this way feels. A pit opens in your stomach, through which your heart falls. It is the most wretched feeling.

Emily was pretty stoic about it all to be honest. I said maybe she could pretend to be Matilda, seeing as Matilda spent a lot of time at school in the book. She put on an old Halloween costume to see grandparents that afternoon and told them she’d dressed as the Grand High Witch. At home that afternoon she played dressing up games. All of this I found out after I’d got home, and all of which pushes home just how badly I let her down. I am the worst.

Now it’s all over, and she’s forgotten about it. We still get on, but it is still hard work and I’m still doing a lot of it wrong and some of it right every day, but I’m glad she doesn’t remember it. Since then I’ve bought a notepad that I keep in my pocket all day every day so if something like that happens again I can stop then and there and write it down. Hopefully that way I can let her down less often and not feel like that again.

Getting older? Sure. Wiser? I couldn’t possibly say.

I just had a birthday. 39. Thirty-nine! How did that happen? It’s a weird kind of hinterland age – half the people I know insist it isn’t old at all, while half are either too polite to agree or are in the same boat with me.

It’s strange, because I still feel like the same person I’ve always been – you don’t feel older exactly – you just are. Sure, you have more experience so might have made different decisions knowing what you know now, but that’s hardly something new.

I am making a bit more of an effort to take joy in the moments and places I can find it, because it feels like it’s more important at the moment in a world where too many people seem bent on making life as joyless as possible. So I took some time off work, bought some new CDs and Blu Rays and soaked up as much of the best parts of my life as I could. Went to the beach with my family on the weekend. The sun was shining but the sea was most definitely still cold. My eldest loves the water though, so I allowed her to convince me to get in, and had a great time just spending time not as a parent, but as a play mate, just remembering the simple yet potent joy of being young and spending a day at the beach.

I felt a few things wrapped up in a towel drying off afterwards. One of those things was cold. However, another was refreshed and enlivened. It seems that the way to stop myself feeling old is to act as though I’m still young! Is that wisdom? I don’t know. Sounds a little bit like it.

New occasional feature: Ending with a song relating to the post:

Oasis: Stay Young. “Stay young and invincible.”

Adults ruin everything.

There’s an argument that says kids need a father if they’re going to grow up to be well-adjusted adults (a quick aside - have a look at politics, popular journalism (for want of a better phrase) and our celebrity culture. How many well-adjusted adults do you see?). And I know it is, in some way, true-ish (although not really). Kids tend to go through a phase when they’re trying to understand this weird world they find themselves in where they have a very basic and strongly defined understanding of male (short hair, deep voice, willy) and female (long hair, higher voice, boobs), and having this understanding backed up by real-life examples helps them in this. I remember Emily going through this and being terribly confused that the shop assistant in Sainsbury’s had short hair, yet was female. This was embarrassing for the young woman serving us and awkward for us, but Emily wasn’t doing anything deliberately wrong, she was only trying to get to grips with the world.

But I don’t think this means this is the only proper way to bring up children; two parents, one a manly man, the other a womanly woman. Like learning anything from scratch, you start with the basics and build colour and complexity on from there. So, slowly, Emily learned that men can have long hair, and that women can have short hair. Now she and Katie know that same-sex relationships aren’t unusual, and that having two mums or two dads isn’t really that different from having a mum and a dad (because it isn’t).

The idea that anything other than exposure to entirely straight relationships will somehow mess kids up is bonkers – if you present to children that being straight, gay or trans is still being a person and one is no less natural a state of being than the other, then that is the message they will take on board. The ingrained gender stereotyping that causes people not only to judge others, but also to unconsciously pass that reaction on to children is what causes them to adopt the same attitude. In some cases it’s rather more conscious, but it’s arguably the ones that declare they’re not judgmental on the surface and show by their actions that they are lying that are the biggest part of the problem. While blatant on-the-surface discrimination has reduced over the years (perhaps not including the past 18 months or so, but like the evidence of climate change, it’s the longer-term data you need to look at), I still observe a lot of just-under-the-surface judgement in many places, by many people who would be outraged if you even suggested such a thing went on. It’s that more secret, less honest prejudice that causes this to be perpetuated over generations.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, kids grow up feeling happy and secure with people who love them and provide a safe environment, and if that person happens to have stubble and wear a dress, it makes no difference to the kid until they pick up the behaviours and prejudices of adults.

Why is blue blue?

Emily, who is currently 6, is very inquisitive about the world. Like many kids her age, she asks many, many questions of her parents. Some of them are funny, some are cute, some are difficult to answer. She recently asked one that was particularly tricky – in her words: “Why does green have to be green and blue have to be blue?”

Well. How do you even start to answer that so a 6-year-old will understand it? How do you talk about the visible spectrum of light and wavelengths? How do you approach the idea that what you see as blue or green may not be what someone else sees – she’s too young to watch The Matrix, after all. I’m not even sure I know the answer. Needless to say, when we tried to answer her she looked at us, uncomprehending, and the longer we talked, the more her look became glazed.

When it had become inescapable that we were failing to answer her question, I asked her if we’d just confused her. She nodded. I then asked her what she thought the answer was. “God decided.” Of course. I might have known. Emily and her big sister Katie are still at that age where ‘god did it’ is an easy go-to answer for something they don’t yet understand.

They’re not alone – as a species we’ve been doing it for thousands of years. It’s a part of us I don’t think we’ll ever truly lose, no matter how much horseshit I consider it to be. I think that’s the case because we’ll never know everything – some things I think will always be a mystery to us. And as long as there’s something we don’t know, there will be something for folks to point at and say ‘god did it’ as if the very fact that we don’t yet know something is somehow proof of god’s existence. Even though, to quote the excellent Tim Minchin, “Every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic.” Every riddle we unravel reveals two more behind it.

This is the way religion has insinuated its way into the lives of men, women and children for generations; it seems like an easy answer for people who want to know how the world works. The way to overcome it is to learn more, to know more. This is why I always try to answer my kids’ questions, and never discourage them from asking them, even though sometimes you really want them to just shut the hell up and give you 5 minutes to think; even though I have the tiniest bit of sympathy for the parent referred to in Neko Case’s Nearly Midnight, Honolulu. Katie is already questioning the logistics of Father Christmas making it all the way around the world in one night, and I don’t think the stock answer of ‘it’s Christmas magic’ will work for much longer. This unquenchable curiosity will, I hope, one day dislodge from their mind this acceptance that ‘god decided’ everything they don’t understand and they start looking for a better answer.

New occasional feature: Ending with a song relating to the post:
Neko Case: Nearly Midnight, Honolulu: “You’ll hear yourself complain, but don’t you ever shut up please kid have your say.”

On the pursuit of wealth.

The best things in life may be free, but everything else, up to and including the second best things in life, costs a bloody fortune. And if it doesn’t, you can bet that some bugger somewhere is trying to figure out a way to make it. It’s going to be hard to make it sound like I’m not just coming from a place of jealousy, but I really don’t mind that people and companies make ludicrous sums of money. Good luck to ‘em, if it makes them happy.

I do mind when the deliberate actions they take impact directly on people who are not rich just to protect their already-ridiculous-and-still-increasing profit margins. Governments inflicting austerity measures on people, with the loss of amenities all across the country while resolutely failing to try to collect masses and masses of unpaid corporation tax, while also trying to convince people you should manage a country’s economy the same way you manage a household budget. A press that relentlessly bullshits its readers and focuses on stirring anger and hate against others who have the fucking cheek to, wait for it, be born or have parents that were born on the other side of a line on a fucking map, because it sells more papers. Companies that aggressively market milk formula in a third world country as an alternative to breastfeeding, leading to the deaths of a significant number of babies due to the unclean water the formula is made up with and other issues (hi Nestlé! Fuck you Nestlé!). Businessmen who will bully and cheat smaller businesses out of money owed just because they can (an example of such a person being the fucktard who is the current Republican Presidential candidate). We’ve got to the point now that the effects of climate change are beginning to be unavoidable, and yet there is still a huge push to deny it is even happening (I’m actually impressed Brian Cox didn’t deck this fucking prick) amongst our elected leaders everywhere, and even the ones who admit it’s happening seem pretty powerless to do a damn thing about it. The opportunities and the progress we’re going to lose over the coming decades because of this deliberate cuntery is heart breaking.

All because being really ridiculously rich or turning over stupidly high profits isn’t enough. They’ve got to be even richer, make even more, pushing our species and our planet’s ability to support us to the brink in the process. I don’t regret having children, but I regret the desolate future I’ve brought them in to. The so-called 'American Dream' is no longer a romantic ideal (if it ever was). It is simply economic wealth at the expense of everything else, and it is poisonous, and has infected many developed and developing countries all over the world, to the detriment of all.

How can this be changed? What can be done? This is the kicker. Everyone thinks you need money, and it is reinforced everywhere. And because that’s what everyone thinks, it means you kind of do need the money. You need money to make headway against it. Even if you’re content, like me, to do the best you can on a smaller scale and live by your own set of values ("Do the good you see in front of you" to once again quote Pratchett), you still need it. Even two working people on, for the area, not terrible salaries, can’t afford a place to live. You could see the confusion in the face of the mortgage advisor when we explained we’re not interested in a Shared Ownership on a newly built shoebox in the middle of a number of other identical shoeboxes, with the intention of climbing the property ladder, but we just want to find a place to settle, comfy enough to set up a home and not move on every few years. We can afford it – over a decade without a single missed rent payment is proof of that, but saving a monster deposit? That we cannot do. So we’re stuck, with a choice between staying put and continuing to rent or moving into the Shared Ownership shoebox. Renting it is, then.

Who decided that living life this way was a good idea? Because it smells like bullshit to me.

New occasional feature: Ending with a song relating to the post:

Hives – Without the Money: “Without the money, there’s nothing you can do.”

Some of the ways in which having kids has ruined me.

When people talk about their kids, it’s often in the kind of way that makes me want to puke. Not the declarations of love and happiness – that’s normal, but the suggestion that they are something other than regular kids. You know, not every kid is a world class genius sports star in waiting. Sorry to disabuse you of whatever notion you might have had. Of course, I too get ridiculously proud whenever one of my girls does something cool like spell a tricky word or ask a perceptive question, so I can’t really rant too much about that.

The honest truth is there are some things having children has made worse, not better. My bank balance. Traffic jams. The already crippling overpopulation problems. Also, my enjoyment of fiction, in all its forms. I cry far too easily now, and I’m blaming my kids. Jeopardy or tragedy involving children or even young adults, with a focus on the lost potential of a young life lost. Depictions of cruelty to, disregarding of, or annoyance with children (not that I don’t get annoyed with them. So I’m a hypocrite. Shoot me). Now that I have an intimate knowledge of just how dependent children are on constant, unconditional love and acceptance to develop through their early years, these things shown on film or TV, or written into books leave me a wreck. That never used to happen.

Seeing them becoming more sophisticated with every year on the one hand makes me eager for some of the things I’m looking forward to sharing with them, while on the other makes me increasingly fearful that an inevitable misstep will leave them going down a different path to one I wish for them. It’s sometimes enough to make you sick with fear, this crushing feeling of responsibility. It can also lead to a determined resoluteness to do your absolute best for them, come what may, which can be freeing, although too often is restricting instead.

Quite a few of the people I know who are also parents will talk of what they might have made of their lives had they ignored this biological imperative to reproduce. Where they might have gone, what they might have done. This, I am certain, does not make them unfit parents, but more realistically human. For sure I’ve missed out on some probably fantastic experiences because I had children. It is okay to lament the loss of this other life.

But. Like the majority of those other parents, given the chance not to have them part of my life, no matter what other eventuality might persist, there is nothing that could remotely tempt me. To watch day by day as these individuals take shape, with their own thoughts and their own ideas, is incomparable. It makes living with the sickening fear born of the creeping feeling of inevitability that you're bound to do something that messes them up irrevocably worth it.

Further adventures in parenting and crushing self-doubt.

I get told often by people that I’m a good father. Of course, as nice as that is to hear, I know enough to recognise that the opinion of one person, or several people, as much as I happen to love and respect those people, doesn’t necessarily make it true. I know that my kids are happy and loved, but is that enough? It won’t be too many more years before the influence I have over them becomes less than their peers and current cultural guff.

Katie can sometimes be reluctant to join in with group activities and parties, preferring instead to play with her sister who is half her age. I don’t really think this is anything to worry about, except I remember how it felt at school to be outside the groups, to feel awkward around the other kids. At a fairly recent birthday party she went to, a few of the other kids clocked that she wasn’t wearing different shoes, but the same ones she wore to school. When questioned on this, she merely looked at the questioner as if she didn’t understand what she was being asked, or what the point of the question was, and carried on dancing. The pride and love I felt for her on witnessing this was like nothing else. As is the feeling I get when I see her devouring book after book, and writing her own stories (she recently wrote one about a Christmas tree that was sad because it hadn’t been decorated).

She'd rather sing along to Disney songs or stuff from my collection (she's currently digging Lana Del Ray's Dark Paradise) than listen to One Direction sing about how much they want to shag people (almost all pop music, regardless of how innocent it seems, is about sex. Don't pretend it isn't). I've not forgotten the Jessie J incident, and I know this happy arrangement can't last, and I'm mentally preparing for that as much as I can.

But this lack of interest in other people’s opinions of her can’t last. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s difficult to get through childhood without being irreparably fucked up by parents, peers, teachers, randoms or any combination thereof. I hope my two are strong enough, and I hope I can help them through.

Why? This is why.

During my Interweb adventures recently, I came across a strange thing. One of those single people, waxing lyrical about how amazing being without a lover is. It would seem this person considered being in a relationship pretty much equivalent to death. Why would anyone want to be with the same person for months, years, or, worse, their entire lives? While I was glad this person was so happy with their state of affairs, I felt it might be worth exploring that question. Why would anyone want that? Well, in my case, here follows just a couple of reasons.

Because she couldn’t step on an insect for any amount of money – she could not live with the guilt. Because she loves to run for the sheer love of running, not for competition, not for ‘self-improvement’ (ugh), but for fun. Because there is nobody she won’t see the best in – a skill with empathy unmatched by anyone else I’ve ever known – a skill I’ve learned much from. Because even after 16 years, I still want to jump her bones every single time I see her. Because she loves me for (or in spite of) the silly things I spend time and money on. Because she saved me from all the other lives I might have lived without her. Because when our daughters are grown, they will look back and consider what their mother did for them, and what she instilled in them, and they will be overwhelmed with gratitude.

Less of a man and loving it.

2012 included one of the weirdest experiences of my life. Having decided that we were not going to have any more kids in addition to the two daughters we currently have, I made the decision to have a vasectomy. 33 is probably quite young to do it, but we are sure in our convictions. Once we’d made our decision I paid a visit to my doctor to get the procedure booked. He asked if I’d considered sticking with less permanent forms of contraception because I’m a bit young. I convinced him of my determination to not have more children and he booked me in for an initial consultancy. Then he told me I was a fat bastard and to lose some weight (but that's another blog).

So Rach and I turn up for the appointment a little later. We had been preparing ourselves for some difficult questions (the worst I could think of was what might we do if through some terrible tragedy we lost both of our kids but the both of us were still alive – would we regret the vasectomy then?) but nothing of the sort happened. It was more like ‘So, having a vasectomy? Right-o, here’s how it works...’ She talked us through it fairly matter-of-factly, going through how I’d need to prepare (by shaving), what would happen on the day (needles, snipping, difficulty sitting afterwards) and what I would need to do afterwards to be sure it had worked. Well. She looked me square in the eye and she said: “You will need to ejaculate as much as you possibly can.” You see, to make sure it worked, you need to clear out the, um, plumbing, so to speak. You get 16 weeks before you need to submit a sample, and then again at 20 weeks. And both of them need to be completely sperm-free. A ball-park figure is at least 50 times before the 16-week point. So for 4 months it was my solemn duty to become completely sex-obsessed. Not a great stretch, I’ll grant you. But initial thoughts of sending oneself into knuckle-shuffle oblivion soon sour in the cold light of day. It didn’t take long to become, frankly, a bit of a drag.

But I get ahead of myself. That was afterwards. First came the operation (no pun intended). We arrived at the surgery and I went in while Rach took the kids off to play. After sitting around in a small waiting area for a while, I was called in. In the room was a nurse. She was older than me, probably mid to late forties. I’m not sure if her being a different age or gender would have made the prospect of getting my cock and balls out in her presence better or worse. “So, had enough kids?” she asked. Yep. Two’s plenty for me, thanks. Then in comes the doctor. A silver haired, confident fellow, he gave the impression of experienced competence. So, on the table, lie back, think of England, jeans and boxers round your ankles, so these two people I’ve never met can closely examine my bits and pieces. It seems my preparation is inadequate, because the first thing he does is grab a bic and give me a quick additional shave. At least his hands are warm.

Next come the needles. Needles in the bollocks. Or at least in that general area – to be honest I was too busy quietly freaking out inside my own head while staring at the ceiling to remember exactly where the pricks were felt. Numbness, and then, incision time. The next bit involved hands down the weirdest sensation I have ever felt. There was no pain, but you could feel it. And it was uncomfortable. The best way I can think to describe is a bit like going to the dentist. Not that a dentist would ever do this. And if yours does, they need reporting. What I mean is that when you have a tooth out, your mouth is numbed so there’s no pain, but you can feel your tooth being loosened and pulled – you can feel the pressure on your gum. Well, I could feel my tube being pulled, unravelled and cut. First one, then the other. Eventually it was done. It didn’t take long, but every uncomfortable second seemed to drag on interminably.

A few pieces of gauze to hold against the two incisions and trousers up. Another female nurse in her forties has a look. Before today I would have put money on my getting my dick out in close proximity to three complete strangers getting me reported to the police. As to recovery, well, there is no pain, but there is a great deal of discomfort and sitting becomes something you do with a great deal of care. Lifting and having your kids jump on you are both pretty much out of the question. But this is over in a matter of days, not weeks, and then the fun begins. Well, it’s fun for a while, but, as mentioned before, the pressure to jizz over and over again rather takes the fun out of it pretty quickly.

Not long after the procedure there was a frightening few days where I found a few lumps and hoped fervently that it was just these granuloma things. Looks as though they were ‘cause they eventually went and I’m still breathing. The long slog finally over, the time came to produce the samples. There is something uniquely depressing about getting it on with a small plastic cup, but get it on I did. Twice, in fact. Thrice, in fact, thanks to the hospital sending the results to the wrong medical practice originally. Still, it was confirmed: I am spermless. Shooting blanks. Unable to make babies. Hoorah!

The horror, the horror...

It’s begun. My eldest daughter is five, and the bollocky, over-sexed, unoriginal pit of fecal aural matter that is our current pop scene is now starting to exert influence on her. She was jumping on our bed, the words “I am Jessie Jay Jay” coming from her mouth. She’s a big Toy Story watcher, so I hoped she might be referring to the cowgirl doll voiced by Joan Cusack in the films. Alas, when I asked her who, she said “Jessie J daddy, she’s a dancer and she dances every day”.

Hearing that sparked an odd kind of horror inside me, in which my mind’s eye showed me my daughter in a ridiculously tight outfit thrusting her crotch in the direction of Brian May’s guitar. Clearly, things are unlikely to ever get that bad, but I suspect I’m not far away from the JLS or One Direction phase, or whatever unshaven ken dolls styled and auto-tuned for the screaming masses they have by then. A band once cleverly prophesied that Pop Will Eat Itself. Pop is no longer eating itself, but is now feasting on its own cannibalised regurgitated vomit and calling it X-Factor.

Is it odd that I’m feeling more confident about handling the drink, sex and drugs phase than I am about the incoming being-fed-this-putrid-ear-shit-and-brainwashed-into-thinking-it-has-any-fucking-value-whatsoever phase? Wish me luck.

Wading in to another pointless debate.

So, I overheard a conversation while out in the world. That conversation was regarding circumcision. A woman was talking about her little boy who she is taking to get circumcised for medical reasons – didn’t hear it all, plus I was trying to enjoy a cup of tea at the time, so I didn’t really want to hear the details – there are apparently problems with the foreskin being too tight and rubbing the little fella’s little fella painfully.

There were two or three other women around this table who then chimed in to the conversation. One of them declared that her husband’s looked so much better so she had her boys subjected to it. Another, whose husband was circumcised for religious reasons, admitted that it was better, and easier to clean (can he not clean his own?), although she couldn’t bring herself to do it to her son.

I sat there, drinking my tea, saying nothing. I was rather proud of my self-restraint. Wouldn’t want to make a scene. I did feel like asking the woman who thinks it looks better whether she was circumcised. Did she think lopping her clitoris off would result in a minor subjective cosmetic improvement? Or her daughter’s, were she to have any? No, that would be barbaric, wouldn’t it? Go ahead; mutilate your boys, no problem. I also felt like turning to the other woman and pointing out that my own uncircumcised knob is very easy to clean – it simply requires washing regularly, just like the cocks without hats. And that having it done for religious reasons is staggeringly bizarre, and further comfort for me in my wholly atheist standpoint. How is it possible that an omnipotent, supernatural creator of everything would give a gnat’s fart whether it’s creations went round with a bit of skin over their bellend or not? Why create it that way if it needed to be cut? If it was decided god didn’t like fingernails, would they have to go as well? If you thought people looked better with only four toes, would it be alright to snip the little one off without waiting for the child to be old enough to be able to make their own decision?

Of course not, so why is this OK? I don’t know, but it's none of my business, so I stayed quiet, finished my tea and decided to moan about it here while subjecting you to altogether too much information.

How do I know I’m not going to ruin my kid’s life?

As mentioned here, we decided on the Priorslee Primary School, recently upgraded to academy status, to be Katie's primary school, with a number of misgivings. When it came down to it, there was little difference between the two local schools we were considering, and the one we chose simply had a slightly better Ofsted rating. We weren't sure if we had made the right decision. Well. Katie got her first choice, and we're still not sure if it's the right one.

Of course, this doesn't mean all that much compared to Katie having to start only a couple of months after her fourth birthday. And yes, I know she doesn't 'have to' - we could keep her out until year 1, when she'll be five, or we can hold on until either January or April. The thing is, keeping her out for a full year means she'll miss her reception year and go straight into formal lessons, and as there is only one intake this year in September if we hold her back until a later term, the other kids would have already made friends and be used to the routine, meaning there is a risk of her being a friendless outsider.

It could be argued that it makes little difference in the end, the 'I didn't have a great childhood and I turned out alright' view. But there is someone close to me who went to the wrong school, was bullied by a teacher and developed a phobia of school, making a large chunk of their childhood unpleasant. Yes, eventually they turned out fine, and couldn't be lovelier, but I don't want Katie to go through that experience. I want her to love learning for the wonder it brings in its own right, not to feel pressure to perform tricks and jump through hoops for grades, which misses the whole point of education. Starting this early at the wrong school could deny her the positive experience she has a right to. Starting her at any school this early could be a mistake, but we feel we've been forced into putting her in too early to give her a chance to bond with other kids in the same situation. Does she really need to be put into this pattern of a five day week of work to prepare her for an adult life that turns her into a worker bee, a capitalist automaton who exists only to create wealth while she's still so young? It's a frightening thought that a decision such as this could easily wreck a large proportion of Katie's early life, and have repercussions throughout her adult life.

All we can do is make what we think is the best decision at the time and hope it was the right one. But we won't stop worrying it's the wrong one.

Defending the title at the terrible parent awards.

A while ago Rach and I won an entirely imaginary 'Dumbest Parents' award (see this rather old blog: http://experiment627.blogspot.com/2010/04/and-award-for-dumbest-parents-goes-to.html) for letting Katie get heatstroke while in Swansea. Recently we cocked up this parenthood thing again, although not as badly, and I'm not even sure Katie noticed all that much. It did make us feel terrible though. It was the Christmas party at Katie's nursery. In our defence, we hadn't been told and Rach only happened to overhear someone mention it in passing a few days before, so with three month old Emily starting to teethe, it wasn't really at the forefront of our minds.

On the day, Katie wasn't due at nursery until the afternoon, and Rach had mentioned the party to me the night before, about how Katie will need to go in one of her dresses. In the course of the morning rush we, of course, forgot, and although I remembered briefly at one point during the morning, I didn't call Rach to remind her. Later that afternoon, I hear from Rach what had happened.

They turned up at nursery, the party forgotten, with Katie wearing jogging bottoms and a slightly dirty top. Don't judge us on that until you have some idea of the sheer mountain of washing you get through with two young kids and two adults. Well, they walked in on the party and Katie looked around at the girls in their party dresses. She stopped, looked down at her own rather shabby appearance, then looked at Rach with a slightly confused face, and went off to play. There is no explaining the pit that opens up in the middle of your stomach when the realisation of what you've put your child through dawns on you. Even hearing it second hand from Rach, it was awful.

After nursery, Katie was in high spirits, excited about her gift from Santa and she told us she had a really lovely time at the party. She didn't mention the difference in appearance between her and the other kids, and neither did we. I suppose we got lucky. She certainly didn't hold it against us, seeing as today out of the blue she told me she thought I was wonderful (her own words, with no prompting). It seems we're still doing something right.

How hypocritical am I? Let me count the ways...

Hypocrisy is a strange thing. Being hypocritical is often considered evidence that one is a dreadful human being and should be punished as such. The shout of outrage at the hypocrisy of the politicians is often loud and heartfelt. The truth of the matter as I see it however, is that most people are in some ways hypocritical. The most hypocritical are the ones that complain loudest about others hypocrisy while trumpeting their own lack of it. I know when conservatives are championing smaller Government while crushing average people to protect corporate interests they are guilty of hypocrisy. A brief look at myself, however, will reveal that I am a bubbling cauldron of rank hypocrisy, and I suspect the same would be true of most people.

So, how am I a hypocrite? Let's see. First off, I think animal welfare is important and I support organisations that are passionate about it. I will genuinely be heartbroken if the coalition Government succeeds in re-legalising foxhunting. And yet, I am a meat eater. I know in some ways it's possible to eat meat and still support animal welfare - buy organic and free range, donate to charities and other things, and I do all of them. But if I truly support it, shouldn't I come off meat altogether? Yes, I should, and yet I don't. Blatant hypocrisy.

Another? Okay. Although it's not exactly possible for a man to be a feminist in the truest sense of the word (it's the penis) I do support the fight for equality and believe that women should be considered fellow humans of equal worth before they are considered women. I have many female friends who are much more than walking vaginas to me - they are people. Having said that, I have been guilty of allowing sexual attraction to over-ride most other considerations (not that I've ever acted on that (much), having married my college girlfriend). Again, blatant hypocrisy.

The most obvious one is that I know how to save our species. I know how to reduce our effect on the environment, how to reduce waste, greed, war and other things. We simply need to stop having so many kids and over-running our planet like cockroaches. There are already far too many of us, and in the not too distant future when fresh water, oil, living space and other things start to run out there will be even more of us, virtually guaranteeing a dreadful, near-apocalyptic future for all. And knowing this, I've had two kids. One might have been justifiable. Two is hypocrisy. Three, I know beyond all doubt, will never happen. I hope.

The most recent evidence of my hypocrisy came when we decided on which primary school to send Katie to. There are two local schools - the St. Georges Church of England Primary School (our catchment area) and Priorslee Primary School (just outside our catchment area). We've had a look around both of them, and they both seem really good. A look at the Ofsted reports on the two of them show that at both schools the children are largely happy, confident and eager to learn, which are the most important considerations - Katie being happy is first priority, always. Looking at it in further depth shows that Priorslee (outstanding Ofsted) has high expectations of the children and almost all of them achieve above average academically. However, some formal lessons do begin as early as the reception year and homework starts almost immediately (although it's mostly child-led play). When Katie starts school she won't long have turned four - will she really be old enough for that? A check of St. Georges (good Ofsted) reveals a first and second year that are not nearly so punishing, and it's biggest strength isn't high performing students, but it's helping under performing students improve up to the national average. How do we know whether Katie is going to be academically competent or not? So how can we decide which school is best? The crux of the matter is that the children are happy at both, so both are good enough, and the higher performance of Priorslee naturally causes us to lean in that direction.

Here's the hypocrisy. Recently, Priorslee was offered the chance to convert to academy status. Academies were started by the previous Labour Government to help poor performing schools. They are funded by the Government and are freed from Local Education Authority (LEA) control, allowing them to set their own curriculum, their own admittance procedure and manage their own budget. Money kept back by the LEAs to provide facilities for disabled access and other things for all local schools would go direct to the academy. It was a fairly controversial decision back then, but a look at the once-dreadful-now-fantastic Madeley Court School, granted academy status under Labour, shows that it can work well. When the coalition Government came to power, the focus was shifted away from poor performing schools and outstanding schools were invited to apply for academy status and all the benefits implied (although that offer is now open to all schools, provided they have the support of an outstanding one). The difference between the two ideologies is clear - Labour intended to help the schools having difficulties, the coalition want to offer the highest performers the chance to improve further. I can see both sides - help for those that need it and help the best be all they can be. There's no getting away from the idea that the former is designed to bring things closer and give everyone an equal chance, while the latter runs the risk of segregating communities. As most people know, I'm fairly left-leaning, so putting my daughter into one of the coalition's academies doesn't really sit well with me, and yet we applied to Priorslee anyway. More hypocrisy. However, this time I don't think it's my fault. We've objectively weighed up the strengths and weaknesses of both schools, visited them, talked to Katie and each other about it, and come to the conclusion that we prefer Priorslee, but we'd still be happy for her to go to St. Georges. So, because of my own principles I'm supposed to put my daughter into a school that I don't think is the best one in the local area? I'm not supposed to give her the best chance I can? The coalition Government has put me in this position, and although it makes me feel a little queasy, I've made what I think is the best decision for my daughter, but a decision which runs counter to my left wing ideology. After all, it's not her left wing ideology, and she deserves the chance to make up her own mind without being indoctrinated into anyone else's mindset, and it's education that will eventually allow her to make the choice for herself.

Now all I can do is cross my fingers and hope everything turns out okay...

Sometimes I do fit in.

This is a follow up to the entry called 'Sometimes I don't fit in', posted back in May, in which I have further problems with the same woman, only this time, I don't feel out of place for not lying to my child and making her believe that she's the only thing that matters in the entire world. Familarise yourself with that blog before looking through this one, because I can't be arsed to repeat myself: http://experiment627.blogspot.com/2010/05/sometimes-i-dont-fit-in.html

So, after that minor drunken altercation in which she expressed to me her feelings about the correct way to bring up a stable, balanced individual, I recently heard her talking to someone else about how she hates these parents who treat their kids as though they can't do any wrong, and how they act like they're all that matters. At first I didn't understand what had happened - had our conversation in the pub got to her and had she taken the things I said on board? Probably not. On second thoughts, I considered that it may have been that morning's Horoscope telling her how to act. As the conversation continues it seems she's stressed because some kid was giving her boys a hard time yesterday. It is this kid's parents she's referring to. She continues by declaring, in all seriousness, that she intends to kill the kid if he does it again today. Yep, she will murder a child if her kids have a couple of bad days with an older boy. It turns out they're all on an outing somewhere today. If anything happens to them, she also makes it known that she will kill the adult supervision. She is not joking.

Obviously, I would die to protect my daughter. Obviously nothing is more important. Obviously I don't want anyone to bully or pick on her. But this woman's loud declaration of her intention to murder a child for acting out of line as well as the adults charged with supervising her children as if it's an attitude to be proud of is a dangerous over-reaction, and is the very same thing she is complaining about in other parents. She is incapable of noticing behaviour like her own in others.

As it turns out, the person she was talking to thought this was all a bit of a twisted way to go about bringing kids up, so I didn't feel like the whole world had gone mad like I did the last time this came up. When she acts as though my own, less-crazy take on things is terrible parenting and dangerous to my child, I don't know whether to laugh, cry or scream in her face.

Impressions of Zakynthos.

The Greek islands are undoubtedly our favourite place to go on holiday. We've been to four so far - Kefalonia, Samos, Thassos and Skopelos, each one being quieter and more remote than the last. That's how we like it - not touristy, just secluded and peaceful, with long walks to lose ourselves in. This, obviously, was before we had Katie. We've recently been to Zakynthos, our fifth island, and it wasn't what we were used to. It was actually a present from my parents, who also paid for my sister and her partner and their son, making eight of us all together. With small children to consider, we stayed in the resort of Alykanas on the North of the island. This resort is clearly designed with the family in mind - our complex had several pools, one of which had a slide, a park on site and was built literally on the edge of the beach - built to make things easier when managing a family. It's also very noisy, with the on site 'entertainment' echoing through the evenings and making it nearly impossible to enjoy a little quiet time on the balcony after Katie's gone to sleep. Greece is much more expensive now than it used to be as well, but the people are mostly just as lovely as ever.

The weather was odd, with the first week being cloudy for much of the time with occasional rain, and the second week being dry and consistently in the mid thirties. In a way, it worked out well, as the first week gave the kids a chance to acclimatise themselves to the heat before the scorching second week. The resort seemed to be designed with the intention of attracting a particular type of English family, and in fact during the second week almost every man I saw was shaven-headed, white, massive and covered in tattoos. Thanks to the World Cup (yawn) almost every bar had huge wide screen TVs blaring out tedious football matches. The way there were so many people on the streets trying to give you leaflets and attempting to get you into their bars and restaurants reminded me very much of a holiday a friend and I took in Ibiza in my dim and distant teenage years.

I knew that this was simply the way this resort had been designed and I knew that my Greece was still out there somewhere, but I couldn't help feeling like my Greek holiday experiences had been tainted a little. This all sounds extremely ungrateful for what was in essence a free holiday I know, but there was also much to recommend. Between all the noise there were many small moments of bliss when the Greece I know and love came back to me - the food was as outstanding as ever (backlavas - drool), and a day exploring the South of the island at Porto Zoro and Gerakas (where the turtles come) was a highlight, as was a trip by boat to the famous Zakynthos shipwreck - that beach is extraordinary.

Katie absolutely adored it and spent her time playing on the numerous parks, splashing about and swimming in the pools and the sea, digging holes and building sandcastles on the beach or scoffing her face with ice-cream and Greek salad. And this, I guess, is the point. Our holidays won't be for ourselves for many years yet - they'll be for Katie and soon Emily. Even though I've been fairly critical and I've pined for the Greek holidays I used to have, as long as Katie has so much fun, it's worth it.

Sometimes I don’t fit in.

Granted, we were in the pub and both of us had been drinking fairly copiously, but still. I got into a conversation with a friend which showed quite clearly why humanity is failing as a species. It started with an off-hand comment of mine about astrology being bollocks (it is), and she started trying to explain to me why it wasn't. Apparently I'll never get it because I'm a typically stubborn Taurus. So, do all Taureans think astrology is bollocks then? She then offered 'proof' in the observation that the reason I don't see eye to eye with a certain other nameless friend is because of their sign and mine being incompatible. I always thought it was because this other person was a bit of a dick. She sure showed me.

The conversation then took a really weird turn. She advised me that I shouldn't get so worked over things, because they don't really matter that much. Worked up? Maybe a little, but no more than the average person, surely? She wisely informs me that we are both parents and therefore I will obviously see things as she does - when you have a child, she tells me, nothing else matters. Nothing else is important. When I tell her calmly and politely that I do not agree with that, she is flabbergasted and I feel a bit like I've told her that I'm a closet hamster rapist (or an unfit father, I couldn't tell which). Obviously, Katie is the most important person in my life, and nothing else is as important as her being given the opportunity to grow into a strong, happy and stable person, but to say that nothing else matters? That all other considerations, be they political, environmental, financial or of any kind are irrelevant? To me that is ridiculous. She turns to a friend and asks her what else matters after you have a child - "Nothing" came the instant reply, steeped in a seriousness that I gather was supposed to sound like she was wise and more knowledgeable than silly little me.

(As a side note, nothing infuriates me like older people talking at me as though I'm twelve and that when I'm their age I'll inevitably come round to their way of thinking. Fuck you, I'm over 30 with a mind of my own thank you very much, and if you can't see that then you're worth no more of my time.)

So, human rights abuses? The destruction of countless acres of natural habitat? Wars being fought for profit? Corrupting religious dogma spread by child-raping priests infecting Governments at the highest levels of power? Even something small like being unpleasant to someone you see on the street for no reason - as long as you're able to look after your own kid, all of that stuff is OK? And yet, this attitude of protecting the small family unit at the expense of all else is considered admirable by the majority of society. 'Families first' the political rhetoric goes. How about not being a dick first?

She tries another tack - I don't understand because I'm not a mother. She can fuck right off, as I happen to know that my wife and life partner of more than 12 years has the same point of view as me on this - yes, of course Katie is our number one priority, but to dismiss any other consideration as irrelevant is ludicrous and one of the reasons why our society is failing. If nothing else matters to you but your child's happiness, they will grow up believing that their own happiness really is all that matters, and will, I guarantee you, be hateful obnoxious assholes. And yet, trying to tell anyone this leaves them thinking you don't love your child. On the contrary - holding your offspring up as the only thing that matters in the Universe so they grow up believing that is only setting them up for inevitable disappointment and depression, and that is not the actions of a loving parent. That's choking them on love. Stop being so fucking cruel.

And the award for dumbest parents goes to...

So, it turns out that the other weekend we were pretty terrible parents. We went to stay in Swansea with some friends, so, naturally Katie was getting super excited for the seaside. So much so that she couldn't get to sleep until way after ten the night before, which puts her at least three hours down on the sleep she needs. Now, it's April and it's the UK. It's not gonna get that hot, right? So we don't pack sun cream or sun hats or anything like that. It turns out to be a great weekend weather-wise, but still not really that hot. Down to the beach on the first day, and Katie's already flagging due to missed sleep. We decide to continue anyway. As we reach the beach, I say to Rach: "Do you think we should get a hat for Katie?" "Nah," she replies, "she'll be alright. Besides, we haven't got one with us anyway." "Fair enough."

A few hours later, we're back at the house and Katie is really miserable, but won't eat or sleep. She's got a temperature and starts puking. She's gone and got heatstroke. Her weekend is pretty much ruined. Way to go mom and dad. Obviously, we feel like shite, but there's not a lot we can do, apart from offer her lots of water, affection and attention.

There's a lesson to be learnt here, but I'm still not quite sure what it is, apart from always take a hat. Parenthood, it turns out, is exactly like they tell you. Like nothing you can prepare for. There are moments of frustration like nothing you've ever known, but these are balanced with moments of ecstatic joy at witnessing the simplest of things - like just recently, she's started to spontaneously tell us she loves us, and she recently said the word 'anything' perfectly in context with the sentence she was speaking, and I have no idea where she picked up how to say it, let alone what it means. Don't get me wrong, generally I don't like kids at all, especially babies, who are stupid and annoying. But this is my little girl, and she ain't like all those other mewling brats out there. She's my mewling brat, and she's made of awesome.

So basically, when she's suffering and you know it's your fault and was entirely preventable like this recent heatstroke weekend, you feel so wretched that basically you'd tear your own heart out if it would help. In a way, it's good that it happened. We'll both of us from now on go out of our way to not feel like that again, so it's made us better parents. Until the next time we get it all wrong, of course.