DadTalk

Like a Duck Driving a Car

My girls have started singing. To be fair to Abi, who is nearly four, she has been singing for a while and has got the concept of melody and rhythm down. She can do twinkle twinkle little star or baa baa black sheep easily. Esther, who is a few months off two, is not as proficient but is making a good go of singing/whispering.

Why am I telling you this? Well I must give you a little insight into the mind of this particular father – I still think I am cool. I do. It is an inescapable fact. I think my taste in music, clothes, films and TV make me cutting edge and relevant to the youth of today. Quite why I think this is not really clear to me (are you confused by the self analysis yet?). I still think the greatest piece of music ever is London Calling by the Clash (released in 1979) and the greatest film ever is Star Wars (released in 1977). More soft centre than cutting edge.

So I have found myself sitting with my girls and singing whilst feeling slightly self conscious. I know you are all sitting there reading this and thinking about how ridiculous I sound. All of you dropped all of your youthful enthusiasm the minute you became a parent. You went out and brought yourself some cords and a nice jumper. You developed unhealthy obsession with curtains, carpet, DIY and spend your time using words like “pension” “career” and “sensible”. That’s what you all did.

I, however, worry about whether singing twinkle twinkle little star means I am no longer cool like I was as a youngster (and I WAS very cool). Anyway, it dawned on me that “cool” is ridiculous concept and that the point I tickled my kids for so long that they nearly vomited I became cool to them. Then the time I had to sit one of them on the stairs for attacking the other with a DVD case I became uncool again.

This is all to admit that I am not a natural parent. Some parents are like a duck to water with the parenting thing whereas I am more of a duck trying to drive a car. However, a big step for me was to stop caring and start enjoying.

Incidentally Abi and Esther are slowly become big fans of punk and dubstep. Happy days.