But apparently it was not at all okay for me to add, “Yeah, yeah, like, seriously! Not even prison guards with the security cameras turned off could figure out a way to keep this kid awake!” That was not okay at all.
Do you see what I mean? It’s not easy to know where the boundaries are sometimes.
And you know when the same nurse explained, on your next checkup, that it was good to wean children off eating at night at this age, and suggested “different methods for reducing appetite,” I wondered aloud whether they meant we should teach you to smoke or something. That was wrong too.
There are a lot of unwritten parent rules here. You’re meant to be a good role model. You aren’t meant to swear. You should know that it’s called a “playpen” and not an “octagon.” And that when the preschool teachers refer to something as “nature’s own candy,” they almost always mean raisins and almost never bacon. And that when other parents with small children talk about children and TV and kindly but firmly inform you that “there is actually research” that proves exactly how damaging TV is for small children, they really do mean all TV. Not just bad TV. All TV.
Including Game of Thrones.
Even now, I’m still not entirely sure where we stand with this whole thing when the nurse asked if we had “any other health questions” and I took the opportunity to ask at what age you can normally tell whether a child is right- or left-footed. And the nurse asked, “Why?” And I said, “To know if he’s a left winger or a right winger.” I think that was all right. But it’s not all that easy to know. The nurse mostly talked to your mother after that.
Social limitations and pop culture references become slightly blurred when you fraternize after reproduction. The fact that Po from Teletubbies actually sports a pretty provocative camel toe for the majority of the entire second season, you’d think that would be a perfect icebreaker during the introductions at the parent-teacher conference at preschool, right?
But no.
So I’m sorry for all of this.
Truly.
Being a good parent is hard. There’s a lot of trial and error. In my case, quite a lot of the latter. I joke compulsively when I’m criticized, you probably know that already, it’s a character flaw. And one thing you’re never lacking once you become a parent is people criticizing you. Because children aren’t just children these days, you know, you’re identity markers. No one knows quite how that happened. Ten thousand years of sexual experience, and suddenly my generation decides that we’re going to carry you out of the maternity ward as though you were the Stanley Cup. As though we were the first people in the history of the world who figured out how reproduction works.
We don’t even need to be “good” parents anymore, I think. That’s passed now. We make do with “not horrible” by this point. All we want is for your psychologists to mutter, in twenty years’ time, that it might not be e-n-t-i-r-e-l-y our fault.
And one of the few ways we can convince ourselves that we’re actually decent as parents is by making other people seem like bad parents. And we can be pretty damn creative when it comes down to it, I’ll have you know. If it isn’t the food or the toys or the fact that the child sometimes has to stay at preschool until quarter past three in the afternoon (QUARTER PAST THREE!!! I might as well have just left you in the woods and let the WOLVES raise you!!!) then it’s the nonorganic plastic in whatever the hell piece of furniture that hasn’t been given some certificate by some department in Brussels. “Oh? You let your child play with THAT? Ah, well, me personally, I would rather my child didn’t get brain cancer… but it’s nice that everyone can raise their children in their own way, isn’t it?” That’s how we bring each other down.
We find some poor bastard who doesn’t realize that if you don’t wash all children’s clothes at nine thousand degrees before they’re worn for the first time, then the child will develop mutated allergies and die. As though that’s how mankind has evolved to be the dominant species on Earth. As though we lived in caves and wrapped newborns in mammoth skin, and if the mammoth skin wasn’t dry-cleaned first, then the kid died. As though that as how we survived on a planet where not even the dinosaurs could handle the pressure.
And if it’s not that, then it’s something else. If we can’t make one another look bad by caring a little more, then we do it by caring a little less. That’s when people, out of sheer obstinacy, are transformed into those cool, relaxed parents with sunglasses and lower-back tattoos and coffee in paper cups and books about “free-range parenting” sticking out of their canvas tote bags, who are all “Children must be allowed to be chiiiildren, y’know what I mean? Just chill out, yeah?” While their five-year-old ray of sunshine with a Mohawk and a nose piercing tries to jam his little sister into a beer bottle in the background.
Or it’s one of those idiot fathers at a dinner party who sits there all self-important and superior while the other parents joke about how at Christmas their kids would rather play with the cardboard box than with whatever was inside it. And someone laughs that “next Christmas I’ll just buy them a huge box!” and everyone but that one father giggles hysterically. And someone else blurts out that their child will only play with the Tupperware in the kitchen cupboard. And everyone but that idiot father thinks it hilarious.
And then someone happily turns to that father to ask whether his child has any of those funny, unexpected things they like to play with, and then of course he has to be so damn special and difficult and antiestablishment, so he replies: “Mmm. Knives.”
I’m not saying that I’m that father.
But that story might be partly why you aren’t allowed to play with Theodor or Smilla anymore.
So anyway: it’s not as easy as it looks, this whole being-a-parent thing, you know? I do the best I can. I go to the playground. I talk to other parents. I shake my head and cry, “Nooooo!?” when they tell me about some other parent of some other kid who erupted green stuff from their rectum or some other crap I couldn’t really care less about if I tried. (Believe me, I’ve tried incredibly hard and I couldn’t do it.) And I do actually try to be attentive. Sensitive. Empathetic. I get just as heated up over the scandals around the swine flu vaccine and the lack of qualified teachers and all that other stuff, the fact that there was some kind of poison or something in the walls of your preschool and that we had to be super careful to remember something when we did something or whatever the hell it was. I’m doing the best I can! It’s just that I have a lot to think about.
And this thing everyone says about how you “don’t become interested in children until you have them yourself,” that’s actually a lie. I only became interested in one (1) child when you were born. I still think other children are pretty annoying.
And yes. I know it’s usually me who’s the problem. That I don’t listen and that I don’t take things seriously.
Like when there was that health scare in the papers about bacteria-infested hot dogs that could be dangerous for children. And that Felicia girl’s mother was really agitated that the preschool couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t be serving the hot dogs on field trips. Or anywhere else. Ever. And I asked what the health risks from these hot dogs actually were, and Felicia’s mother hissed, “Meningitis!” And I said, “Worth it!” And she got very, very angry.
Sure.
Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested Felicia’s mother should “have a Prozac and a drink and try to be a bit more hakuna matata.” I probably shouldn’t have.
And a few weeks later, when she was a bit wound up during winter about the vomiting bug and was very insistent that the children shouldn’t touch one another, not even one another’s clothes. And it was that morning when you woke me up by hitting me in the face with a small toy car, so I had a nosebleed. And I thought I’d managed to stop it. And then we got to preschool. And I sneezed in the cloakroom.
I shouldn’t have sneezed in the cloakroom.
So. Well. You know.
I know you like that Felicia girl.
But things are what they are.
It was just a suggestion.
All right. So it was last night. 11:30 p.m.
I was very, very, very tired. And you were running around, around, around on the floor and shouting something that sounded like the sort of thing drunk German soccer hooligans would shout to each other when really happy. And then you just stopped. Rushed into the kitchen. Came back. Got yourself into position and then started, with what I can only describe as an impressively indifferent facial expression, to pour yogurt into a drawer. No explanation at all.
And all I said then was that you usually fall asleep when we go for a drive in the car. And then your mother’s friend, who was visiting, laughed and said yeah, but then they sadly always wake up when you get back home and have to take them out of the car seat.
And then I said that I’m pretty damn sure that baby monitor we bought would have reception all the way down to the garage.
It was a joke. It was mostly a joke. At least a little bit of it was not serious.
But if someone from social services turns up at preschool today and starts asking questions about this, you know what it’s about.
The cobbler’s children
I’m not saying it wasn’t my fault.
I’m just saying that this whole process of getting a child’s outerwear on in the morning is a bit like trying to put an angry monkey who has just been dipped in soap and fed jalapeños into a complete ice hockey goalkeeper’s uniform.
I’m not making excuses.
I’m just saying that things were a bit stressful this morning.
And it’s not like you walk all the way to preschool either. You get pushed in a bloody stroller. Sitting inside an enormous fur blanket zipped up around you like a frikkin’ sleeping bag. There’s not a single person in the entire Stockholm area who had a warmer commute to work this morning than you. That’s just how it is.
That’s not an excuse.
I’m just saying.
But sure.
Sure. Sure. Sure. Fine.
When it’s two below outside and I lift you up and out of the stroller outside preschool, in front of half a dozen other parents and all the staff, and then put you down straight into a pile of snow. And it takes me maybe about thirty or so seconds before I realize you aren’t wearing any shoes.
Then that doesn’t make me look like the most competent of parents. I get that.
But I’m having a bit of a day.
Note to self
Men coming back to work from paternity leave don’t like it if you welcome them back from their “vacation.”
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GOOD AND EVIL
There are those who say that no one is born evil. There are even those who say that there aren’t any evil people at all. I’m not an academic, so I can’t give you a definite truth on the matter. All I know is that there are bastards. And that, if possible, I would really like it if you did not grow up to become one of them.
Because if there’s just one thing I really wish I could teach you, it’s to be kind. To not be a jerk. And you can trust me on this particular subject, because I have very extensive experience of being a jerk. I’ve got a PhD in behaving like an ass.
So this is one of the very basic things you need to know about how the world works: in every group you’ll ever find yourself in, regardless of whether it’s on a playground or in the office of an advertising agency with panoramic windows, you’ll meet people who constantly place those around them into two groups: the strong and the weak.
But between these two groups there will be a gap, and in this gap there will be ten other people. The most dangerous group. Terrified of tumbling down the hierarchy. And those ten will always hit and kick downward because that’s the only direction in which they know how to hit and kick. They’ll always find an excuse, any at all, to push someone weaker than them into a corner.
And I’m just like every other parent. I’m terrified you’ll be the child in the corner of the playground. Equally terrified you’ll be the one being hit and that you’ll be the one doing the hitting. I’ve been both, and it hurts in different places but in the same way.
So you and I need to talk about good and evil. Because that’s the kind of thing fathers do with their sons, I think. I just don’t have the slightest idea where to start, to be honest. So I want to tell you a story. Because you like stories, right? Everybody does.
Now, I don’t happen to know a huge number of stories, so I’ll tell you one of the few I do know. The one I liked the very best when I was a kid. And I want you to focus on the moral of it. Because the moral is important.
Let’s begin: Once upon a time, there was a wrestler called The Undertaker.
The Undertaker lived a long, long time ago in a kingdom far, far away called the United States. Like, all the way back in the nineties. And in this kingdom, what all the wrestlers wanted most of all was to wrestle in the big WWE competition in front of thousands of people and defeat an opponent with really bad hair and get to wear the golden champion’s belt. And year after year, for as long as the people could remember, the evil kings Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels dominated these competitions. Some even said they were invincible. But when The Undertaker stepped into the ring for the first time, oh, you should have seen him then! He gave the people hope that a better day might dawn. He was a hero in a world of villains. Big as a tractor, this guy. And he had a finisher that… sorry, wait. Maybe we should start from the beginning? A “finisher” is a signature way of knocking out your opponent, you see. All the wrestlers had one back then. It was the kind of thing you learned at wrestling school. It’s a punch or a choke hold so strong that there’s no comeback to it. Like a tank. Or a tank shooting fire. Or a full stop, the end, no givesies backsies jinx.
You know what I mean? Nothing beats no givesies backsies jinx.
So: The Undertaker had a finisher called “The Tombstone Piledriver,” where he sort of turned his opponent upside down. Your mother is fairly insistent that you might not need to know all the details about this right now. And maybe she’s right. You’ve got plenty of time to learn. But just imagine you had something stuck in your throat and that I turned you upside down to shake it out, and then I happened to drop you. That’s pretty much what The Undertaker did. But on purpose.
It was aaawesooome!
He was fated to become the WWE champion. (That’s, like, the wrestling equivalent of “the princess and half the kingdom.”) Everyone loved The Undertaker. He was tall, dark, and handsome, and he had biceps as big as Labrador puppies. But! Beneath the glittering surface, he carried a dark secret. And one day, a shadow from his past reemerged: his half brother, Kane.
You see, Kane’s parents had died in a terrible fire, and everyone thought that Kane did too. But they were wrong. He was left with serious burns to his face, but he survived. And he grew bitter and angry, and some really bad people who wanted to hurt him lied and said that it was his brother, The Undertaker, who started the fire, in an attempt to kill Kane. So Kane, filled with hate, swore that one day he would take his revenge. And then, just as The Undertaker fought Shawn Michaels in the deciding match to determine who would face Bret Hart in a spectacular to-the-death fight for the WWE belt, Kane suddenly turned up and challenged his brother in front of the entire kingdom. (Not to mention TV viewers in up to sixty-three countries.)
But The Undertaker didn’t want to fight his brother. And so he did what everyone will tell you to do if someone hits you: he walked away. And there’s no shame in that. Kane stood there shouting, “Chicken!” after him, but he was wrong. Because it was Kane who was the chicken. Never forget that.
The Undertaker refused to raise his fists to his own brother. But Kane, like all bullies, wouldn’t give in. He mocked and humiliated The Undertaker. He called him “coward” and “weakling” and a load of other words that… well, you’ll understand once you’re older but that, simply put, relate to the different ways boys and girls pee. Kane decl
ared that he would get his revenge sooner or later and then he continued to turn up at all The Undertaker’s fights, challenging him to a duel. He even jumped into the ring and started to fight on a number of occasions, but The Undertaker just took his blows without so much as raising a pinkie finger in defense. Even though maybe The Undertaker SHOULD have!
You get where I’m going?
I mean… I’m not telling you to beat up your sibling. I know that might be how it sounds right now. And when I think about it, maybe this wasn’t the best example. But what I’m trying to say is that sometimes the strongest person isn’t the one who hits. It’s the one who doesn’t hit back. All right?
You see: The Undertaker could have crushed Kane, but he chose to be bigger than that. And at some point in time, in a playground or in an office with panoramic windows at an advertising agency, I hope you’ll realize that the brave person isn’t the one who starts a fight even though he doesn’t know whether he’ll win or lose. The brave person is the one who knows he would win and still holds back.
But we’re getting off track here. So: Kane tried and tried to get his brother to fight him, but The Undertaker refused. He just walked away, every time. And time passed. And, just like in every great fairy tale, Kane eventually realized his mistake. He understood that he had been wrong all along, that blood is thicker than water. And so, at one of the kingdom’s wrestling events one dark night, when The Undertaker was ambushed by Shawn Michaels and his three shady villain sidekicks from D-Generation X, Kane rushed to his brother’s aid. To begin with, Shawn Michaels naturally assumed that Kane would join in on their side, because that’s what all bullies think. That just because there are more of them and because they’re attacking a lone victim, no one will dare stand up to them. And sadly, I’m not going to lie to you, people like Shawn Michaels are often right. That’s why the bullies continue to be bullies, because they win so often. But not this time. My oh my.
Things My Son Needs to Know about the World Page 7
