Public Humiliation Training

I am in my 3rd year of fatherhood as of Christmas just gone.  I have a 3 year old daughter and a son who is just shy of 1 year old.  As I stare outside whilst doing the washing up, I watch the seasons fly by like clumsy window cleaner and take moment to reflect.  I reminde myself that the children are definitely still alive and as an added bonus, happy.  This is a good thing, a thing to cherish, “you’re doing by all accounts an OK job, and you can keep your kids”.  

In the 3^rd year I find myself unembarrassed by many things.  There was a time where I would have felt self-conscious about making a scene in public, but that has changed.   What happens now is a scene is made via proxy. My daughter is very good making scenes for me, it’s like she’s paid to do it.  She has a range of techniques that I shall list.

The never ending No’s

‘No’ is my daughters favorite word, she employs it wherever she can.  She will say it in a short, abrupt barks.  Like a one of those ratty dogs, no! no! she gets carried away, as its not just a negative response to a simple question, it becomes all she can say, even if she actually wants the thing were offering. 

Crying over spilt milk

I never really got this phrase pre-parenthood, who would cry over spilt milk?  Children will cry over spilt milk or a door being closed, not being permitted to lick the cat, going left instead of right – literally anything.  I suppose they know nothing of real loss, so that milk that was once theirs, that was once contained within a vessel suddenly becomes uncontained and strewn across a highly stainable surface, that loss is very real and apparent to them.  She didn’t give a shit when Bowie died. 

Playing dead

I’ve been in situations on the street or a shop where my daughter will go from being happier than all of Larry’s immediate and extended family to a flaccid corpse.   The level of method acting is admirable and deplorable simultaneously.  It was embarrassing the way she hangs, lifeless from my hand, becoming a deadweight, closed eyes and unresponsive.   Now, we scoop her up and throw her in over my shoulder and just go home.

Public urination (or defecation)

Kids piss and shit spontaneously, they may blow at any moment and not you or the kid will have much time to react.  There have been moments were me and my partner have literally dangled the child over a flower bed, acting as a human toilet seat allowing the child to wiz on the roses.  We congratulate them upon completion of not shitting their respective pants.

The moral is, if you care about the way you look and how other people perceive you, don’t bother with kids.  Trust me though, if you do have them you will encounter a series of public humiliations that teach you there is a bit more to life than what other people think.