The End of an Era

Today marks a personal milestone.

Today is November 10^th, 2022. Tomorrow my daughter will turn eighteen. Which means that today is the last day since August 2^nd 1991 that I will be father to an actual child.

August 1991. Bryan Adams is top of the charts with “Everything I Do (I Do Because Kevin Costner Is A Power Ballad Bastard).” John Major is Prime Minister. The world has not yet heard of Harry Potter, Brexit or the Beckhams. Not to say that Britain is a glorious place at this point, it isn’t. Twelve years into a cold-hearted Tory government, the country is gripped by unemployment, fucked off with the Poll Tax and occasionally bombed by the IRA. And Right Said Fred have appeared. Britain, as ever, is far from Great.

But none of this really matters to me on a sweltering August evening as my then girlfriend goes into labour. We are young and this wasn’t planned but we’re giving Being Responsible Adults an overdue go because well, when you’re young and you’re in love, you do, don’t you? 

I think so, it was a long time ago.

And since my son came crashing into the world, all eight pounds and thirteen ounces of him, I’ve had a child in my life. And I know that, even after they turn eighteen, they’re still technically your children, it’s just they’re not actually children themselves. 

And suddenly that seems to mean something. I was 20 when I became a dad and now I’m 51. 31 years of worrying about them sleeping, worried about their first steps, their speech, their school, their eating, their growing, their health, their sickness, their friends, their enemies, their new school, their opinions, their noise, their silences, their sleeping, their diet, their new friends, their choices. Where they are. When they are coming back. Why they’re late.

Oh the worry. Where are they right this second?

And now there is the regret. All the things I wanted to do with them but didn’t because of money or time or some other seemingly more pressing bullshit. Work, tiredness. The very occasional "just couldn’t be arsed."

I’d give anything to go to a fucking softplay centre with those younger versions of them now. Or a park. Or some other activity that tore a hole in my Saturday afternoon when really what I wanted was maybe 2 hours of sitting down drinking tea and doing literally fuck all. But we took them didn’t we, to the park, to the piss-sodden softplay centre, to the dreadful friends birthday party at the fucking furthest possible point from our house. Because we loved them and we wanted them to be happy. In hungover sunshine, in post-domestic argument row, on crowded bus and with almost empty wallets, we took them. And we secretly resented it and now that secret resentment, amassed over the years in the bank of shame like a regret-trousered ISA, is ready to be cashed out.

All the times I have sat and read books about tigers and fairies and bees and witches through eyes screamed dry with tiredness at 1am, watched dreadful, cheap, thoughtlessly put together franchise films in cinemas full of kids fluent only in E-numbered hysteria, taken them swimming, oh god not fucking swimming, they’re in that Suddenly Blissful Era too.

Every 3am dose of Calpol, every hospital visit, every grazed knee and tummy ache, presented to me now by the Ghosts of Parenting Past, kind and welcoming, pointing at me with wrinkled fingers and saying Shame like that mad nun does in Game of Thrones. I want it all back, can I have it all back please? Come on, just one more story, one more sleepless night walking up and down with vomit on my back, one more push on the swing. Please. Just one more. Just one more.

But of course, none of this can happen. And though I feel I’ve done my best and feel that I haven’t fucked them up too badly, there is regret. The wanting to have done so much more and spent so much more time with them. School can fuck off. All that worry about them and that time with other people you don’t really know. All that hanging about in the playground afterwards making small talk with parents, seemingly about fuck all but really swapping notes, checking out the competition. Is your kid better than mine? Fuck off. Your kid’s a twat.

Parents evenings. Christ. The homework projects. The sudden rush to Tesco at 10pm because they’re doing Cookery tomorrow and you’re a shit parent with no actual vanilla essence in the house rather than a decent parent who probably should have been told much earlier about said cookery lesson. Ah fuck it, school can stay too. Let me somehow write a convincing 14 year old’s version of a critique on a play I haven’t read before and have got to have at least thoroughly Wikipediad before 8am tomorrow otherwise Child will have some sort of colossal mental breakdown. And they won’t be grateful either. Bloody teenagers. Let me feel that peculiar misery just one more time. I’m sorry I was grumpy the first time. I forgot that all of this is a privilege.

All of this is the most wonderful privilege.

When my son was born I rang my parents to tell them the good news. It was about 3 in the morning. And my dad asked me how I was and I said I was tired. And he laughed and said I’d never sleep again. I thought he was joking.

11,424 nights of worry later, I concur.

11,424 days of bliss. Peppa Pig-scented, Pixar-flavoured, nappy coloured bliss. And today’s the last one of them. So tonight I’m off to the offie to buy a couple of bottles, one for me tonight and the past that has ended, and one for them tomorrow and the future to come.

So, what have I learnt? What parental wisdom can I, a man who once let a 10-year-old girl watch The Dead Zone, a man who once asked his son what he had put under “H” in the Illustrated Dictionary of Swearing I’d just discovered he’d made*, pass on these many years into the game.

Not a lot. Don’t read parenting books. It’s like checking your symptoms on Google. Go with your gut instincts. Take more photos. You will never have enough. Fruit and veg. Fresh air. Teach them to be kind. Be kind to them even when it’s hard. Encourage them, nurture them, protect them. Spoil them, not too much, but spoil them a little. Have secrets with them, have a language with them that nobody else does. Read to them, read with them. Let them discover that other world.

Don’t over protect them if you can help it and I’m sorry kids that I failed in this regard on an infinite number of occasions. Oh Christ, the worry you little sods have caused me. ANSWER YOUR BLOODY MOBILE FOR FUCKS SAKE!!

Don’t say “when I was your age”.

Kiss your kids goodnight as often as you can. Tell them you love them always. Forgive them when they fuck up and move on quickly. Never let them doubt for one second that they are the centre of your universe and that being their parent really is the greatest privilege.

But don’t take them to Pokemon The Movie. That really was a pile of shit.

Now, if you'll forgive me, I have something in my eye to attend to.

*It’s Horsefucker. Honestly, I’ve never been so conflicted. That horrified/secretly proud thing, they should bottle that.