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One in the eye for us pacifists
WHO'S the Daddy?' has never been big on violence – not even when severely provoked by screaming children, pea-brained idiots at work or even when good football teams go bad.
No, there's nothing cool about giving someone a hearty smack around the chops – even if they really do deserve it and even if it might make you feel a whole lot better about yourself for five minutes, it's not big and it's not clever.
When you've been in journalism for a few years, after a while you think you've seen everything – you feel like you're fireproof and nothing can shock or disgust you because a) you kid yourself that you've seen it all before; and b) the only way you can deal with terrible stories like, say, the death of a child is to keep up a wafer-thin facade of
professional detachment, and sometimes that's all that keeps you from crumbling.
But I saw something last week that even I've never seen before and it was so shocking, repulsive and degrading that I feel duty bound to share it with you (if this was on telly some continuity announcer would be talking in grave tones about it containing scenes which may upset some viewers – so you have been warned).
Right, here goes.
I was at a supermarket check-out last week when a harassed young mum with a bunch of, er, challenging children realised she didn't have enough cash in her purse to pay for her shopping – so off she ran to the cashpoint, leaving her feral kids and carrier bags full of shopping.
While she was away the kids did what kids do when they think that mum's not looking – pick fights with each other, which is perfectly natural, well it is in every house I've ever been in.
But what happened next made me realise what a sheltered life I've led and what little angels our kids actually are.
One of the children was little more than a baby – the kid was sat in the trolley as his big brother tormented him – and he reacted to being teased by calmly taking his dummy out of his mouth and spitting in his face.
Hell's teeth! This kid was still in nappies and wearing booties and he'd learned to do something that would get you sent off in just about every sport I can think of.
In fact, I can't think of any sport where you wouldn't get your marching orders if you did it.
Battle-scarred footballers in the 1970s who did their best to kick each others' testicles off (but were sporting enough to scour the pitch to look for them after the final whistle) would smilingly take what amounted to on-pitch punishment beatings during a game, scrape the mud and blood away and get on with it like nothing had happened.
But if Johnny Foreigner tweaked one of his plums and spat in his eye at a corner during a European Cup quarter-final then all hell would break loose.
Gouging, kicking, punching, slapping...yes. Spitting...no, no and a thousand times no.
There's nothing more snide and repulsive – we just don't stand for it.
I don't know about you but in the days when I fancied myself as a player I'd rather some knuckle-dragging bruiser of a centre-half broke my jaw with a good, honest haymaker than gob in my face.
But in March 2009 there's at least one baby who has learned that one way to settle his differences with his siblings is to spit in his face.
It was the sheer workaday nonchalance of it that shocked me the most though – and the fact that his big brother giggled and wiped it away like he'd taken one in the eye after sticking a spoon in a grapefruit.
I weep for the future, I really do.
So what's next? You tell me. Once he's walking round with his hands in his pockets then anything's possible.
One thing's for sure though, if any of our kids bring him, or someone just like him, home in a few years and tell me I don't know him like they do then he'll be getting one in the eye from me (not that I condone violence in any way, as I made crystal clear at the outset).
Anyway, back in humdrum, cosy suburbia and our kids have found new ways of effortlessly running rings round us – the little buggers have started talking to each other in French.
At nine and six they're learning a foreign language at school that I didn't begin learning until I was 12 and had forgotten every word of
(profanities aside) by the time I was 14.
They cheerily sing-song in French over breakfast and warble their way through all kinds of nonsense while munching down Shreddies and slurping orange juice.
What are they going on about?
I don't know, but at least they're not covering each other in spit, which can only be a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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