A DAD'S LIFE:Negative comments can open up a whole world of pain, writes ADAM BROPHY
THE THING I remember best about former Scotland and Rangers goalkeeper Andy Goram is that he had mental health issues and was tortured from the terraces with the chant: “Two Andy Gorams! There’s only two Andy Gorams!” Your average Old Firm attendee is neither overly sensitive nor too educated in the nuances of schizophrenia.
Goram was a pro-footballer from 1981 to 2004, was voted Rangers’ greatest ever keeper by fans, and won 43 international caps, yet what stays in the head is that chant. It really does take years to build a good reputation, and minutes to tear it down.
Even more so with kids. If a child gets saddled with the “bad one” rep, it’s almost impossible to come back from it. You don’t hear bad reports from the children. They’ll have friends, they’ll have kids they don’t pay much attention to, they’ll have their sworn enemies (schooldays are the only time you get to live as if in an adventure novel), but they will never label another child as “bad”. We do that for them. Grown-ups. Their parents and teachers.
Rules you should learn at, if not your own birth, then certainly the birth of your first child, should include: “Never, ever, comment negatively on another person’s kid except to the person who shares your bed and then only if they have sworn, in blood, not to reveal your vile innermost thoughts.”
Labelling a child as spoilt, aggressive, opportunistic or selfish serves no purpose. For a start you are judging a child on adult standards. We have no idea of the intimate circumstances, good or bad, in which a child is reared. And by placing a moniker on any small person’s head we are applying a tag that they will do their best, probably unconsciously, to live up to.
Worse than that, we introduce a descriptor for that kid into the circle of adults that they move in. What you may have said in jest, or in the heat of the moment, can be passed around at speed. Before you can say “child psychologist” that kid has a reputation they may or may not deserve.
On the first level we cause harm to a child. On another, we risk our own standing in a community. Commenting on someone else’s kid is as provocative and inflammatory as you can get among parents.
Do it directly and, okay, you may instigate a heartfelt discussion on the difficulties of child-rearing, but only if you are already a close friend of the family, respected enough to step up to the plate with your opinions on the way they live their lives. Do it indirectly, and word gets back to the parents of that child, and you are persona non grata. A pariah. And rightly so.
The same rules apply, even with your own kids. We all do it, slag them off to other parents. Brag about what nightmares they are, how they abuse us for fun and expect the earth. I’ve been doing it for five years in print. But it can only be done with humour and when the undercurrent is obvious; that you love them to bits and, in essence, believe them to be superior to any other kid in the room.
Bearing all that in mind, I am struggling not to cast my elder child out on the street and refuse her return until the gangsta attitude has been stripped from her bones.
We are in the midst of the first flush of full blown, pre-teen angst. Everything’s a drama. She, according to herself, is downtrodden, unheard, disrespected and abused. Any request refused is met with much sighing, stamping and dramatic exits from rooms. If I didn’t own her, and love her, and know she was superior to everyone else, I’d show her the bleedin’ door. If she was anyone else’s, I’d be whispering, but only to the missus, about the parents. Damning them.
Yet, in the midst of all this bedroom diving and loud playing of her limited music collection, there emerges the little girl, and flashes of the adult she will get to. On one side she’ll climb into the lap and watch the Simpsons, exhausted. On the other, she’ll understand why she can’t have her friends for sleepovers five nights in seven. In between is the drama.
The drama isn’t the whole picture, just the loudest part. The part that attracts attention. The bits on the fringes are as important, and I’m hoping that, with time, this will pass and they will resume more space again. If I were to label her for the drama alone, I would be wrong.