A DAD'S LIFE:Why have resolutions yourself when you can pass the buck, asks ADAM BROPHY
HOW MANY of you have given up on your new year resolutions already? Come on. Have you had a sneaky fag? Snuck back up on the chocolate cake? Rolled home in a fug when you swore blind never again to touch a drop?
How many gym memberships are already gathering dust?
The thing is, it doesn’t matter. Following through on a new year’s resolution is about as likely as Fianna Fáil candidates being welcomed into homes in the coming months. It’s not about succeeding, it’s about the concept of reinvention, or at least a belief in the possibility of personal reinvention. No matter how unlikely.
At what other time of the year would it seem reasonable to announce the arrival of a svelte new you within three months when you’ve spent a solid month attempting to wallpaper paste your arteries? It’s crazy.
Following the party season with the resolution season was a stroke of marketing genius; if Jesus were alive today he’d have been the main man in Ogilvy by 32.
Adidas, Weight Watchers, Ben Dunne and Alcoholics Anonymous all base their annual sales projections on January’s influx. They know they have a month to capitalise on our guilt and shame because by February we’ve all woken up and realised we need to return to spending the few spare pennies we have left on whatever it is that eases the pain. We spark up that first surrender fag and swear that next year we’ll be stronger.
This year I resolved not to resolve. There was no great decision made, just a general feeling of ennui towards the beginning of a new trip round the sun. But by week two of 2011, I realised my mistake. The February funk was hitting early because I had nothing to target and fail at in January. All that was left was to count the minutes until spring and that’s no fun.
I also, very smugly and in a burst of self-delusion, came to the conclusion that the usual “giver-uppers” weren’t going to do it this year. I’ve been far too healthy of late: in comparison to my January self of previous years I’m positively glowing. Sickeningly so. And this overdose of self-care has left me sucked of ambition.
I decided instead to inflict change on others. My eyes turned in the direction of the extensions of myself. Children, you could do with some polishing. They looked up from whatever misdemeanours they were committing and promptly told me to rack off. But it’s not February yet, there would be no capitulation for weeks at least.
Around the same time I became aware of Amy Chua. Amy is a second generation Chinese emigrant to America, a professor at Yale University and self-professed Tiger Mother.
Amy has two daughters from whom she will tolerate nothing but success. She has raised them in America in the Chinese tradition to obey and respect their parents, and not only to work hard at everything they do, but be the very best at whatever they turn their hand to.
Her children were never allowed to: attend a sleepover; have a play date; take part in a school play; complain about not being in a school play; watch TV or play computer games; choose their extracurricular activities; get any grade less than an A; not be the number one student in every subject except gym and drama (obviously these are inconsequential); play any instrument other than piano or violin; not play the piano or violin.
Harsh.
I’d say the craic is mighty at the Chua dinner table. I’d say there are wind-ups and slagging and banter. I’d say mum and dad bounce off each other and the kids are funny, and grandad sticks his head round the door and behaves inappropriately but he can get away with it because they’re all just buzzing and that’s the main thing. Or maybe not.
Putting aside the obvious difficulty that if we all followed this path and demanded our kids be the best in the class, there would be murder in our sardine-like classrooms, her exhortations for perfection struck a little chord in me.
Maybe we westerners are too soft on our kids, maybe our concern for their happiness and the development of their self-esteem is a ridiculous conceit. But maybe, too, Amy Chua is a psychotic wagon and her offspring over-developed drones.
Ever since reading about her I’ve decided to become a little bit harder, and that’s a good thing. I will polish those rough diamonds of mine. ‘Til February at least.