IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:I am a father of girls . . . I am in the 'most easily manipulated' category
SHE LOOKS me straight in the eye and demands the truth: “I want you to tell me the truth, dad. It’s bad to lie to your kids. Does the tooth fairy really put the money under my pillow, or is it you?”
Three sentences. Three loaded sentences. To non-parents, this would seem a cute little repartee, a minor curveball to be negotiated in the daily parent/child dialogue.
But a parent’s radar goes up here, for a host of reasons. There are general and personal issues to be addressed – I’ll start with a general that morphs into the personal.
The elder child has appealed to my sense of fairness and virtue. By highlighting her knowledge that “it’s bad to lie” she is informing me that she has absorbed a general life lesson imparted to her by her parents. She expects to be rewarded for her display, to have her head patted, and get an honest answer.
She also, obviously, has some idea of the answer herself or the question would never have been raised. So, there’s a little bit of showing off involved, as well as a hint of concern at a potentially skewed world view. That is the general.
The first personal issue is linked to the same “it’s bad to lie” truism. In this case, I’m picking up things that some readers won’t unless they operate in the same relationship minefield as I do. (Which, I presume, most do.)
The elder, with her statement that dishonesty is universally distasteful, is laying down a precursor that I will be struck down in some way should I choose to lie. This is an interrogation technique she has inherited from her mother, who wields it like Obi-Wan Kenobi does a lightsabre.
The elder’s attempts to manipulate my response are reminiscent of an awkward young Skywalker, but it is clear she is showing early promise. This frightens me.
I am a father of girls. Therefore I am in the “most easily manipulated” category on the planet. I can be turned through the act of defiance, subtle use of tears and, at speed, with a disarming smile and an undemanded kiss. Both of my tormentors realised this by the age of two.
Now, when arguments start I have to walk away. I have no possible hope of victory in the face of their not so subtle charms.
With the first child’s discovery of the use of verbal guilt ploys, I know I will never again be able to offer an answer in my own home beyond the one that is demanded.
Back to the general. She knows there’s no tooth fairy. She’s read enough Roald Dahl to twig that the only truly fantastic stuff involves lickle kiddies being kidnapped, or eaten, or transmogrified into rodents.
We don't allow them watch a Britney video, but we'll read them The Witcheswith glee, and wonder where the innocence is gone. And if you haven't read The Witches, just do it. We're on our third spin through and it gets more brutal each time.
Yet, in asking the question, she is offering herself assurance that she has tried hard enough to investigate the conundrum, so that she should be awarded her windfall, regardless of her findings. She realises that if her father realises she has realised her father is the tooth fairy, well then her father is under no real obligation to come up with the readies anymore. You follow?
She is offering me a number of insights. First, she doesn’t believe in fairies. Second, she has absorbed the lesson that truth is a given in our morally upstanding family. Third, she is displaying her prowess, like a staggering newborn calf learning to walk, with the weapon of truthful manipulation which we all wield with varying degrees of success in this morally upstanding family.
And fourth, she has highlighted, in bright Vegas showlights, that although she has the whole sham sussed I better keep the money stream flowing and the promise of a better world at the forefront of her mind.
I look her in the eye and tell her that, yes, it is me who puts the money under her pillow. There is no tooth fairy and tomorrow she’ll have to pack her bags and get on a boat to the mainland to make her own way in this life.
Nah, I assure her that of course there’s a fairy who flits into every dentally relieved child’s bedroom at night and exchanges cash for milk teeth. The elder reaches up and hugs me, pecking my cheek with an undemanded kiss.
She knows. She has me right where she wants me.
- abrophy@irishtimes.com