A DAD'S LIFE:Silence is a foreign concept for parents, writes ADAM BROPHY
NOISE IS no longer an issue. This, I think, is the signifier of having finally fully accepted, after over 10 years, fatherhood.
All right, I will still want to force a tin whistle into places it is not intended if it is played at the breakfast table but, for the most part, do your worst – shout, scream, yelp, bawl – you’ll have to give me something in writing to get attention.
This is a full about-face. In years gone by there were households I would refuse to go near if there was a televisual event to behold, certain people I wouldn’t allow within a county boundary if my head was nipping. You know these people and places, their common denominator is noise, mayhem and repeated requests to repeat yourself.
The simplest story has to be retold four times as constant interruptions and the squall of small children ensure no discussion beyond the most basic takes place. These places are more commonly known as “family homes at weekends” and these people more often referred to as “parents”.
Along with sleep deprivation and a sudden reduction in disposable income, the most striking factor in becoming a parent is a necessary acceptance of increased noise.
It starts out as incessant squalling at all hours of every day, but it doesn’t end when the baby years pass. I don’t know when it stops, but the first 10 years are accompanied by a personal soundtrack.
Kids talk non-stop. If they’re not talking, they’re shouting or singing, or banging something, or asking for something, or giving out because you’re not listening. Not listening to what? Where was the question in the last barrage of sound?
I fought the noise for a long time. I would leave the house for manly, smoky, boozy noise. That only made the following day’s noise doubly hard to handle. I attempted to enforce silence and was laughed out of the room.
“You’re stifling them,” said the missus.
“Better than murder,” I replied.
I was beaten down slowly. I used to stress about not being able to fully experience a match in my own home, but came to realise the full experience is overrated. Where would you be, watching a thrilling Six Nations match without a seven year old stuck to the floor in front of the screen, demanding that you switch over to Sponge Bob. You learn to munch your crisps and angle the TV in such a way that you can see most of it. Most is usually enough.
Cousins came over last night to stay. This increases numbers by 100 per cent but ratchets the volume up threefold. I don’t hear it any more, except when I tune in. And tuning in is becoming more interesting.
They have a secret club, the four of them, called the Mango Club, where each has been assigned fruity code names: Mango, Nectarine, Kiwi and Banana. They keep minutes of their secret meetings, held at a volume that would have Thomas Dolby reaching for ear plugs, in a secret diary, which I always read after they’ve gone outdoors.
They also have a variety of games. Probably the most base is “Skivvy”, in which one is forced to do the bidding of the other three. Wash their feet, make them sandwiches and take abuse for which they would probably be jailed in later life.
Next up, they roar through the house accumulating food and drink to bring outside and spill on the trampoline. When all physical vigour has been bounced out of them, they segue into my favourite game.
“My Granny Is A Psycho” involves two of them playing a version of Egyptian mummies who have been reincarnated as the kids’ grandmothers. These are not kind and sweet, as their real grannies are, but nasty witches who, through the blackest of black magic, have infiltrated our homes, cast a spell on the parents and are devoted to shocking the others with outlandish stories.
I do a spot of aural tuning after a prolonged blackout period and catch my younger child warbling about how, back in the day, she had an affair with Jesus. She has mixed her new testament with a dash of Roald Dahl and come up with a biblical Danielle Steele, on acid, for minors. Silence has its merits, but occasionally their noise is rewarding. I tune out and return to my paper.