Tim Lott 

In the company of women

Tim Lott ... lone man in a female household
  
  

Tim Lott
Tim Lott: 'Who knows what trauma I suffered trying to get each of my daughters to learn how to ride a bicycle?' Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

A lot has been written about the effect on the development of the personality by parents on their children. Relatively little has been published on the developmental influences of children on parents. I am convinced that neglect by a child towards an adult can lead to long-term damage and a negative effect on one's cognitive and social ability. I recently went to a fairy-based event at the Globe theatre, on the South Bank of the Thames, in London in which my nine-year-old daughter and I were invited to search for followers of Oberon and Titania. On that dismal shore, I had an epiphany: enough fairies already.

For 18 years, I have had to deal with the shifting terms and conditions of the tooth fairy (including the current sterling-enamel exchange rate) and catalogue the various genera of flower fairies. I have innumerable Rainbow Magic fairy books (just try reading a few sentences without wishing to scoop your brains out and stamp the produce into the compost heap).

Fairies are just the beginning. The dumbing down of this particular adult through girlie kiddie culture probably started with Where are You, Blue Kangaroo?, which I have now probably read around 50 times. It's a nice little book – but I haven't read Nineteen Eighty-Four more than twice, and that's got a lot more interpretive potential.

When I start thinking about the long hours I have spent marshalling Sylvanian Families into various makeshift residences, or watching In the Night Garden or, much worse, My Little Pony, or trying to understand Moshi Monsters vernacular (worse than Geordie), I think it is surprising that I have any working mental equipment at all.

Standing around in playgrounds for hours pushing swings, often two at the same time, can be soul-destroying, but it is not actively abusive in the way that watching the hideously miscast movie version of The Magic Roundabout is.

The above activities merely make me stupider. But then there are the many activities that produce long-term emotional damage. My daughters, for instance, like to play noughts and crosses on the criss-cross wrinkles on my forehead. If that's not abuse, I don't know what is. And they never get pulled up on it, do they? Why? Being cute isn't a defence in law, after all.

Who knows what trauma I suffered trying to get each of my daughters to learn how to ride a bicycle? For God's sake, IT'S NOT THAT DIFFICULT. Just don't BLOODY FALL OFF. A BOY WOULDN'T FALL OFF. But I can't say that. I have to be nice, don't I? And get them a present when they finally, eventually, after God knows how many tries, tears and complaints, actually do something that any adult knows is VERY EASY.

No, I'm damaged all right. And it's all their fault. God, that time I spent half an hour trying to get one of them to eat a pea. One single pea. I offered her the world and still she wouldn't eat it. I still can't read Eat Your Peas by Kes Gray and Nick Sharratt, which bravely addresses this very issue, without twitching and having flashbacks.

I suppose there have been occasions when I have been culturally and psychologically enriched by fatherhood. Certainly, I am happy to treat Hippos Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton as valid adult bedtime reading now. The quality marque is also awarded to Horrible Histories, Wonderpets and Rugrats. But, on the whole, that is putting a stalk of broccoli up against an entire McDonald's menu.

But perhaps there's a biological sense to it all. Certainly the consumption of girl kiddie culture for all these years has reduced my brain to mush. And if I have to hear the theme tune of Peppa Pig once again, I may run down the street brandishing a cleaver. Then again, I am supremely well adjusted to the challenges of senility. And for that, I suppose, sooner or later most parents will be able to thank their children.

• Follow Tim on Twitter @timlottwriter

 

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