The comedian on liberal parenting

The three year old is making me take a long hard look at how liberal I am. It was his birthday recently, and my wife asked him what he wanted from all of us. He had two items on the list: a Spider-Man costume and a pushchair with a baby doll.

Now I know you are already thinking how narrow-minded I am that I think to even mention that he wants a pushchair. But what you’re not visualising is that now, when we go to the park, he will dress as Spider-Man and walk with the pushchair. He looks like a little Father for Justice. I’m scanning my memory for a film or cartoon episode in which Spider-Man decides to set up some sort of day-care service instead of dealing with threats to the city. It hasn’t happened. My son is just a freak. The final straw was when he became upset that the costume did not allow him to effectively breastfeed. None of this, however, is any worse than Spider-Man 3. In fact, a breastfeeding scene would have been a welcome respite from that shambles of a movie.

This isn’t the worst of what this boy has done. We have set up a “behaviour chart” for this kid, because he loses his mind for no discernible reason.

For example, we were walking through a supermarket the other day, when he turned to me and said “This way, Daddy.” What qualification do you have to make this statement buddy? You don’t know your way around the store. When we were walking in here you thought it was a play park. Even if you did know your way around, you have no idea what we need. What the hell are you on about? Plus, I don’t want to follow this kid. The last time he said “This way” and I followed him, it was to show me a poo. The last thing I want to do is follow this kid and discover he has taken a s*** behind a tube of Pringles.

I can’t say any of this obviously – I just said “No mate, it’s this way.” At which point, he flipped out. He went bananas. He starts kicking stuff over; he’s doing that agony scream thing that makes you want to rip your own ears off so you can stuff them into his mouth. And I don’t want to look like a horrible parent, to these strangers around me who have no idea that the reason this is happening is because I refuse to take directions from somebody who, up until two weeks ago, was unable to locate his own penis. So I have to say “There, there, mate, it’s okay.” Then my wife walks up and says: “Let’s just follow him.”

As far as I’m concerned, this is betrayal. I am trying to make a point here, and now this woman has completely undermined me. I refused to go. I didn’t want to reward his behaviour. I think you’ll agree, however, that a woman walks up and says: “Is he okay?” It is at this point that I look across at this woman to explain that the boy is just throwing a tantrum when I realise she is talking about me! And why wouldn’t she? We have a woman and child wanting to go in one direction, with a grown man refusing to follow. Ridiculous.

“Minnie Mouse? That’s not a superhero! What’s wrong with Mickey?!”

Anyway, we have set up this chart. If the boy gets five stickers every week, he gets a treat. So he had three lots of stickers and we’d got him nothing so thought it was probably time to stump up. We allocated a present day and took him along to the Disney Store to choose another superhero costume. Any costume of his choice. I wondered which Avenger he would pick. After a few minutes, he had made his decision. I wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t gone for Captain America or The Hulk. What I was surprised by, was his decision to forsake these for Minnie Mouse. Minnie Mouse? That’s not a superhero! What’s wrong with Mickey?! Are you mental?

I didn’t say any of this, of course. I didn’t want a repeat of what happened at the supermarket. We bought him the dress.
It looks much better with the pushchair.