Only boring people are bored

“I’m bored” – what child now ever has the opportunity to utter words so familiar to the youth of its forebears?  My father was so fed up of hearing me and my sister whine this from the back of the car that he repeatedly although unsuccessfully instituted a 50p fine for every mention of the word.  Only the boring are bored is an admonition that comes back to me from that time.  In truth car journeys in our family were an uncomfortable melange of tedious hours of I Spy and instant frantic demands for navigation as my father would veer off at a congested junction thrusting an extraordinary tome into my hands which claimed to teleport you from junction to junction but instead triggered a terrifying episode of real life Whacky Races.

The point is car journeys were boring as the only entertainment consisted of teasing my sister and asking every 5 minutes if we were nearly there yet.  Now screens in the back shut up the children and the screen in the front tells them exactly how nearly there yet they are.  The annihilation of boredom by screen is by now a well worn trope.  I had my first vivid experience of it when at the age of 25 I did my first evening of baby sitting.  An angelic boy of two was put in my care for an evening and I had preposterously envisaged a jolly couple of hours reading Peter Pan to him.  Instead the moment the door clicked shut behind his parents he started to howl relentlessly in entirely well founded objection to the incompetent interloper.  I tried everything in my power (which in truth back then wasn’t much) before in desperation pressing play on the VHS.  It was as if Thomas the Tank Engine had reincarnated as an opium pipe: instant blissful silence. 

Now that I am a parent the thing that really surprises me about my childhood is that however incessant were my complaints of boredom not once do I recall my parents rebuking me for being boring myself.  This may just be a symptom of heroic self-restraint, it may be basic good manners or it may be a reflection of the 24/7 childcare that I [they] enjoyed.  For the fact of the matter is children are often pretty boring.

Worst of all children are actively boring.  They do not engender the passive boredom of a rainy Sunday afternoon in a house devoid of screen based diversion; the nothing to do boredom of our childhood but now consigned forever to history.  Instead theirs is the tedium of the task that must be tackled.  Contrary to popular wisdom nappy changing is a doddle compared to the more hellish aspects of parenting a small child.  It has a defined beginning and an end.  Compare this to the assured misery of getting a tired baby to sleep.  And in contrast to a boring job or task at work which you couldn’t care less about this boredom is suffused with the guilty feeling that you’re doing it wrong, that you’re failing in some fundamental way.

I want to scotch any suggestion that this is a whinge.  The joys attendant on caring for a child, especially your own, more than compensate for the teeth grinding longeurs.  But I do have a concern that the tolerance for boredom of the parents of the future is being so diminished by screen based entertainment that there could yet be a real crisis in parenting 20 years hence.  Perhaps it is time to bring back boredom?

A shopping list for life

When Patek Philippe dad is not carefully safeguarding his watch for his son and his son’s son I like to imagine him being the kind of father who imparts words of wisdom in the queue for the Cresta Run or from the back of a khaki Land Rover in the Serengeti, binoculars slung around his neck.  You may be fortunate enough to have the kind of father who is not abashed to share pearls of wisdom gleaned from learning and experience.  However I suspect that most children establish their father’s views from a lifetime's random expression of prejudices and passions.

I have learnt many things from my father. I can spot the difference between the Ionic and the Doric at 100 paces.  I can name all of Zeus’ lovers (victims).  I know that short sleeved shirts are ‘charlie’.  I know that nothing in life is more important than having the best fancy dress costume.  I can tie a bow tie, even if it’s single ended.  I know that the correct way to eat a banana is from the blade of a knife, with clotted cream.  So really he did cover all the bases.

Notwithstanding the excellent job he did I thought it might be useful to jot a few thoughts down for my own son.  Either for him to peruse at his leisure at an appropriate juncture or alternatively to act as a crib should he ever come looking for paternal guidance.  And like remembering to take a shopping list to Sainsbury’s it could even prompt me to keep to virtue’s path rather than the crisps aisle aka the road to perdition.  So here in a totally random order of importance:

1. Fix your eyes on the horizon not a screen – nothing pixelated beats IRL (ancient expression meaning in real life).

2. Read everything – there’s nothing ever published from which nothing can be learned.  Except the Daily Mail, whose only lesson is that mankind is probably already beyond redemption.

3. Be brave – pluck grannies from burning buildings by all means, lead your platoon in attack (if you really have to) but remember that emotional courage is what takes real guts.

4. Don’t play games – except Monopoly, provided you don’t cry like your dad did when you lose, and tennis.  People are not pawns.

5. Honour thy father and mother – the Bible is wrong about a lot of things, this is not one of them.

6. Consent – obviously the sine qua non but waiting until your yearning meets her or his longing and then you’ll find out what the fuss is really all about.

7. Be sad – you can only really appreciate espresso after you’ve drunk Nescafé, you can only value happiness when you’ve known sadness.

8. Lighting – almost nothing is more important than good lighting, when giving a dinner it is impossible to have too many candles, or flowers.

9. Conformity is the greatest rebellion – when you’re 16, sniffing glue and thinking about a tattoo please believe this one.

10. Don’t bullshit – it stinks and makes you stink too.

11. Cooking – learn it and never apologise for it.  If it’s good people will take seconds if it’s not don’t force them.

12. Conversation – everyone’s favourite topic is themselves and everyone’s an expert on it: small talk is for small people.

13. Never condescend – except to the pompous and the prejudiced; then pile in.

14. One-offs – we all are, every single human being on the planet unique in his or her hopes and fears, don’t make assumptions about others.

15. Rugby – not football.

16. Your body – respect it and people will respect you.  It can do a hell of a lot more than sit on a sofa watching TV and will reward you richly for doing it.

17. Your passions – find them and pursue them even when people like your parents, especially your parents, deter you.

18. People/experiences/things – in that order.  Whatever advertising suggests nobody will love you for your car.  Look what Gandhi left behind when he died and aim for that (although shoes are a permissible substitute).

19. Swim – in rivers, lakes and the seas.  When you get lost in your head you lose yourself, cold water will find you again.

20. Fail – you will learn from this. Victory has no pupils.

But above all: love.  As The Beatles rightly sang, in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.  Don’t ration love, its supply, like your father’s advice, is endless.  Chance your heart, it may be bruised or even broken, but life without love is merely existence.