3rd Child Energy

Unsolicited advice is the worst advice because even when it's good, or for that matter needed, it always carries it with it an air of presumption. Few scenarios more vexingly attract unsolicited advice than matters parental. That must be especially so for first time parents who, for a particular type of person, seem eternal victims of a desire to show off expertise and proficiency.

I long ago learnt to confine my observations to those expecting their firstborn to expressions of reassurance that they will almost certainly discover what works best for them and their baby. But if there was one thing I could wish for all fresher parents then that would be 3rd child energy.

I should make clear here that I'm a parent of two and therefore I know not of what I write from personal experience. However, I have enough friends with 3 to see that the one thing no parent of 3 ever has is time. No time for doubt, no time for reflection, no time for self-reproach.

In a family of 5 the newest arrival's basic needs must of course be met but there is distraction and obligation at every turn. It's often said that children compete for their parents' attention but it's less often remarked that is perhaps a good thing and, maybe, a better thing yet they don't have it all the time.

By all means babies should be doted upon and it goes without saying they should be loved but I'm not convinced it does babies any good for them to be obsessed over. I don't think it does parents any good to do the obsessing either. It is natural for first time parents to get obsessional over their firstborn's wellbeing because caring for a baby is, at the beginning, an intimidating prospect and the vulnerability of babies feels a lot like frailty. But most babies if they're fed, rested and stimulated are actually pretty robust.

They're also remarkable emotional barometers and if they perceive a busy, active family around them they fall into its routines and rhythms. On the other hand if they sense only overwrought, anxious and stressed parents for company it is perhaps not surprising if they start mirroring those emotions.

The obvious difficulty with 3rd child energy, which I acknowledge, is how a first timer is supposed to tap into it. It's rather like taking a first time skier up to a Black run and suggesting that they adopt some Tomba energy or taking a beginner driver onto the M1 and recommending a Hamilton vibe.

The problem with experience is that it is only achieved by experience. That does not mean we don't have our imaginations or that we shouldn't use them. So if I was asked for advice by an expectant mother or father I would ask them to imagine that this was their 3rd born and not their 1st and see what effect that has on their outlook and attitude. As adults we already know how to crawl, walk and run so perhaps it's just a question of mentality whether we take faltering first steps as parents or break immediately into a confident trot.

The worst question

On Saturday recently the 7yo’s team went down 1-0 to Primrose Hill he having presciently warned me to ‘never underestimate Primrose’. Over a consolatory pizza he completely sideswiped me with a question that left me quite literally speechless. I had complacently assumed I was the kind of parent that could take any kiddie q in my stride but this was an absolute pearler. Out of absolutely nowhere: 

“Dad, what is the worst thing you have ever done?” 

I sat gulping at him like a goldfish while he nonchalantly reached for another slice of pizza. When you’re in the questions business you know you’ve asked a ripper when the witness responds with stunned silence. So bold and effective was this enquiry that I have considered incorporating it into my standard cross-examination routine. I was half minded to say why don’t we talk about babies come from instead? 

My brain went into frantic overdrive as I snatched in vain for any answer that would fill the unforgiving silence that was growing between us. Just as I was about to equivocate with the classic diversion of asking a question of my own he followed up: 

“I know already, you once tried a cigarette didn’t you.” 

Immediately I seized on this: “You got me kiddo, guilty as charged!” I said with relief that I hadn’t volunteered a single one of the possible answers I was going to give. Mercifully he did not follow up with asking what the second worst thing I had ever done was. Nor, slightly less reassuringly, did he elaborate on why he had selected this particular line of enquiry. The conversation moved quickly on but the effect of the question did not. 

My initial intention had been to ask him to define the terms of his question. By worst did he mean most embarrassing, most foolish, most unkind? Or were we in 7 Deadly Sins territory: most prideful, greediest, wrathful, envious, lustful, gluttonous or idle? When he’s a bit older, perhaps 47 for example, I might follow up my curiosity with him. Absurdly my chief anxiety was that my answer was going to disappoint him. Like most people I would not want every moment of my life broadcast on the Piccadilly Circus billboards but all told, so far at least, my history is a bit thin when it comes to iniquity and perdition. 

There’s something a bit bombastic about superlatives but I do think the youngster may have been onto something. Try asking your parent of what achievement they are most proud, (instant disqualification if the answer is birthing or rearing you). If they’ve won an Oscar or a Nobel prize their answer might be rather predictable but in most cases, I suspect, there would be more than a surprise or two. 

Likewise, eliciting from your parent which was their most shaming moment may not be your most endearing moment but it’s an enquiry of challenge and an opportunity, therefore, for some truth telling and seeing your parent as a human first and parent second.

Breath is Life

One among many of the responsibilities of a barrister at court is putting witnesses at their ease so that they feel able to give their best evidence. This applies whether that witness is the defendant, the complainant, an eyewitness or even a police officer. If I can tell that a witness is or is likely to become nervous I will often remind them to keep breathing. This may seem patronising advice but it is extremely common for witnesses overcome by nerves to start breathing in a shallow way up at the top of their lungs and in their throat. This has a negative effect on voice projection which can make them inaudible and it is the opposite of the sort of deep and controlled breathing that helps dissipate the anxiety brought on when the brain is not being well oxygenated.

Breath is life seems the sort of platitude that it's easy to dismiss as a vapid athleisurewear slogan. It also happens that it's true and conscious breathing is a sure path to a better life. I have found that in times of acute stress I sometimes, without realising, actually hold my breath. This is not healthy for a number of reasons not least of all proper functioning of the heart.

Another statement of the obvious is that exercise is good for you and one form of exercise, yoga, is particularly good for you. Again it's obvious because it's true. But to the uninitiated and the untrained yoga can seem intimidating or alienating, with poses only harder to say than they are to perform. The key thing to remember and understand though is that yoga, like breathing, is not a competition.

What yoga does do is make you conscious of your breath so that your breathing serves you in movement and stillness. What quickly becomes apparent is how much easier movement is when working with the breath rather than against it or oblivious to it. But conscious breathing doesn't just improve the functioning of the body it helps settle the mind and level mood.

Thus comes my parenting point. Because if parenting is about anything it's about moods. Your own and that of your children. Many of the emotions of parenting are welcome but some are not and the black box emotion is anger. I call it that because it's easy to believe that anger is an emotion that parents need to keep locked in a black box. That belief stems from the fear of what displays of anger can do to damage a child.

But we cannot pretend anger away however much we might like to believe that it's an emotion that can be suppressed with sufficient self-control. Some parents, regrettably, have no self-control at all and the criminal courts all too often bear witness to the terrible harms that can be done to children when their parents succumb to a rage that is unchecked.

Anger is natural, you will feel it, perhaps all too often as a parent. The question is what you do with the emotion. If you pretend it is not there a time will come when it will insist upon you acknowledging that it is. That time will not be convenient nor will it be pretty, in fact it may be actively unsafe.

Anger can be channeled into physical endeavour like running or chopping wood. You can literally exhaust the anger by exhausting yourself. However there is a way of causing anger to dissipate like the morning mist on a hot day and that is through breathing and the best breathing comes with yoga. And while we are alive it is very important that we keep breathing.

Fathering fit

People talk about being fighting fit but other than an absolutely feeble scuffle in my teens that makes Grant v Firth in Bridget Jones’ Diary look like the Rumble in the Jungle I’ve never had to consult the Queensberry Rules, or a martial code of any description. It may be that I’ve seen more than my fair share of people that raise their fists in anger but my perception is that fighting is going out of fashion. When I was a baby barrister my diary was chock-a-block with pub punch ups; nowadays my staple diet is far seedier and I sometimes long for a good honest split lip and black eye. 

So whatever men are getting fit for now it’s not for having it out in the garden of the Dog & Duck. My sense is it’s wellbeing and the dismal pursuit of a physique to match Andrew Tate’s. If only men would learn that the dad bod has achieved iconic status for a reason. Contrary to popular male belief not all women swoon at the sight of ripped torsos, bulging biceps and rock hard calves. 

This is because most women are familiar with an immutable truth which is that any man that has achieved physical perfection comes with at least one and sometimes all three of the following fatal character flaws: i. Irredeemable dullness 

ii. Incurable narcissism 

iii. Insatiable appetite 

Most people of perception realise these are in fact all sides of the same triangle. Thor might have a surprisingly good sense of humour, really care about other people and be a one woman man. He’s also not real. 

Which brings me to my actual point which is that the most important thing I’ve got fit for is fathering. To say it has been belated achievement is an understatement. One of the many cruelties that early parenthood inflicts new on parents is that it annihilates physical fitness. If you have got time to keep fit with a new baby in the house that’s because somebody else is caring for the new baby in the house. For the rest, watch as the hours of sleep you lose at night transmute by some hideous alchemy into inches added to your waist. 

There are a number of things I regret about not having my first kid at 20. Chief is the fact that my eldest would now be 23 and, ostensibly at least, standing on his own two feet. But hot on its heels is the vigour I have squandered. Nothing serves to remind one that age is absolutely not just a number than having a kickabout with a gaggle of under 10s. Young boys benefit from young dads and in the absence of youth they need energy. 

There’s a lot of advice one can give parents of sons but the best advice is that they need a hell of a lot of running, like dogs. It’s not by chance that boys boarding schools lay on 2 hours of sport a day, an unexercised boy will exercise your patience and needle your nerves like nobody’s business. 

The problem with exercise, in case you hadn’t noticed, is that it’s boring, unpleasant and time consuming. At least that is until you find your thing. Just as there is a person for everyone I truly believe that there is an exercise for everyone. Being picked last for football at school is a sure-fire way of dissuading many from realising that curling, scuba diving, samba dancing or speed walking are in fact their thing. 

I’ve ridden a bicycle since university. Not for fitness but for transport. Consequently, when Spin broke free from Manhattan fitness studios to end up in London basements I thought what a mug’s game to pay through the nose to ride a bike that doesn’t go anywhere. 

Well, let me tell you I am the mug because spin is amazing. You know when you’ve found your thing when exercise doesn’t feel like work it feels like enjoyment. Turns out the dark, some disco, and flashing lights is all I needed to put the brakes on mid-life collapse. Having trudged my way around the Hackney Half Marathon last year I’ve realised that solitary exercise is not for me. There is something about collective non-competitive exercise that provides a jolt of fellow feeling to go with your fitness kick. 

If you’re having your first child don’t forget to get fit for fathering and remember it’s a marathon not a sprint.

Clock watching and Kids

Parenting is quite often thinking to yourself ‘Nobody told me to expect that’ and then realising in fact absolutely everybody told you to expect that. Somewhere close to the top of the list is being told you will have no time to yourself. The inability to apprehend what this will actually mean is demonstrated by people who say to themselves that they can’t wait for the baby to be born so they can finally get a break from work, finally sort out the house renovations or, most ludicrously, finally write their book. 

The basic and hard reality is that when a baby arrives a completely new clock will start in your life and that clock tells baby time. It is not a clock you can ignore or wish away. And the secret to successful parenting is getting your clock to synchronise with that clock as much as possible and for as long as possible. 

First time parents that are fortunate enough to enjoy new baby bliss often do so because they advertently or inadvertently surrender totally to the baby clock and they do so gladly. For the rest there is the shocking realisation that their clock, and in particular their body clock, is coming under attack and they are completely defenceless. ‘Just sleep when the baby sleeps.’ LOL! 

The good news, if you find babies difficult, is they don’t remain babies forever. The bad news is that just when you’ve worked out how to ride the bicycle you quickly discover you have to fly a fighter jet. Baby time becomes toddler time becomes school time. 

The total sublimation of the self in the early days and weeks is, in some respects, actually the easiest time for parenting because there is something completely unequivocal about the totality of attending to a newborn’s needs. You simply can’t pretend that you can juggle your needs, far, far less your wants, with theirs. 

The complication begins and then accelerates like a chain reaction when you try and in fact need to attend to your clock. Parenting is very expensive. Parental leave is very short. Paying the bills inevitably means not paying your child attention. And there are very, very few parents that don’t feel the pain of that compromise like a lance in the side. 

I’m soon to have two of school age. That brings the benefit of predictability to the clocks. For part of every weekday their clocks are completely known. If it wasn’t for my calamitously chosen profession where on Monday I might be in Maidstone and on Tuesday in Taunton, so too would mine. [As an aside when you have children I could not more strongly encourage you to have a 9-5 job, and by 9-5 I really mean 9.30-2.30]. 

Some parents hanker almost immediately after birth for a rigid demarcation between their clocks and the baby’s clock. Hence sleep training just months in and nursery before 1. Other parents really struggle with the separation of the clocks once merged, staying at home 24/7 with their child all the way up to their first day in Reception, hence weeping at the school gates and massively premature Empty Nest Syndrome. 

For everyone else there is gradual extrication and trying and sometimes failing to stop the clocks from clashing. Sick childminders, sick children, school strikes all punctuate early parenting with drop everything moments; easier said than done when you’re in the middle of a speech in Court 1 of the Old Bailey. It hardly needs saying that the more one avoids the clocks clashing the easier and more enjoyable parenting becomes. And the real enjoyment comes in finding common ground when the clocks synchronise. While my children were still toddlers I found the one activity that was absolutely guaranteed to bring mutual gladness was trampolining. Childcare is not a chore when you’re having fun. 

It is obviously amazing when your children genuinely share your passions and interests, rather than affect to through filial devotion, but what is really magical is coming to enjoy theirs in return. Children provide a constant opportunity to see the world with new eyes or with eyes you foolishly closed long ago. 

If you’re involved in partnered parenting the position is hugely more complicated. You’re not balancing two clocks you’re balancing a wall of them, like the clocks on the wall at NASA. You have your clock, you have your child’s clock, you have your partner’s clock. Those clocks will synchronise and clash in many permutations. There is your time, there is your partner’s time, there is your child’s time, there is your time with your child’s time, there is your partner’s time with your child’s time, there is your and your partner’s time with your child’s time and (if you want any chance of your relationship surviving) there is your time with your partner’s time. That is a lot of spinning plates, or dials if we’re sticking with the clock analogy. Single parents bear a very, very heavy burden but managing and negotiating that many concurrently running clocks is not one of them, although I imagine it is only a very small mercy. 

Something that requires my constant improvement and effort is not treating my child’s clock as mine. Time spent together is best spent doing things enjoyed together. When I was a child my sister and I spent most holidays and many weekends visiting almost every National Trust property and historic house in the land. I attach no blame to my father for that, there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t need to distinguish an Ionic capital from a Corinthian, but Disneyland exists for a reason. 

The only warning I can really urge upon you is never ignore your child’s clock; as Harry Chapin wrote and Ugly Kid Joe made Millennial: 

“When you comin’ home, Dad 

I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then 

You know we’ll have a good time then.” 

There is only now: never then.

Emotional Peaks & Troughs

I saw a question posed recently on Twitter asking whether you would prefer to live the rest of your life with double your emotional range or half of it. The highs yet more Olympian or the yawning chasms rendered gentle dips? 

If you’re able or willing to live your life on an emotional even keel it obviously wouldn’t make much difference if the range available to you was much bigger or smaller. But for those condemned to or desirous of living life at its edges it’s a genuinely interesting question.

How much control do we have over our emotions anyway? When you see two drivers, complete strangers to each other, squaring up over a minor roadway squabble or a friend mooning calf-like over a new partner it can seem that the answer is not much. Certainly some seem to have a greater facility for self-control. Resolutely not losing their heads when all around absolutely are. But if you were five years old with a grazed knee are they the ones you would go to for hugs and consolation? 

One thing I know for certain is that if you asked most parents whether they would like their small children to have a doubled or halved emotional range you would have to wait for their hysterical laughter to subside before getting a pretty unequivocal response. Imagine the Terrible Twos to the power of two!

It’s a pretty trite observation that small children are what might euphemistically be described as ‘naturalistic’ in exhibiting their emotional range. And, in my opinion, a 3 year old that has learnt to keep its emotions strictly in check is somebody I would want Social Services checking out pdq. 

While my children slowly (sometimes very slowly) evolve out of unconstrained emotional display I have realised that this is one of the aspects of parenting I find most interesting. What is the dividing line between rearing deplorable man babies unable to get a grip in the face of life’s most inconsequential obstacles and emotionally constipated furled umbrellas unable to tell their wives they love them even on their wedding days? 

As with most things parenting only time will tell. But it’s telling isn’t it that ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands’ doesn’t have a second verse ‘If you’re a gloomy and you know it cry your eyes’ or a third ‘If you’re livid and you know it ball your fists’. The one emotion we’re encouraged never to self-regulate is happiness. 

One thing I am confident of is that we have words for a reason and while you can’t always and should not strive to reason emotions away words are the way to understand better what lies behind emotions. The unhappy truth is that children are often condemned or criticised for their emotions because their emotions are either inconvenient or uncomfortable for the adults around them. 

Sometimes discerning what has prompted an emotion is plain as day. Hunger, tiredness and boredom will all make themselves unmistakably known. However fear, shame and embarrassment often have causes well out of sight and can trigger curious or even counter-intuitive emotional responses. 

Whether your child’s emotional range is as high as the Himalayas and low as the Mariana Trench or it’s more Scafell Pike and Ullswater it is one of the chief responsibilities and privileges of parenting to become familiar with every gradation and to learn how to help your child comfortably and confidently ascend or descend the scale as the occasion demands.