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.