Not Angry Just Disappointed

'I'm not angry, just disappointed' - Every child knows that there is no more chastening parental admonition. It's one thing to provoke your parent, quite another to let them down. But what about when your parents disappoint you? In the teenage years each day brings new disappointment and in babyhood it could be said that every cry is simply a primal articulation of being let down.

Some parents will never admit that they have ever done or said anything to let their children down. Some of them even become president. For the rest of us there is the uncomfortable knowledge that we certainly have. Sometimes it's discussed and acknowledged, sometimes pride or other shortcomings prevent a clearing of the air and burying of the hatchet.

Something I am really not proud of is having my child play peacemaker. It's invariably a car based scenario, a late departure (almost certainly my fault), some over enthusiastic driving eliciting a few well deserved sharp words from my wife. Everybody has their own way of arguing. I have two and they are both, I realise, infuriating. Coldly forensic or hotly defensive. The latter is especially inflammatory and most likely to end up with the 3 year old making a wholly justified request that apologies be exchanged.

You really haven't known shame until your behaviour has transformed your pre-schooler into the United Nations and you are never more acutely aware that they see and hear everything than when your heated protestations of self-justification have them interjecting like a Friday night shift copper at chucking out time. 

Of course if you're a really terrible parent your child will quickly learn not to do this because it will be to no avail. Then you have failed, your child will have learned, too soon no doubt, that its parents are incapable of parenting. A hell of a lot of advice is spoken and written about parenting but for me it boils down to one simple message: children can be childish only as long as the adults are adult(ish).

Boy I

'Mummy, you're my best friend.'

'Mummy, you're my very best friend.'

'Mummy, you're my very best friend in the whole wide world.'

'Daddy, you're not my best friend.'

'Daddy, can we go to the playground?'

'No, because of the virus.'

'Daddy, can we go to the seaside?'

'No, because of the virus.'

'Daddy, can we go trampolining?

'No, because of the virus.'

'Naughty wirus.'

'I'm not Freddy, I'm Freddy policeman.'

'I'm not Freddy, I'm Freddy fireman.'

'I'm not Freddy, I'm Freddy doctor.'

As long as you're not Freddy barrister.

How to be best - Behaviour

Regulating my own behaviour is an exhausting chore but the idea of having to regulate the behaviour of others brings me out in hives which is why I regard even the friendliest and most professional police officers with a degree of circumspection. I just don't see the attraction. Obviously I am hugely grateful that they exist because the maxim 'live and let live' is not one of universal interpretation or subscription but it's not for me.

Which is why I'm such a massive cop out as a parent (sorry, I know). I realise that an unlimited diet of ice lollies for my child is something I will end up paying more for than he will, most likely in dentist's bills, but shutting down that wheedling with a reasoned explanation of why he would be much better off with his kale and quinoa wrap is just far beyond me. Just say yes is my motto.

This makes me no sort of an ally to my German wife, Frau Nein, as I don't call her. She lays down the law like a road crew on the August Bank Holiday. We have the full range of sanctions from 1-2-3 to sit on the step to go to your room with a sideline of withdrawn screen time and what are fancifully called treats, fancifully because they constitute about 75% of his diet. And what kind of masochist threatens to take away their child's screen during a lockdown, the biggest self own since the Duke of York remembered taking the family out to Pizza Express.

I believe that, according to conventional gender dynamics, fathers are supposed to be in charge of discipline which is a laughable suggestion in my case, quite literally because I am usually reduced to hysterics by my child's naughtiness. My main problem is consistency of tone. My wife is capable of sounding really quite fierce when things are getting out of hand whereas I just plaintively ask 100 times for my son to get into bed with no result.

On one occasion I decided to take a leaf out of her book and shouted at the top of my voice. Instant hysterics and I had to write a letter of apology. I'm not even aiming for a good cop bad cop dynamic just totally average recruit who is going to scrape his way through Hendon. I know however that I need to shape up because, leave to one side the love/fear spectrum, I haven't yet moved beyond receiving my son's scornful defiance.

Food Inglorious Mood

All the anguish and ecstasy of parenting is characterised by one thing and that is cliche. Whatever thought, whatever feeling, whatever experience a plethora of parents have had it before, whether it's the bedtime battleground or the screen-time siege, you aren't the first and you sure as hell won't be the last. And so, inevitably, to food.

I know there is a right way and I know there is a sane way. I am not convinced they are the same.

Right way:

- Set meal times

- Baby led weaning

- Organic

- Home made

- Rationed snacks

- Very occasional sweets as reward for good actions ALREADY completed not bribes in the futile hope of good behaviour

Sane way:

- Literally whatever gets you through the day

Ok, I know that the Birdseye potato waffles for every meal until adulthood is active damage to a child, but I also just can't bear what I call 'Cornetto Feeding' otherwise known as 'Just one' more mouthful.

Contrary to what some may believe you will always eventually win a battle of wills with a child. You are twice, thrice or more their size. Where are they going to go? But you will always lose the war. Your child is your child forever. Force the broccoli down their throat at 5 and you and they both will be paying for it with their therapist 20 years later.

If your mantra is 'Never Nutella' be assured that theirs is 'Nirvana Nutella' and they'll be spooning the stuff as soon as they have their own bank account. Baby led weaning is wonderful in principle. Agency, autonomy, fine motor skills. What's not to like? Simple - it's turning your pumpkin and his pumpkin into a pint-sized Pollock except the canvas is his face, his clothes, the high chair, your face, indeed every possible surface and orifice except his mouth.

You know those amazing pouches you can get from the shop have nozzles [teats] for a reason. You screw the good stuff to their mouth like a bike pump to the valve and fill them up. No mess, no distress. And no two times cooking.

And yet I know that without regulation there is chaos or worse, intolerance. There are two foods I really hate liquorice and basically anything aspic, savoury jelly is boak with bounce. But you serve that to me for supper and I'll wolf it down and ask for seconds. Because manners and because fussy eater means fussy everything.

Active allergy must be terrifying and for some, tragically, fatal. But the yawning chasm that exists between that and 'intolerance' is an abyss of courtesy and decorum. It is not one I want my children tumbling into. Answering 'Any dietary requirements?' with 'Lashings of champagne' is probably equally unwelcome but it's a firm way of declaring to a host that you're not a bloody nuisance.

Anyway I must get back to arranging my baby's smorgasbord.

Pandemic Paternity Leave

My professional diary has, between different dates this year, had 'Speak to Max' noted on it. This was an instruction to my clerks to speak to me before booking in trials as I was intending to resume paternity leave to enable my wife to return to work before the baby had his first birthday.

Needless to say these dates were pencilled in just waiting to be rubbed out by a case coming along that I just couldn't refuse. Initially the plan had been for a three month period, when last we had spoken about this it had become a month as an adjunct to the summer holidays.

I know that it was never the dying regret of any barrister that they had not taken on more cases. Conversely if you miss those early days, months and years you miss them forever. And yet how much of a chasm lies there between awareness and action.

Almost all barristers fear that if they step off the treadmill they will somehow never get back on it or find that their place on it has been usurped by someone keener, more focused on the job, less distracted by family. No barrister ever imagined that the treadmill would suddenly one day stop turning.

Exactly a week ago I was on Day 34 of a jury trial with a judge determined to shepherd the case to a result while the gathering storm clouds swirled around us. To the eternal credit of that jury they shared his determination but, inevitably, events overtook us all and the plug was pulled and, immediately, I was unemployed.

Except as a father to a 3 year old and a baby I was anything but. Absurdly, despite my empty diary, I could have claimed key worker status to keep the 3 year old in nursery but with no income that would have been a crazy expense far from the spirit of the exception.

So I am now a house husband and a stay at home dad rapidly discovering what I had long suspected, namely that no fraud, however complex or torturous, can compare with the difficulty of pacifying two screaming children at the same time.

I have been spoken to fairly shortly and sharply by judges in my time but even the most irascible judge is not as unreasonable as an actual howling toddler. The Coronavirus is doing an almost unimaginable amount of harm in the world and leaving tragedy in its wake but for me, and I'm sure many fathers like me, it is forcing an adjustment to our roles in the workplace and in our families.

For the time being I really am a father first and for all that I have lost professionally I know that these terrible circumstances have given me a gift not to be squandered. And, if I really miss the day job, I'm sure nobody will mind if I wear my wig pushing the pram around the park.

Stuck fast - Going nowhere fast

Dawdling is the schoolboys' luxury. Think about when you last genuinely had a saunter, feeling under no pressure to be anywhere at any particular time. Small children feel this way on almost any walk unless they're vouchsafed ice cream or chocolate cake at its end. If you're weekending in the sticks or on holiday moving at a child's pace can be wonderfully restorative and an important reminder to notice the world with a child's noticing. If you're trying to get literally anywhere in London it is absolutely infuriating.

All parents will be familiar with the sit-down protest. As all good parents know this is the moment to get on a level with your child, without rancour or ill will, and just be with them until the inclination to rise up and continue moves on them. Yeah, just try doing that in the middle of Park Lane...

I have no compunction about enacting an executive override of my 3 year old's mobile autonomy and carrying him bodily but at 20 kgs that makes him a very irregularly shaped dumb bell and a very noisy one to boot.

There is another way. It requires excellent peripheral vision, some basic spying skills and a tolerance for a very small amount of jeopardy. The sit down protest is a battle of wills. Pleading: pointless. Reasoning: ridiculous. Bribing: basic. Instead the path to success lies, as always, in not caring. Now, because it's your kid, you can't literally not care (that is bad) so you have to affect indifference.

Just walk away - Speed, distance and purpose are important here. If you go too slowly your child won't notice, if you go too far they might run into traffic (this is bad) or, implausibly, but it's every parent's bogeyman fear, get snatched. If you hesitate they know you're faking and your heart's not in it.

On the other hand if you do this properly, and use your peripheral vision, you can stride purposefully and watch your child watching you. Eventually they will realise you're in earnest and come running. Some particularly stubborn children may have not got to their feet before you reach your self-imposed safe distance limit (hint: a kilometre is too far). If this happens you deploy your KGB training. Do NOT turn around. You may as well wave a white flag. Rather use the wing mirror of a parked car to watch your child. Your child won't have had any driving lessons so won't know anything about wing mirrors. Eventually your child will come to you. 

The important thing is to make movement their decision. The illusion of choice is child's play.

Consolation Prize

Incompetence is the stock in trade of parenting blogs and this is never truer when written by dads. But this is as tiresome a cliche as 'Mum's gone to Iceland'. The fact is that a lot of parenting is not that hard and even dads can do it. They might not do it to mums' satisfaction but that does not mean they can't do it.

Changing nappies - easy. Shovelling food in their mouth - walk in the park. Putting their clothes on - child's play. Getting them in the child seat - ok, that one's a nightmare but it's an equal opportunities nightmare.

Turning off the tears, however...

That is my blind spot, my Achilles' heel, my Waterloo. I remain convinced that there is some kind of whispered incantation that baby girls learn at their mothers' elbow that enables them to hush a baby with a moment's talk. Indeed I wish it were so because if that is not the case then my abject failure to quell my baby's sobs really is on me alone.

Lest you think I exaggerate I can see {call the police?} thought processing in the eyes of strangers in the street as I walk by with my wildly protesting offspring. My blessed wife with increasing levels of exasperation tries to tutor me. 'Just sing him a song' - basic advice for a basic dad but as useful to me as asking me to recite Horace from memory while running across No Man's Land towards a very active machine gun nest.

The main issue I have with soothing a howling baby is that I need someone to soothe me before I can minister to the demented banshee. Rather like that instruction on planes to put the oxygen mask on your own face before your child's where is the person who will apply the handbrake to my berserking brain?

Ordinarily a discomforting noise is supposed to set one's teeth on edge in my case it makes me madly itchy which renders bouncing the bawler all the more perilous as I frantically claw at my inner elbow. I used to think I was a pretty imperturbable chap. I used to think a lot of foolish things.

Anyway, no great insights here, just a desperate plea for the magic words. Pretty please.