Colm O'Regan: My wife and I agree on most things - except how clean the children’s clothes need to be
Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Picture Denis Minihane.
“What stain? You’d hardly see it.” I protest.
“It’s dirty, Colm. Put it in the wash. We can’t send them to school with a jumper with stains on it.”
My wife and I agree on most things but we diverge on how clean the children’s clothes need to be.
She thinks their clothes should be clean going out the door whereas I would be from the 'Dickensian Urchin' end of things. Obviously, I’ll wash them but there will be muttering about “children’s clothes being too clean nowadays”.
Yes I’m him now. The person who leans back after a dinner, crosses his legs, football-panellist style, hands relaxed behind head and starts spouting truths too hot to handle for the mainstream media. “Remember snotty noses in children? Where are all the snotty noses gone?” is an actual sentence I’ve said.
I think it’s because I’m at the stage of parenting where it’s that tricky balancing act. You love and provide for your children. But also while providing for them you somehow you need to keep reminding them how lucky they are. And they are now at an age that I can remember myself.
And for some reason, I’m fixated with clothes. I suppose of all the hallmarks of the different Irelands, clothes are the most memorable. There is absolutely no comparison between the years of fast and no fashion.
“This jumper is very 80s” says someone now. NO it’s not. Because it FITS you. Look at any old footage of Irish people in the era after Everyone Wearing Suits and before Everyone Wearing Tracksuits. It’s not the style. It’s the fit. Look at us celebrating Italia 90. We look like we’ve been rescued from an extreme form of Marxist dictatorship.
Back to the washing... In my defence, when the washing machine is a twin tub and not-central heating is from a range and there are no radiators and you live on a farm, clothes washing is on a Needs, Not Wants basis. I had school trousers that simply had to wait for a long enough school break before being washed. Mud dried and was rubbed out.
But still, I’m muttering away in the corner.
“I don’t know what to wear” they sometimes say.
“Well”, I say grimly to myself, reaching for my pipe, “THAT is not a question I asked when I was five”. Nothing like lack of choice to bring clarity.
“You’ve loads of clothes”
“But they don’t match” they’ll say.
“MATCHING?! In my day ‘matching clothes’ meant wearing two things that were both items of clothing. Never mind the colour.
You can get caught up too much in the memories though. And not realise you’re making new ones. Not for you, but for the children. They’re getting dangerously close to the age when they will start looking at each other and rolling their eyes when I come out with one of my pronouncements. They will form an unshakeable bond through laughing at something I said. Years from now they will just look at each other and say one of my mid40s catchphrases and absolutely BREAK THEIR HOLES LAUGHING.
One of them will be getting married and they’ll look at their phone for the vows and they’ll see a WhatsApp from the other that says “MATCHING?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN MATCHING?” and they’ll dissolve. The wedding will have to be restarted.
They’ll be in the middle of the prayers for the faithful at my funeral and they’ll look at each other and mouth “Where are all the snotty noses gone?” and their shoulders will quiver and shake and people will think they’re taking it awful hard. But they’re just remembering how I used to remember.
If that is what I have provided them, then I’ll have done my job.
