Learner Dad: Put on the telly when it all gets too much. Life is too short for non-stop listening

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I’m too old to change. I know the wellness crowd want us on a constant journey of improvement, but at this stage, I’d be happy if I don’t go into reverse. So here are my realistic parenting goals for 2022.

1. Listening

I’m not so sure about people who fawn over every word that comes out of their child’s mouth. The ‘out of the mouths of babes’ phrase was clearly coined by someone who never spent four hours listening to a child talking about Minecraft. I love my son, he’s funny, nice and sensitive, don’t ask me where he got it from. But the other day, I was trying to cook a roast chicken dinner while he relayed some dream he had that involved two friends and himself on a boat trip around the world. It was good stuff, for the first 45 minutes or so, but after that, it felt like he might be making it up just because he had my undivided attention. 

The problem with undivided attention when you’re making a roast is that people will end up with burned roasties. So I told him he could watch Netflix for 15 minutes while I got the dinner sorted. I’d like to think this wasn’t his goal all along. But you can never be sure of these things. Anyway, here’s my take-away for 2022 – put on the telly when it all gets too much, life is too short for non-stop listening.

2. Tidying Up

My friend re-organised his kitchen, moving plates and cups to floor-standing presses, so his kids would be able to unload the dishwasher. Or maybe he just said he did to make me feel bad about myself. If he did, it worked. 

We’re not great at getting the kids to do chores in our house. Every now and again, we swear blind that ‘things are going to change around here’, but they never do. We’re just not up for the pain of watching our kids trying to empty the dishwasher. Not to mention the cost of replacing half our kitchenware. 

I know they’ll probably grow up as entitled brats, but at least this way, they don’t have to learn a new string of curses from their Dad, because that was my favourite coffee cup you just broke . So for 2022, we’ll keep at them to tidy their rooms. And look after the kitchen ourselves.

3.  Swimming

We moved house earlier in the year and now live five minutes drive from a decent beach. There was a lot of talk about sea-swimming our way through the winter, maybe stopping in December and January because the water is super cold then. We made it to late September. The water doesn’t just feel lethally cold at this time of year, it looks ferociously cold as well. 

There is a metallic silver look to the sea near us – I can almost hear it saying, 'Don’t be ridiculous, city boy, whatever about you, your kids won’t last three seconds, and you know how hard it is to get a shivering child out of a wetsuit'. That said, nothing beats the good vibes that you get after even five minutes in the sea. So there will be sea swimming in 2022. Starting in April, or maybe May.

4. Food

My main goal for 2022 is to get my daughter eating bananas. She’ll eat almost anything but stops short of our yellow friend. That’s a nightmare because banana is the great cheat lunch when you need something quick and easy for the kids. Our son is the fussier eater in our place, but the only thing he likes more than banana and bagel is two bananas and bagel. So we don’t even ask him what he wants for lunch anymore, at the weekends. If we can get our daughter to say yes to the same, life becomes that bit simpler. And we could all do with a simpler life.

5. Computer games

I’m going to let my kids play loads more video games in 2022. I know I probably shouldn’t, but they really do disappear for hours when this happens. It makes for such a happy house.