Learner Dad: 'The five-year-old can’t wait for our cat to die'

The five-year-old can’t wait for our cat Skippy to die. He told me the other day, the minute Skippy croaks, he’s going to walk to the pet shop “one foot in front of the other” and buy himself a hamster. Then he made me walk to a pet shop on Cork’s North Main Street so we could look at the hamster he was going to buy. (They’re basically mice which can do cute stuff with their noses.)

The thing is, our five-year-old and Skippy are mad about each other. It must be something to do with them being so close to the ground, but my two kids and Skippy spend a lot of time kneeling around in a circle, adoring each other. They will be devastated when their cat dies, which is sometime in the next three years, according to the internet.

I reckon all this hamster talk means my five-year-old doesn’t get what death actually means. His seven-year-old and more clued-in sister, a trainee hippy, thinks that death is all just part of the journey. Good for her, but I think she might be in for a shock.

We should have guessed where they are on the grief front based on their reactions to The Lion King — they didn’t budge when (spoiler alert) daddy lion died, while the wife and I were in bits.

But then you know yourself, you need to experience the gap where some person or pet used to be to fully understand the punch in the gut that comes when somebody dies. (Their much-loved grandfather died when they were too young to take it all in.)

It’s not like we’ve avoided talking to them about death. It’s a weird Irish thing that we’re far more comfortable talking to our kids about death than we are about sex — or special hugs, as I’ll be calling it when the time comes. They’ve already asked a few questions about what happens when you die, which I’ve answered with a lie,because I think they’re too young to hear that it’s lights out as far I'm concerned.

I wonder should we try and talk to them more about death before Skippy leaves the building? I can remember being very worried about my father dying when I was young, but I didn’t discuss it with anyone. I had this recurring dream, where we all gathered around him to say our final goodbyes after he was given a lethal injection. I think this is because he was nearly 50 when we were born and we thought that was very old.

Well, putting off having kids must be genetic, because I was nearly 50 when I had mine. There have already been one or two questions about when I’m going die. (My son has yet to announce he is going to mark the occasion by buying himself a rodent.)

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I hate to think of my kids worrying themselves about anyone dying,myself included. But what else am I supposed to do? I took a look on the internet, where there’s no shortage of guidance on this, from people less qualified than Dr Nick on TheSimpsons. One of them suggests buying a cheap mattress for your kids so they can pummel it. Seriously. It wasn’t even on MattressesRUs.com

Now that I think about it, my daughter has been putting the answer in front of me for the last couple of years. Any time we talk about the death of a flower, a cow, a cat or a person, she rounds it off with “Circle of life, Dad”, in a voice suggesting I should I have figured it out by now. Thanks to watching The Lion King 14 times, she’s figured it out herself. Circle of life is perfect here, it works for every take on death.

Fair play to her for working out that words are fluid, they can mean different things to different people. She’s going to make a great hippy. Or politician.

We’re far more comfortable talking to our kids about death than we are about sex