Learner Dad: 'I don’t want to diss Netflix in case they cancel my subscription and I have to parent my kids'

Road Runner in Looney Tunes. Copyright Warner Bros

THIS week was all about distancing. My kids sat under a tree with some other kids, I think they might have been two metres apart. Fota Wildlife Park reopened but it’s 11km away according to Google Maps. And I started to feel a bit closer to my cavemen ancestors.

Tree time: The sun shone hard yesterday and we went to the local park. The kids met kids they knew from school and I nearly bought a Nintendo Switch from a woman on a bench.

After cycling around with each other for a few rounds of the park, all the kids headed in under the shade of a huge tree. That’s the thing about kids – they haven’t experienced enough Irish summers to get that it often amounts to one day of sunshine in mid-May.

So while they sat around in a circle, two-ish metres apart, the moms and I sat out in the sun and soaked up some vitamin D and skin damage. It was then that one of the moms mentioned she was returning a Nintendo Switch to the shop because it didn’t have the game her daughter wanted.

As I mentioned last week, the Switch is harder to get your hands on than toilet paper in late March. I said I’d pay her there and then and pictured my triumphal procession back into our house, hero dad, bringing the Switch home for the family.

It turns out it wasn’t the type my kids need either. The hunt for the Switch goes on.

Sorry guard: Fota Wildlife Park reopened last week. We have one of their annual passes and used to go there about once a fortnight before the you know what. It would be one giant step towards normality if we could bring the kids to see their furry friends.

The problem is that one giant step is actually 11km away, which means we’re not allowed to go there until Phase 2 of the reopening process on June 8. I’d take a chance, but I’m terrified of getting stopped by the guards.

While other people can bluff and plamás, I’d probably blubber like a baby with the guilt, and no parent wants their kids to see that. So for now, we’re staying put. Or maybe I’ll get my wife to drive. She’s a bit cheeky that one.

Cave parenting: Whenever I encounter a ‘what was I thinking, having kids?’ moment, I wonder what it must have been like for cavemen and women. Your six-year-old not eating his porridge is nothing compared to your six-year-old been eaten by a bear.

That was always my consolation – at least I’m not a caveman. And then lockdown came along – 10 weeks and counting out of school, at home all day with your kids, a sense of danger all around. We’re all living in a cave these days. At least our cave has Netflix.

Road Runner: I don’t want to diss Netflix in case they cancel my subscription and I have to parent my kids. But a lot of the cartoons on there are way too educational. My kids have been alternating between Octonauts, The Deep and Wild Kratts over the past few weeks.

They know more about fish than Captain Bird’s Eye. I know this because my son starts every day with a fish fact, strolling into our bedroom with the news that a female octopus can eat her own tentacles. The good news is he’s ready to sit his finals as a marine biologist. The bad news is he’s only six.

Every now and again I sit down and put on a few episodes of Road Runner for them. They drift away eventually – apparently kids these days have better things to be doing than watching a coyote being blown off a cliff by its own bomb. I don’t.

I stay on for a few episodes and drift back through the years when I first watched it in black and white. I even go meep-meep at the coyote sometimes, but not too loudly in case the kids think I’m crazy.