Learner Dad: My daughter is a fiend for making friends

I love the way kids make fast friends.

We had a family birthday bash for my magnificent mother in our back garden last weekend – it might have been skirting around the edges of the outdoor gatherings rule, but nothing for Tony Holohan to worry about. Particularly since most have of my cousins have had at least one jab of the vaccine. We’re getting old.

Luckily there were a few kids there to remind us of what it was like to be young. My cousin brought his two, a boy the same age as my son and a girl a bit older than my daughter. I know we’re all gender fluid these days, but the two boys took one look at each other and decided they were going to be best friends for at least a day. I love watching one of my kids making an instant connection with someone else – it’s a sign that they’re going to be alright.

It was a slower burn for the girls because my cousin’s daughter was at that early teenage time where the last thing you want to do is hang around with a gang of adults who haven’t seen each other for ages. I remember what it was like myself at that age. My own daughter is a fiend for making friends though, so she just went over and told her she likes crystals. It turns out the other girl likes crystals as well. The next time I looked they were sharing headphones and listening to The Smiths.

My cousin’s daughter has a thing for 1980s indie guitar rock – so we got out a Bluetooth speaker and put her in charge of the music. The next few hours featured The Pixies, Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division and a gang of middle-aged cousins acting one third of their age.

The kids’ fast friends stayed friends through the day, and there is talk of meeting them again. 

I wish I was a child sometimes . Just because you get older doesn’t mean you stop feeling an instant connection with some randomer you meet in the course of your day. 

The problem is that we seem to frown on adults making fast friends like kids, we are expected to play it cool. 

Anyway, the night went on, three generations enjoying themselves in the back garden and it’s fair to say there was drink involved. I don’t have strong views either way about drinking in front of my kids. My parents hardly ever drank alcohol, and I certainly never saw them drunk. If anything that made me curious about booze and more inclined to sample it.

I don’t want to be drunk in front of my kids either though – that’s the kind of thing a child would remember, and not in a good way. But I don’t mind being ‘well refreshed’, as they say in polite society. My kids don’t seem to kind me being a bit drunk either – they know by now that I’ll say yes to virtually everything and, all going well, I’ll be a bit hungover the next day and allow them a free run on the Nintendo Switch. (They got their wish.)

Covid seems to have loosened a lot of attitudes around drinking in front of the kids. I was talking to a dad I know at the school gate this morning, telling him that I felt a bit ropey after our birthday bash. He said that he never drank in front of his three until lockdown swung around again and it was like there was no alternative.

Anyway, I’ve no regrets. It was a brilliant party, my mother had a complete blast and everyone got home safely. The next day was the first scorcher of the year and we even made it to a beach for an hour, where the kids jumped in the waves and talked about their new friends from the night before. It’s true – your kids will keep you young.