Julie Jay: Sharing is caring — unless you’re giving away your five-year-old’s jellies

As much as we would all love to live in a socilaist utopia, the reality it is it is every man for himself out here, especially when it relates to jellies

Bolstered by the erroneous feeling that I had come prepared for a lovely afternoon at the pictures, I proceeded to go full Karl Marx on it and offer the jellies to other children — children my little guy didn’t know, and it went about as well as armchair parenting experts and die-hard capitalists might have predicted.

I recently lost my rag with my eldest child. I’m not proud of it. 

Since it happened a couple of weeks ago, my momentary satisfaction has quickly been tempered by a little voice in the back of my brain, saying, ‘Yes, you may have made Rice Krispie buns with them, but remember when you lost your rag two Saturdays ago? Even a melted chocolate treat can’t clean that stain from your maternal record.’

Still, two weeks later, the anxiety about getting annoyed with the children sits in the pit of my stomach with the same weight as if I had chucked Santa Claus into the River Lee. I feel like Lady Macbeth, riddled with guilt to such an extent that it has me in a perpetual state of fret, unable to deal with visitors and a husband who works away.

The incident itself occurred, if police reports are to be believed, at approximately 4pm outside the Blasket Centre in DunQuin, West Kerry. We had gone there to watch a matinee as part of the Dingle Film Festival, and there were many decisions I made along the way that were questionable at best.

The main problem was the jellies. Specifically, the quantities. Instead of small, individual packets of jellies, the kind that preserve relationships and keep domestic peace intact, I brought one big bag of jellies for Number One to share with his best friend, who was also in attendance. 

Bolstered by the erroneous feeling that I had come prepared for a lovely afternoon at the pictures, I proceeded to go full Karl Marx on it and offer the jellies to other children — children my little guy didn’t know, and it went about as well as armchair parenting experts and die-hard capitalists might have predicted.

All hell broke loose because the concept that cola bottles could ever be collective was too much for his junior-infant brain to handle. After what had, in fact, been a day overly jam-packed with extracurricular activities, he was tired, I was tired, we were all tired, as I went full socialist and proffered Haribo to the child sitting in front of us, pushing my five-year-old too far.

In theory, socialism is an easy sell, centred around the premise that sharing is caring and what’s yours is mine. The reason it has failed to take off on a global scale is that human beings don’t work like that. 

When it comes to sharing, even with our nearest and dearest, it’s a case of, ‘I love you, I might even die for you, but I draw the line at splitting my Mars bar in half for you’. 

Yes, access to affordable healthcare should be universal, but access to my biscuit tin should not be. Even as an adult, I find it hard to share. Hence, I will always decline an invitation to tapas.

But spurred on by the recent victory of Zohran Mamdani in New York’s mayoral election, whose aspirations of better transport and childcare drew allegations of socialism, I made the mistake of thinking this socialist buzz could extend to a Saturday matinee with a five-year-old, and I paid the price.

As Number One continued to give out about the jelly situation for the duration of the film, I felt utterly impotent, like an Irish president when they want to intervene in global politics, but the limits of the Constitution mean they can just cut a few ribbons and pat their Bernese mountain dog on the head. Part of me wanted to drag my son out of there kicking and screaming, but felt that would only escalate the situation, so, instead, I begged and pleaded for him to stop giving out about my overly zealous sharing of what was, in fact, a limited product.

By the end of the film, I was mortified, not at my five-year-old, but at myself for having brought the stupid jellies in the first place. As I got onto my hands and knees to pick up the spilt popcorn, I cursed myself for not having brought individual packets of sweets, a rookie error at this point.

Walking out to the car park, I was a husk of a human being, and after chasing my son around, I barely had him strapped into his car seat before I started giving him a piece of my mind.

Immediately, I felt bad. Who wants to share their sweets? Not me, that’s for sure, and certainly not a child who hasn’t yet mastered the complexities of multiplying, but knows that you can’t magically make two cola bottles into five.

Needless to say, when we got home, I apologised for shouting, and tried to make up for my tirade with hot chocolate and a promise to never go anywhere minus an emergency stash of sweets, not for the children, but for Mammy, who will most certainly need the sugar rush when she attempts to force a socialist approach in future.

I think back to Maggie Thatcher’s take that there is no such thing as a society, merely individuals, and internally scoff, but simultaneously remember the Chocolate Orange I have hidden behind the toaster and haven’t told either my children or my husband about. I can’t say I agree with Maggie Thatcher on much, but when it comes to me and chocolate, it truly is every woman for herself.

Safe to say, my five-year-old’s individualistic approach to sharing wasn’t licked off the ground — which, by the way, is something you should never lick. I have the cold sores from trying to hoover up popcorn from the floor to prove it.