Julie Jay: I’m buying Magnums for my children on the daily, like a millionaire

Back in my day holding a magnum was a mugging waiting to happen. Now my kids presume it to be part of their daily routine.

Holding a Magnum screamed "more money than sense" Picture: iStock

In West Kerry, every day is a beach day — at least if the last couple of weeks are anything to go by. While the beach is always a good time — for the kids at least — the issue is in knowing when it’s time to leave the party. So far, my children haven’t gotten the memo that you never want to be the last man standing at a lock-in. When they start stacking stools around you, it’s time to take the hint and go home.

Because I have absolutely no authority in the eyes of my children, leaving the beach is tricky. As I watch my friends’ kids respond to their parents by — wait for it — actually listening to what is being asked of them and acting accordingly, I can’t help but marvel at how I am the only one who has to resort to straight-up bribery to make it home before midnight.

Imaginative parenting is not my forte, so the carrot is in fact not a carrot but an ice cream, specifically the promise that if the kids agree to bundle into the car, and exit stage left.

The problem is — while I am not complaining about the good weather — it has resulted in more beach days than we’ve ever experienced before. Because of this, the promise of any old ice cream just won’t cut the mustard, and so now we are buying Magnums on the daily like millionaires.

Yes, do not be fooled, the two-year-old you see holding a Magnum nearly as big as himself is not Elon Musk’s youngest but rather the more fiscally challenged múinteoir-comedian that over exposes herself in this very column weekly.

This week I got a serious land when my bank statements highlighted some anomalous activity, namely the buying of Magnums on a daily basis, which suggested somebody who had recently won the Prize Bonds or was going through some kind of manic episode.

Back in my day...

Back in my day, holding a Magnum screamed more money than sense. Now my kids presume it to be part of their daily routine.

To claw back some bit of financial integrity, I suggested a Mr Freeze, to which my five-year-old laughed in my face. A Mr Freeze? When the country is at nearly 100% employment? Get real. And so it is that we continue strutting around with ice-creams that are the dairy equivalent of an iPhone 16 — a marker of ostentatious wealth and disposable income to burn.

At this point, there is little difference between me and notorious fraudster Anna Delvey.

If you are not familiar with Delvey, she is a quite ordinary German woman who, between 2013 and 2017, fooled a plethora of trust fund babies and even financial institutions across New York into believing that she was a hugely wealthy German heiress.

While we all subscribe to the church of ‘fake it ’til you make it’, it’s safe to say Delvey took things a little bit too far. Following a custodial sentence, she appeared on Dancing With The Stars, donning a sparkly ankle monitor as she was on bail pending immigration changes.

I am now Anna Delvey, only instead of designer handbags, I am flaunting Magnums. It is a lifestyle I can ill afford at the moment, given that it is also the week my washing machine went to god, so I will have to reign in the freezer section shopping splurges before this habit gets me into the overdraft. Honestly, at this point, a bingo addiction would be cheaper.

The sound of temptation

Today was the first day I managed to get them off the beach minus an ice cream, and I couldn’t help but feel a little smug. Finally, we had a day minus an uachtar reoite.

Later, as the kids did crafting and I cooked dinner, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit weak for myself. Had I finally cracked parenting? I wondered.

Just as I was dishing up the burgers, I heard it. That familiar ululating noise that signalled summer and sent children’s hearts a-jumping: The ice-cream van had descended, which, as much as it is always a delight, ideally would have materialised 20 minutes later after the main course had been served, complained about, and subsequently rejected by my children.

Feeling the effects of the heat outside and the heat from the hob, I sent my husband off to form a human wall between himself and the ice-cream van, buying us time with the promise that the van would be around again shortly. This was of course a straight-up lie, and lies have consequences.

The consequence in this case was my husband taking the kids to the shop an hour later.

When they return, the Magnum sticks they carry tell their own story. It looks like this taste for Magnums will not be satiated anytime soon, which can only mean one thing: Mammy will be booking in a new comedy tour shortly, for no other purpose than to ensure that we can keep both the lights on and the freezer stocked with emergency five-star ice-creams at all times.

It’s kind of like investing in jewellery or fine art, but the odds of this investment lasting until the next generation are slim.

Especially if this Magnum weather continues.