Tommy Martin: We should love our children unconditionally, but it would be easier if they were playing in the Prem
THE PRODIGY: Luke Littler of England celebrates during the 2023/24 Paddy Power World Darts Championship Final with Luke Humphries. Pic: Tom Dulat, Getty
While the exploits of Luke Littler were among the delights of the festive season just gone, there was one faction for whom the 16-year-old arrowsmith’s rise to fame was less than ideal.
I am talking about his fellow minors; those also legally unable to vote; that section of the population cherubic of face and innocent of outlook but not, at that moment, taking the world of darts by storm.
Basically, kids who were not Luke Littler.
It was a bad look for the underaged – slumped in their gaming chairs or knee deep in Lego, enjoying their Christmas holidays in the traditional, mollycoddled way – to see one of their kind hard at work at the oche, bringing in £200,000 for the Littler family biscuit tin.
Of the 4.8 million who tuned in to see Littler’s World Darts Championship final defeat to Luke Humphries – a record non-football audience for Sky Sports – how many were parents wondering why their little darling wasn’t soaring to festive sporting stardom rather than reaching for another fistful of Celebrations (which, needless to say, they hadn’t paid for)?
Nor was there respite for the idle young when Littler and his fellow dartists took a break over Christmas week.
On New Year’s Eve, Jools Holland’s Hootenanny featured a 16-year-old from Donegal called Muireann Bradley, who turned out to be a God-level finger pickin’ blues guitarist with a voice like Emmylou Harris mixed with Howlin’ Wolf.
Not only that, it transpired that as well as her talent with the six-string, Bradley had also been a top junior boxer, her hands as adept at delivering a knuckle sandwich as chopping out the Delta blues.
Somehow, in the down time between recording her debut album and bagging a standing ovation on the iconic BBC music show, young Muireann had managed to get good enough at the sweet science to reach two national boxing finals and receive an award for Donegal’s best female boxer in 2022.
I mean, it beats having a paper round.
How annoying these prodigious teens must have been to children lacking in such super-sprog powers. Surely they must have sensed their parents stewing on the couch, rueing all the time and money wasted on children who would only ever earn a standing ovation if they voluntarily emptied the dishwasher.
Parental jealousy is a shameful thing to admit to. We are not supposed to view our children as speculative investments, little fleshy lottery tickets with whom we might just strike it lucky.
We cart them around to football training and dancing classes and music lessons so that they may develop and grow and flourish as people, not because they might pay off our mortgage someday.
But there is a tiny, guilty part of any parent that holds their newborn baby in their arms and, while awash with joy and marvelling at the miracle of human life, thinks “Coochie-coo, are you going to buy mummy and daddy a mansion someday?” Just kidding, of course. A nice, detached four-bed would do fine.
Some might call this a desire to live vicariously through one’s children, but it is more accurate to say it is a desire to live vicariously through one’s children’s bank accounts.
It is this neurosis that fuels the behaviour of overzealous sideline dads and psychotic Irish dancing moms. It is, of course, a terrible thing. We should love our children unconditionally, no matter what they do with their lives. But let’s face it, it would be much easier if they were playing in the Prem.
And so it is that the likes of Luke Littler and Muireann Bradley inflict a cruel awakening on parents whose children have failed to achieve pubescent superstardom. Not only have my own dreams of a life of riches and glamour long been dashed, they think, but now I must accept that Junior will never be buying me a toilet seat made of solid gold either.
In truth, the crushing knowledge that the child playing Fortnite upstairs will never be world class at anything other than eating cereal for every meal should have been obvious before they left nappies.
It is a prerequisite of any child prodigy that their breakthrough success must be accompanied by grainy footage of them doing something amazing as a toddler.
As with a baby Tiger Woods putting against Bob Hope on American TV, or fun-sized Rory McIlroy chipping golf balls into a washing machine on the Gerry Kelly Show, so you had that clip of two-year-old Luke Littler chucking magnetic darts, distinctive throwing style already on display.
When your videos of your children in their early years consist mostly of them smearing Nutella on the kitchen walls, you know you are not retiring early.
For our underperforming progeny, the obsession with the next bright young thing must be a real pain. You see it sports, the arts, business and politics, full of irritating high achievers lacking the good manners to waste their youth, especially around now when newspapers and magazines publish those lists of 30 people under 30 to watch this year.
You know, those features that rave about spotty fashion designers who make dresses out of condoms or an embryo that has sold their startup yoga app for €200 million?
Similarly, as brilliant as he is at darts, the fascination with Luke Littler is purely with his youth. Those extra millions that tuned into Sky Sports wanted to see the man-child everyone had been talking about.
As good as she was at plucking ragtime melodies, if Muireann Bradley was a 74-year-old from Mississippi called Blind Jack McPhee she wouldn’t have landed on Jools with the same impact.
So, as tough as seeing these child prodigies is for parents coming to terms with their boringly normal, well-adjusted offspring, spare a thought for the Regular Joe kids themselves, unable to scroll through their phones in peace over the festive period without being glared at by old codgers wondering who the hell is going to pay for their nursing home.
