Other People’s Kids (15.1.2008)
I have no children of my own. I do however have nieces and nephews and a few close friends’ kids that I love. Though outside of that, I find I don’t particularly care for kids – especially ugly ones. That includes your ugly babies, or “Yicky-Bubba’s”, as they are sometimes referred to. That may sound harsh but I don’t think I’m alone. Surely I’m not the only one who is sick to death of people trying to force their beloved kiddies down my throat!
When I was a kid – (and possibly even I wasn’t as lovable back then, as I am now), I had sporting heroes, like Wayne Pearce, David Boon and Blocker Roach. Like many kids, I had posters of such stars adorning my school folders and bedroom walls and such. Back then, this was considered cool enough and acceptable behaviour, to have Pearcey in a staged pose with full Balmain footy gear, smiling at me from the front cover of my Tech Drawing folder. I got my ‘Junior’ poster from the centre of the Big League – but there are only so many issues and if your favourite player doesn’t make the cut, then you may have to go with the team poster. The best one’s were the celebration photos, when your team had just won a competition or important game, when everyone is clearly elated and proud of their team effort! With dirty, scarred and bandaged, muscled arms raised in triumph, the team posed as one – beaming sometimes toothless grins and obviously feeling the pride of victory that only dedicated camaraderie can bring!
These days however, such victory photos resemble a meet-the-teacher night down at the local public school. Sports stars insist on dragging out a swag of kids under every available limb! I’ll give you a tip – no one is bloody interested in 3 year old Liam, 5 year old Socrates and 7 year old Aleisha (from a previous marriage)! We understand that you love your kids – we don’t. We don’t want to see them. We paid good money to get to this match to see elite athletes – and while representing the local school-zone in shot-put is commendable, waiting till they make the Olympic team will be sufficient notice for me. Unless you’re playing first grade, today, go back to your bloody lego blocks and Bratz dolls and leave the sporting arena to the athletes.
I don’t need to see Matthew Hayden’s kid struggling to drag a cricket bat, nor Glenn McGrath’s kid inspecting the SCG pitch. They’re kids, let them play – they’ve done nothing to warrant TV coverage. I don’t want a NSW Blues, State Of Origin screen-saver with three victorious, sweaty combatants, alongside Isabelle, Tyrone, Little-Maddie, Trevor, Rock, Katie, Mani and Ebony!
The sports stars should stick to playing sport, not promoting their offspring. By all means, love your kids – that is far more important than anything they could ever possibly achieve on any sporting field. Looking after and loving your children is what life is all about, and there is no greater calling – especially since the rest of us really don’t give a shit about ’em.
Even worse than sports stars trying to ‘share the moment’ with their kids, are the business owners who insist on sticking their ugly offspring in advertising campaigns! Tip – you think they’re cute, ’cause they look like your wife – we all think they’re ugly and annoying! We don’t wanna see their freckled little faces, with eyes just a bit too close together, nor hear their whiny little voices trying to flog us shit that is obviously not a bargain in anyone’s language! Next time, listen to the professional advertising execs – they know they’re ugly – they don’t like ’em either, so pay someone to do a proper job and spare your repulsive little spawn the public humiliation.
If I purchase a CD, I do so to hear the artist listed on the cover – not cute little mutterings and back-up vocals from when their kids were playing in the home studio. Please feel free to keep these crappy out-takes for the amusement of aunties at the family slide-nights. I don’t wanna hear a rock legend doing some sappy duet with his plain-faced, wailing daughter, just so he can give her a leg-up in the music business. If you insist on doing a duet, please include someone of equal standing and musical reputation, not the tone-deaf produce from a sweaty night with a slutty groupie, some 16 years prior, at a non-descript South Coast venue, long since demolished.
Like I said, I appreciate that all these people love their kids and I understand their motivation, but I love bourbon too and yet I don’t try to hold them down and pour gallons of Jimmy down their throats. So I’m simply asking for the same respect in return.
I too like to share amusing little tales about kids, with my friends, for example – it seems everyone who meets my eldest niece Taliah, comments on what a beautiful and caring nature she has. I feel proud as punch, though it has very little to do with my influence. Then there’s my brother’s daughter Jenna, who absolutely thrives on hearing old stories of her Dad and I getting into trouble when we were kids. Her eyes light up and she giggles like mad at the thought of us getting whacked at school or punished by her grandparents – I suspect she’d pay good money to actually witness this! She’s a great girl too and loves nothing better than getting up at some ungodly hour to go fishing with her Dad. Her school recently awarded Jenna a ‘Good Citizenship’ award, for her continuous good treatment of her fellow students. Put simply, she is a nice person to know.
Then there’s Bailey, just turned eleven and he’s a real boy! Rough as guts with his mates, playing footy and soccer and tackling and wrestling around. He has an absolute will of his own and will always be a leader – but every now and then, he’ll stop and hug you and say “I love you Uncle Stevie”. It’s priceless and he doesn’t give a crap who’s around – his confidence within himself permits him to do such things without embarrassment – and I think all kids should feel like this. I took Bailey fishing a couple of days ago – we drove about half an hour, from Patonga to Woy Woy. We were there about 25 minutes when he says he was busting to go to the toilet. I said ‘A wizz?’
He shrugs “Nah”
So we packed up and drove back to Patonga – it turns out he’d tried to go before we left but the cleaner was in there! So, rather than wait for 10 minutes for the cleaner to finish, he thought he just try to hang in there till we got back from fishin’.
He’s a funny little bloke, gentle as a lamb with his little sister and yet still great fun as a fishing partner – I love him.
Madison is my brother’s seven year old and she’s a little performer – she loves the spotlight as much as her elder sister despises it. She sings funny songs that she makes up and creates all manner of crafty things, which she often gives away to the family. Maddy recently won an art award at school for her painting of her super-hero “Super-Jenna”, the girl who can do anything! It’s beautiful to see that she really thinks her big sister can do anything! Just last week, I received a phone video-message of Mad playing around, quoting what sounded like some old Californian Miner Forty-Niner movie – she was saying in a strained American cowboy accent – ‘She’s a-gonna blow, she’s a-gonna blow! Fire in the hole!’. Nobody has a clue where she got this saying, but she was having a ball and was very entertaining and amusing. She has a gentle nature and loves playing with other kids and her little doggies.
Last, is little three year old Indyanah. I sometimes look into her innocent, big, blue eyes and can scarcely believe how beautiful she is! We were playing the other day and she said she found a special kiss for me, behind her ear. I had to pluck it out and put it on her lips and then she’d give me a kiss. We played that game for a while, then went across to the park. The unrestrained love that little kids have for their families is one of the most special things on earth – and I haven’t written off having a few of my own either, just yet!
But as much as I love these kids, I don’t expect the bloke next door, nor the MCG curator, nor the Governor General, nor even my good friends, to feel the same way. I don’t feel the compulsion to drag them into work and force their presence upon all of my colleagues. We do our own thing and that’s good enough for us – and I believe it should be good enough for everyone else also.
Having said all that, I recently witnessed a more disturbing class of parent. Camping at Patonga for several days, I spent many an hour relaxing in the shade, watching my sister’s kids playing in the water down at the river. This has long been a favourite pastime and many families drag their chairs down under the coral trees and watch the kids play and swim. Among the families this year, was a long haired, lanky Aussie bloke, who resembled that bloke supposedly shot by the Khmer Rouge over in Cambodia a few years ago, and his Asian wife. They had 4 kids – three boys and a little girl, who’d be lucky to be 2 years old. The unfortunate boys were all lanky like their old man but had Asian faces – and while they ranged from about 9 to 4 years old, they wandered round the whole township unsupervised, as they pleased. The idiot parents perched in chairs overlooking the river and read newspapers and did puzzles – as the little girl wandered 300 metres away, up the road (with my 15 year old niece in hot pursuit, ensuring her safety). It was ages before they started looking round for their missing daughter – then my sister told them she was up the street. They fetched her back, plonked her on the sand and recommenced their puzzles! The kid was stealing other kids toys, playing in the water (with other parents dragging her away) and generally doing as she pleased – yet still the retarded parents had no idea.
Eventually, two of her older brothers started swimming across the river and the old man called out to stop, because the little one would no doubt follow. They didn’t stop and the old long-haired dickhead was right – she followed, over her head coughing and spluttering and waving her arms as she bobbed under again and again! She was drowning. Longhair screams at the boys to come back and get her before finally, getting off his careless, boney arse and making a move to save his daughter.
Had this been anyone else’s kid, I would have been down there before she entered the water. But saving this kid from drowning is like grabbing a baby zebra half way across the croc infested Mara River and replacing him on the wrong side, to try his luck again. Unfortunately, this kid will be lucky to make 3 years old – and there’ll be another headline ‘Toddler Drowns In Tragic Accident’. Only it won’t be an accident – it’ll be fairly and squarely the negligent parents fault, and those filthy scumbags should be locked up forever and their kids taken away!
I also took my little niece Indy, across to the park to play on the equipment. Climbing ropes and ladders and slippery dips and swings etc. I’d follow her around making sure she didn’t fall or get into strife, then push her on the swing – she loved it (and so did I). At one stage though, there was a six foot Rusky woman with a little kid about 7 years old who was running amok and a little kid who could hardly walk – only about twelve months old (he was definitely a Yicky-Bubba – very ugly, with wide eyes and a big mouth). She stood back and watched him climb the stairs to the big slippery-dip, without a move of concern or support for the little blighter. I watched on in amazement at the disregard or lack of acknowledgement of the imminent danger facing her son. She looked on, unperturbed as her offspring risked life and limb in pursuit of a good time.
Several days later the kids were back again, one step away from tragedy, as the parents enjoyed a barbequed picnic lunch, some hundred and fifty metres away at the picnic table. The older boy fell hard and screamed his head off, until my brother-in-law Johnny, saw to his health and comforted the little bastard. His parents raised their heads from the dinner, then resumed the banquet. The one-year old was teetering on the edge of the slippery-dip, and pointing and muttering toward me. I pointed back and waved – I know his parents approve of him being there. A few little ten year old girls enquired accusingly of me, whether that was my son? I said I don’t know the kid and looked back toward the distant picnic table.
Outside of blatant physical abuse of children, I have never observed such ill treatment – these people have no business raising kids!
Down at the river, Indy made friends with two little Italian girls – one older, one younger, and they played famously! They also had an Italian cousin/brother, who’s looks alone reminded me of a wanker I went to school with – Sapienza. The older girl kept wanting to go out deeper and swim under water, which Indy can’t really do, but she was cute and helpful and friendly, just like her mother. The younger girl was under three and had a voluminous full head of jet-black hair and most peculiarly, a full set of adult chompers! She’d give a cheesy Eric Estrada would be proud of – it was most bizarre. But she too was friendly as the day is long.
On the other hand, my little mate Sapienza, kept pushing Indy away and refused to share his toys or play with the other kids. I watched them all for several days and the little bastard didn’t change a bit. He acted like a spoilt first son of some major Italian dynasty – and I felt like pushing him back on his arse, like he did to the other smaller kids, repeatedly. His mother and auntie chastised him time and again, to no avail. He’s destined to grow up to be a prick, while his sisters/cousins, will be lovely young ladies (with a lot of hair and teeth!).
So I guess, in the end, I do care for kids – just please don’t try to force them upon me – I think it may be these parents, not the kids, that I don’t like…..