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You know I love my kids (after a fashion), but today my mother-in-law was popping off for a fortnight’s holiday on the Galapagos Islands (pretty selfish- who’s going to look after my kids?) and I started looking forward to the time when I (and possibly my wife, but best not to assume anything) would be able to take off on long trips on our own again. We’d realistically be looking at a time when Ernie was 18 or thereabouts. And it can’t have been the first time this has struck me, but it felt like it - I will be practically 70 at that point. 70! What was I thinking having kids so late.
Let’s face it, in any real terms, my non-parenting life is over. Even if I am still alive in 2036 then I am not going to be in any fit state to have any fun (not talking for all 70 year olds there, of course, just myself). I mean I had a fair amount of fun and world travel and irresponsibility before the kids came along, but NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH. And I wasted so much of that valuable time feeling depressed and self-conscious and not wanting to bother other people too much lest they secretly thought me to be an irritant that they didn’t want to spend time with (and given they didn’t go out of their way to contact me perhaps I was right or perhaps everyone was sitting at home imagining everyone else was having a better time than them).
Look, I consider myself to be pretty much the luckiest man on the planet, having fluked my way by chance rather than judgement to a life where I am happy, fulfilled and comfortable. My successes have been OK, but my failures more instructive and led me a deep sense of inner wisdom that Russell Brand can only dream of… But that doesn’t mean I want my life to be essentially over. And apart from the joy of seeing my children (and my wife’s resentment towards me) grow, I have nothing to look forward to but the icy kiss of death. Hopefully it will kiss my on the winky. That’s what I am looking forward to. And if two dead things meet then won’t that create life? I believe so.
So anyway, the basic realisation that I am parenting until I keel over (knowing my luck on the exact day the last one finally leave home, when I’ve done all the work and had none of the rest) has hit me hard…. And imagine if we have more kids… The only positive is that it’s likely my kids won’t have kids til they are in their thirties at the earliest so I won’t have to do any grand-parenting.
