ENGLISH MUM: never knowingly undercatered

It’s not often I get the urge to beat a grown man around the head with a French stick but yesterday was one of those days. I’ve already whinged on about the amount of kids I see every day sucking on bottles of Coke, lollies (aarrrgghhh!) and chicken nuggets off the deli counter (yes, they do chicken nuggets and hot dogs at the deli!) at ten in the morning, but yesterday took the proverbial biscuit. I was standing in the queue in Tesco with my trolley, and in front of me were a dad and his little girl. The child must have been about…oooh, two or three, but the seed has been sown for an arch little manipulator. The conversation went something like this:

Child (finishing a fun-sized pack of Maltesers and throwing the wrapper at her father): ‘MORE!’

Dad: ‘No, that’s enough for now, you’ve had two packs’

Child: ‘I want more!’

Dad: ‘No, sweetheart, you’ve had two’

Child (starting to cry): ‘But I want another one!!!’

Dad (stroking child’s hair): ‘Well, maybe if you’re a good girl, you can have one in the car’

Me (raising eyes to heaven and silently congratulating child on spectacular feat of father-training): ‘tsk’

Child (sneaking sidelong glance at my exasperated face whilst raising volume and producing real tears): ‘I want one now!!!’

Dad (opening third pack and passing to child): ‘Here you are then, sweetheart, just one more then’.

Child (sneaking triumphant look in my direction): ‘good’.

Not, ‘thanks, Daddy’, you notice, just ‘good’. And he didn’t press the point, either, just continued to stroke his little princess’ head while she shovelled chocolate into her mouth.

I mean, bloody hell, just WHO exactly is the boss in this relationship? Can you imagine when she’s twelve and swanning out the door in heels and full make-up? ‘Dad, get the car out, I need you to drop me down the town, oh and I’ll need a twenty’. I wanted to shake him and say ‘what are you doing, don’t you know you’re turning your child into a monster? And a fat one at that!!’.

The funny thing is, this always makes me paranoid about my own offspring’s manners and in turn, transforms me into Attila the Hun when I get home. My own children, shooting me worried looks across the dinner table, were reminded to say please and thank you, not chew with their mouths open, get their elbows off the table, offer to wash up and basically grow up to be nice, polite young men OR ELSE! All because Princess Pain in the Patella had Daddy wound around her teeny little pinky.

Grrrrrr.