Things that I vowed that I would never to say to my own kids, that my own dear parents said to me and my brother, back in the 70’s and 80’s. Utterances that …. guess what? I have actually said MYSELF during the past fortnight. I know this, because after the first two ‘dawned on me,’ I began to carry around a bit of paper and started scribbling them down. It worries me deeply, this sort of thing.
“Turn that music off. It’s total rubbish! Do none of these people even know HOW to play a proper instrument?”
“My house my rules – who do you think you are, LadyJane? Swanning in at this time!”
“They don’t make like them like this anymore, do they? Proper tune, that.”
“You squirt me with that water pistol and it’ll be tears before bedtime, sonny Jim”
“Who elected these idiots? I voted for the other side.”
“I’m telling you, if you ever marry a Tory when you grow up, don’t be thinking I’ll be visiting you.”
“If you’ve lied about doing a poo and not flushing the toilet, you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face”
“When I call you in from the den saying ‘Your Tea’s Ready’ – about 10 times. Guess what? It means YOUR TEA’S READY.”
“I don’t care if you hate listening the The Archers. I hate listening to you whining, but I don’t complain, do I?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop moaning. It’s only a bloody vaccination. The problem with your generation is that you’ve never known proper suffering.”
“Grandparents might have the stupidest politics in the world, but it’s not your place to tell them that. It’s mine.”
“And you can switch that off right now. We’re not watching filth in this house.”
“Cliff Richard, eh? Does the man EVER age?”
So, in order to address the balance – here are some phrases that I also uttered this week, that I would never expected to have said, back in the last century. Some for technological reasons, some for sociological reasons. And some because, I honestly thought that I’d be a better parent than I am;
“If Roman’s mum thinks its ok for her kids play Grand Theft Auto all day, watch youtubes the rest of the time, exist on coca cola and Macdonalds and still get to go to New York with her bit on the side, then why don’t you go and live with her instead? Cause she’s clearly doing a better job than I am.”
“Yeah. She used to be a man but she’s a woman now, but she’s still keeping the name she had when she was a bloke. This whole discussion on the radio is about which toilets she should be able to use.”
“Me saying that I prefer spinach to carrots is NOT me discriminating against orange coloured vegetables – it’s me expressing a preference. The same applies if your dad says he finds blonde women more attractive. It doesn’t mean that he’s a brunette-hating extremist and someone should grass him up to Prevent.”
“My first TV was black and white. When everyone switched to colour, the old lady across the street still kept hers because when there were murders on the telly, she always said she didn’t like seeing the blood.”
“No. A Rag and Bone man is not a rather chunky American singer. It’s a bloke who’d go up and down the streets with a horse and cart and you’d give him everything you didn’t need anymore. Like old clothes. And bones of your dead pets, so he could turn them into glue or something. And in return, he’d give you a balloon. It was very exciting.”
“The problem is with you kids, you don’t know the meaning of the word ‘boredom.’ And it’s no wonders that academic standards are slipping. The worst punishment that our parents used to inflict on us was this programme called ‘Open University.’ It was mind-numbing. But there was no other form of entertainment once ‘Rainbow’ and ‘Mungo and Midge’ had finished. But I bet I knew more about the properties of ionic compounds than you do, when I was 9 years old.”
“No. The Virgin Mary is not Richard Branson’s wife.”
“A holiday camp? Well no, it wasn’t quite like a concentration camp. It was a bit like… like Centre Parcs. Only … for people without all the aspirational stuff going on for them. Yeah. It was all about knobbly knee contests and beauty competitions and who can smoke the most fags in five minute competitions. My parents always seemed to think that this was beneath them, for some reason.”
“Well, we could ride our bikes anywhere. There were no cars on our streets really. You could ride round and round all day long and the only danger you came across was the old man on the corner slapping you because you’d run over his geraniums.”
“No, I’m not telling you how many one-night stand’s I’ve had in my life. You’re not even 13. Go away and play with your fidget spinner.”
“No, you don’t have to write a thank-you letter to your Gran. She’s in Benidorm, getting drunk on a hen weekend. Just a watsapp will suffice. Though I think she’s into Snapchat a bit more these days.”
