Fancy-Dressed for Success

I like a bit of fancy dress. Who doesn’t? My kids love fancy dress. And I love putting my kids in fancy dress. As often as possible. Parties; play-dates; church; etc, etc.

The other week, one of my friends showed me this story.  For the click-shy it involves a picture of a baby crudely dressed up as ex-Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli, during the famous shirt-message incident (pictured).

The media and twitter reaction to it was one of great vengeance and furious anger*, with a lot of comments about child cruelty.

I don’t see how it’s physically cruel. No baby is getting hurt by having a sponge balanced on its head. And no child is going to complain about having chocolate spread smeared anywhere near their mouth.

He must have been significantly more comfortable than her:

… and less at risk of drowning in the North Sea. But the mermaid costume would never generate ‘public outcry’. (In fact, likely-to-cause-mild-chaffing though it is, between typing I’m searching Amazon to get one for my daughter now) 

Anyway, this started me thinking generally about what it is/isn’t ok to dress your kids up as, and specifically about the reaction to the Balotelli incident.

Initially my hypothesis was that any fun fancy dress is ok unless it contravenes the following rules:

RULE # 1: Should not be painful/cruel/demeaning to the child

or

RULE # 2: Should not highlight an undesirable characteristic or unfairly-stereotyped/bigoted view of the subject

 

So, let’s test this with some examples…

This is fine. The costume is cool. And despite the fact that we all like to poke a bit of fun at the Gamma Quadrant folks of Sector 4 and their crazy bureaucratic dedication to the rules and bi-laws of Star Command, you wouldn’t call it offensive (except maybe if you’re Zurg or one of Zurg’s relatives). Next...

Under my initial guidelines this isn’t ok. The costume clearly highlights an undesirable physical characteristic of the subject. He is fat. However, experience and common-sense says no-one would have any problem with that costume. Picking on the big, lardy plight of an over-privileged white man in a position of power – even one with the exercise-discouraging plight of unlimited free public transport - would stir anger in no-one**.  Which suggests a reduction of rule two…

RULE # 2: Should not highlight an undesirable characteristic or unfairly-stereotyped/bigoted view of the subject.

… and I think I’m ok with dropping the ‘undesirable (but true) characteristic’ clause. Fat-phase soon-to-die-on-a-toilet Elvis costumes are socially ok. I’m probably even open to an extreme-uggo line of costumes. Like a John Merrick. (That’d be pretty impressive actually. Not sure what you’d make it out of. Paper mache and corned beef?)

 

Let’s cut to the chase. The problem here was that the baby is white and Mario Balotelli is black. The discomfort is with the idea of a white kid colouring their skin to dress as a black celebrity/character.  So…

Is cross-racial fancy dress completely taboo? And, if it is, how do I explain ‘why’ articulately to my kids if/when they ever want to don one of the plethora of brilliant black person/character fancy-dress options?

Unsure, I did a bit of reading to get a view on the history and the public opinions in this area. Here's the conclusions I drew:

• Similar to dressing as an other-worldly Buzz Lightyear, there’s obviously no issue with face painting be a specific character of a fictional race, for example..

... clearly, the question is specifically around a white person painting themselves to ‘play’ a black person. 

• Does that have to be a problem? Even if you've got a really, really good idea for a costume? For example, in this thread I think the rationale for face paint in the Tiger Woods costume has some solid logic (even if the execution was massively clunky), because a Rory McElroy in an ambush of Tigers wouldn’t make a lot of sense.
• Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions, the use of make-up like this echoes of and is heavily associated with more ignorant/racist times when blackface was done by The Black & White Minstrels and other groups to perform stupid, false-stereotype portrayals. i.e…

Using make-up to look like a person of another race is not inherently racist… the problem is that it’s previously mainly been done by f*cking horrible racists

• Even though that was back in the 1970s, it’s recent enough that many people walking around today will have been negatively impacted by it in their lifetime. So, here comes a third rule…

RULE # 3: Avoid representing something horrible that affected the lifetime or family-memories of people who might see your child

At some point racism will be a thing of the past, but clearly we’re not there yet (as Louis Suarez, Prince Philip and the fans of Zenit StPetersburg all demonstrate) and the general public contains a surprising number of idiots. As an example from this generally-sensible chain on whether it’s ok to fancy-dress as Jimi Hendrix shows, someone is always primed to miss the point…

… and the last thing any similar Jumbo McSpazzatron needs is a chance to misunderstand that ‘minstrel culture' might still be socially ok. (Plus, if any person who doesn’t know you - black or otherwise - sees your child, how are they to know you’re not a lizmachin?)

So, even if you’ve got solid intentions with brown face paint, think twice about it and certainly don’t show it off in public. 

Aside from face paint, the derision that met Prince Harry when the public saw pictures of him dressed as a Nazi also supports Rule 3. However, the Romans did some pretty unspeakable things in their day***, but I’ve seen plenty of Julius Caesar costumes and no-one gets upset, so it seems like there may be a statute of limitations on this rule. 

With the data I have available, I can say for certain that it’s somewhere over 70 years (Nazis: not ok), but under 2000 years (Caesar: ok).

Generally, if the costume is specific and genuinely funny, there’s little chance that any balanced person would find it offensive. If it’s a bit rubbish then, regardless of potential offence, you shouldn't be making your kid wear it. Fancy dress is brilliant - make an effort!

 

RULE # 4: Make sure it’s a really good costume

 

So. There you go. Here’s my initial schema for child fancy dress success…

RULE # 1: Should not be painful/cruel/demeaning to the child

RULE # 2: Should not highlight an unfairly-stereotyped/bigoted view of the subject.

RULE # 3: Avoid representing something horrible that affected the lifetime or family-memories of people who might see your child (this rule dissolves somewhere 70-to-2000 years after said event)

RULE # 4: Make sure it’s a really good costume

I’m no expert though (most of my ‘research’ came from wikipedia and mumsnet... and the film Bamboozled), so any other thoughts are very welcome.

 

Learned Wisdoms

#52: If you initially hypothesise that it’s not ok for a white kid to dress as a black person purely due to black people previously having been victims of repression, you’ll find that this example calls that line of thought into question:

 

... Jessie is a woman. And a ginger. A walking-fusion of two groups that each historically score high in the Top Trumps of societal repression and castigation. And it’s fine to dress up as her. (However, if there’d ever been a Red & Freckled Minstrels Show, trading on hot-tempered, easily-sunburned stereotypes, maybe we’d all be more reticent to put on an orange wig)

 

#53: If your white son wants to dress like Mr T and you decide against face-paint, make sure you do a really good & clear job on the mohawk - otherwise the ‘white-version’ of the costume, given all the jewellery and casual sport/combat gear, is a pretty close approximation to Jimmy Saville. Which is a much more significant breakage of Rule #3

Footnotes

* Which made me laugh. Because who gets FURIOUS about some minor news item they happen upon?.. Then the next day I read this and instantly transformed into Malcolm Tucker

 

** Anyone suggesting that he calls ‘himself’ The “Fat” Controller and so is obviously ok with his gluttony should think twice. There’s no evidence that he made the nickname up - more likely just begrudgingly went along with steam-delivered mockery, vainly hoping it’d go away if he didn’t react. (Probably leading to a cycle of self-loathing and comfort-eating that exacerbates the situation to this day – watch out for the residents of Sodor soon starting to refer to their ‘Morbidly Obese Controller’ who gets cleaned at the same time as the engines with a hose and a broom)

 

*** Not many people know that the full phrase is “When in Rome, do as the Romans do... but try to avoid the whole ‘killing a hundred-thousand Christians’ thing”

 

Ten-Thousandth Visit Special Edition

My blog passed 10000 visits recently so to celebrate, just like a lazy sit-com writer doing a ‘compilation show’ for their 100th episode, here’s a bunch of my favourite not-that-useful parenting suggestions from the learned wisdoms section of my posts and the @Dadulthood twitter feed (and maybe some stolen from Viz magazine’s Top Tips… see Learned Wisdoms below)

KIDS’ ENTERTAINMENT
AVOID SIGNIFICANT board game tedium by telling your children from an early age that it’s called ‘Connect 2’

CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATORS. Need to draw a ladybird or butterfly? Go and look at a photo of one first. Seriously. Just once

TV PEOPLE. Solve childhood obesity by making all cartoons about morbidly obese animals incapable of adventures due to Type 2 diabetes

BATHROOM
OUT OF TOILET ROLL?  As you reach behind to pull from it, check that the packet on the cistern is Baby Wipes. Not Flash Bathroom Wipes

IF YOU have multiple tubs of Vaseline, clearly labelling one of them BUMS removes the risk of any icky moments when treating chapped lips. But it can lead to some awkward questions if spotted by visitors.

EMPHASISE the importance of grammar to your children by concocting your own “No, More Tears” shampoo out of lemon juice & vinegar

POTTY DESIGNERS. It's for holding urine. Becoming a super-awesome cowboy hat when upturned is NOT a helpful feature...

TOYS & GIFTS
A HIGH-SIDED garden trampoline makes an excellent introduction to cage fighting for young siblings

AMAZON. When I've just bought my daughter a pink scooter, it's unlikely I will immediately want to buy another one

AN EARTHWORM makes a handy 'serpent' when helping your daughter create an exotic-dancer Barbie

KEEP YOUR children on their toes by placing brochures for foster homes in the toy section of the Argos catalogue

A STICKLEBRICK makes an excellent 'bed of nails' for a meditating Lego-man

SCHOOL
REDUCE THE monotony of the school run by dropping your child at a different school each day

GET AROUND paying for expensive after school clubs by encouraging your children to get daily detentions

OPPORTUNISM
LEAVE AN unattended hole-punch near your kids. That way, several of your very important documents can effortlessly become riddled with holes

DON’T BE grumpy when changing a dirty nappy, use it as an amnesty period for getting any stored up trumps out

AN OLD baby bottle makes a splendid measuring cup for spirits. (Remember to rinse before the health visitor comes)

SAVE thousands on university fees and gain a BA in law by getting Mr T to marry your daughter

Learned Wisdoms
#51: If you find yourself 34 years old and still occasionally reading/enjoying Viz reassure yourself that, because you scan the letters and articles but skip past the cartoons, you probably still count as an adult

Summer of Sport, Autumn of Change

European Championships + Wimbledon + Tour De France + Olympics = no posts for the last couple of months...

Brilliant summer. Few changes on the way now in our house...

Change 1 - New school

We got our little girl into the school we wanted (the one associated with the church we go to - see learned wisdom #22 on this post). She starts in September. Great news, you'd think. It has much better Ofsted than the school where she currently goes to nursery and the kids tend to go on to better upper schools, which hopefully has a positive impact on her options. However, all her little friends are staying at the current school and she's really sad about not moving on with them. Also the school she's moving to is very one-dimensional class & culture-wise (all white, all middle-class, all the time). My wife and I were starting to wonder if we'd made the wrong call, but a couple of minor funny incidents eased our minds:

-- I was talking about this conundrum with a friend who has a daughter in the school where my little girl currently goes to nursery. She said the school was generally good, but there were a couple of things that weren't ideal. When I asked for examples she said her daughter had come home recently and proclaimed, "I've got a boyfriend..." Ok, thought my friend, 5's a bit young, but not the end of the world. "... He's also going out with Diamond. But I'm his best girlfriend." 

-- Next up, we were on a long journey up from London to my parents' in Yorkshire. As we got on to the M62 and into yet more jammed-traffic with 5 hrs of travel already behind us, my little girl shouted, "When will we get out of this BLOODY car??" [Admittedly I can't forensically trace that back to nursery school friends... she may have picked it up at home]

-- Another day, she was doing some sort of generic misbehaviour. I responded with some sort of generic instruction to stop. It then got interesting when she said "You're not the boss of me. Jesus is the boss of me." The current school is heavily catholic. I like the idea of her having faith... but not to the point where she won't recognise all the necessary layers of earthly middle-management.

Change 2 - Childcare solution

Our childminder went on holiday at short notice for two weeks. We scrambled around for cover and ended up with a temporary nanny...

It. Was. Amazing...

Time in the morning with the kids was suddenly nice because we could just talk to and play with them without the stress of dressing them against their disproportionately-strong wills (pretty sure experience has qualified me to get any similar-sized angry creature into clothing, even the difficult stuff - if you need a badger forcing into a swimming-costume & cap, or an otter squeezed into a leotard, just give me a shout... I won't ask any questions). Plus there was no job of dropping them off at the childminder, so every morning suddenly felt loads more relaxed. As a result we're going to bite the bullet on the extra money and switch to a nanny from mid-September. Though the situation may change in November based on...

Change 3 - My Job

For the last two-&-a-half years I've been working for the organising committee of that big sportsday that happened in London recently. After the Paralympics and some wrap-up work, my contract ends in October. What next?..

With my daughter's schooling and my wife's career, I'm not in a position to move to Rio (next Olympics) or Sochi (next winter Olympics) or even Glasgow (next Commonwealth Games), so the looming option is a move back into a 'normal' corporate-type organisation. But there is the other option...

Given the amount that childcare costs each month, it wouldn't be an insurmountable dent on our income if I went full-time domestique*.  This came to mind when concerns about my little boy's speech didn't go away as easily as I'd hoped (more about this in the future). He's generally moving in the right direction, but me being around to ensure all the therapy techniques are being done 100% every day would provide a boost. (Though I do see a minor risk that after a couple of months he'd still be the same, with my vocab having massively-reduced.)

Another factor contributing to this run-the-house thought may have been when I recently got far too enthusiastic about the purchase, install and subsequent use a pullymaid (a rack you hang washing on then pull up to the ceiling with a rope/pulley-system). I'd like to say my excitement was about the better use of space in our house, removing the basically-permanent airer from our lounge and having washing out of the way above the stairs. Sadly it was probably more because the whole ropes/hoisting thing made me feel a bit piratey.

It's been interesting to reconsider the prospect of becoming a one-career family, but I don't think it'd realistically be a long-term solution. So I'll see how the job-hunt goes and take it from there...

* That's what I'd call my job in that situation at dinner parties. Give it a bit of a sporting, Chris Froom-style slant... hopefully I wouldn't get asked any follow-up questions.


Learned Wisdoms gets this month off, replaced by...

Dadulthood Notes on the Sporting Summer

#I: How cool was Bradley Wiggins? Generally the most laid-back, unaffected super-dad on the planet... Stepping onto the podium to be proclaimed winner of the Tour de France in front of half a million people on the Champs Elysees, having a microphone thrust in his hand and, with a straight face, saying "We're just going to draw the raffle numbers". And saying he wouldn't be going after loads more wins because of all the time required away from the family was quite nice (though he had just been away for around 7 months at that point... would like to hear his thoughts again after a few days of dinner-spillages and Dora the Explorer).

#II: Poland & Ukraine's Euro 2012 'kick racism back into football' campaign seemed a strange move. Good that it didn't really take off in the end.

#III: England were well-organised and probably the best team in Euro 2012 "without the ball". Unfortunately, that was a predictably unuseful skill-set in a penalty shoot-out.

#IV: Nice for Ivan Lendl to have coached Andy Murray to the equalling of his record... he's no longer the only person to have lost his first 4 grand slam finals.

(Great to see Murray win at Wimbledon in the Olympics. Hopefully a good omen for the future)

#V: That German Olympic Official could have avoided his opening ceremony salute being interpreted as a Nazi one by, er, not making it look like a Nazi one.

#VI: Great to see Nicola Adams' historic gold medal win in the boxing. And it has probably moved her up to being about the 8th hardest woman in Leeds.

#VII: Australia's boycott of the 2012 Olympics was unusual. And would probably have been more successful if they'd let people know what their demands were.

#VIII: The quality of guests on the sofa each night for the BBC's Olympics highlights show was great (Michael Johnson, John McEnroe, Kelly Holmes, Ian Thorpe, etc.)... quite funny how they were frequently asked to comment on sports they know very little about though. Kelly Holmes' insight on Cav & Team GB not winning the road race was along the lines of: I'm not a cyclist, but it looks like they got the tactics wrong

#IX: Not strictly sporting, but George Michael playing some 'new stuff' at the Olympic closing ceremony? Really? Hopefully he'll get a fuller Olympic experience by failing a drugs test and then being edited out of the DVD

#X: Top Tip for Spandau Ballet... boost royalty payments by also writing songs called "Silver", "Bronze" and "Knocked out in the heats"

You Do It To Yourself, You Do

Pre-Read

If you’ve never seen the video to the Radiohead track Just, then click here. It’s great. And a working knowledge of it is needed for this post to make any sense (... I don’t know how anyone expects to get the most out of the blog if they won’t do the set preparatory work)


A Coincidental & Mildly-Amusing* Thing That Happened

(* Given a somewhat-niche background knowledge of popular culture. And a pretty generous sense of humour)

My little boy does this thing when he gets tired or sad (or both), where he just lies down flat, silent and motionless on the floor. To an extent I admire him - if I wasn’t a slave to social conventions I’d probably do the same thing about three times a day - but it can be a bit embarrassing when we’re out & about. It's hard to project the image of a motivational parent, inspiring their kids' to great enthusiasm for life while you're stood over what's effectively a boy-skin rug.

So, we were at a birthday party the other week. There was a bouncy-castle. And food. And a rule that the castle would be deflated as soon as the children sat down to eat. (Shrewd stuff. I guess you don't spend too much time wiping partially-digested quavers/cheese/icing off your colourful vinyl before you see the value of introducing that one)

Food time came around. The castle went down. My little boy, tired from the frantic bouncing and sad that it was over, predictably slumped to the ground and laid quietly on the flattened jumpy-château.

A few other kids noticed him and wandered over. They had a little look at him. And then at each other... And then they all laid down!

I couldn't believe it. It made my day. I thought it was brilliant.
(Though I'm well aware that you might not. The octogenarian I was talking with at that point certainly didn't... but, I suppose, if you're a) not familiar with Radiohead, b) not interested in toddlery life-imitating-art coincidence, and c) not that welcoming of  any conversational-deviation from the impact of open-end spinning technology on the Yorkshire textile industry, then no amount of excited pointing and laughing on my part is going to convince you that this was a noteworthy moment)

Future Opportunities

So there you go. The bloke in the video had been on a bouncy castle and was a bit tired and a bit sad. Or not.

Either way, my little boy's tendency to lie down where and whenever he wants resulted a nice little funny moment.
I'm now on the lookout for other scenes from popular culture that the kids could be nudged towards re-staging in miniature...

My daughter loves climbing. And she carries her little toy monkey everywhere with her. If anyone needs us, we'll be at the nearest model village until a small-scale bizarro-King Kong moment ensues.

Learned Wisdoms

#30: When your little boy suddenly vanishes inside your house, you will be relatively comfortable that he can't have got far (once it's clear that the doors are locked and that his passport & tricycle are still there). However, until you actually find him, it will be very stressful. So, if he is known to have a penchant for lying-down flat and motionless for significant periods of time, it will save you a frantic 6-to-7 mins of confusion if you check under the duvet of your bed right away.

Be In The Moment (When You’ve Got Time)

It’s nice to enjoy your life. (Strong opening Captain Obvious.) Yet my wife & I sometimes wake up on a Monday morning, talk about getting through the week and slip into routine as if there’s no actual life-living value coming our way until the weekend.

Buddhists reckon being in the moment is of great importance on 'the path to enlightenment'. They call it smṛti or sati, which translates as mindfulness.

My over-simplified-to-the-point-of-being-borderline-xenophobic understanding of it is that you enjoy the main course more if you focus on your chicken rather than wondering about whether there’ll be a chocolate option for pudding.

There’s definitely something to be gained from this mentality. How often has your mind been elsewhere when you could have benefitted from engaging with your surroundings? Whether it’s paying no attention to a conversation with your partner because you’re pondering a work situation; not fully relaxing to enjoy a film because you’re thinking through potential childcare options for a future commitment; or missing some interesting insights in a work meeting because you’re wondering who’d win a fight between a large grizzly bear and a medium-sized white shark in the shallow end of a swimming pool.

We all do it (except maybe that last one) and you don’t have to be the Dalai Lama to realise that we’d get more out of each day, and out of our lives in general, if we spent increased time appreciating what was happening now. 

But that’s easier said than done. Especially if you’re stressed. And particularly if you’re concerned that your collective moments maybe aren’t shaping up to deliver everything you’d hoped for from life…

I’m ashamed to admit it, but there have been plenty of occasions when I’ve not made the most of time with my children because my mind’s been elsewhere. I love the kids, they’re the best little people I’ve ever been affiliated with, but I’ve got two big challenges with mindfulness:

i) I’m a planner. And without being safe in the knowledge that everything’s in-hand for the success of future moments, I have a hard time concentrating on this one. (And, yes, I generally ruin those future moments by worrying about the ones after that anyway.)

The only way I’ve found to avoid this is to block out a short time each day to plan whatever needs doing and make a list of the required actions. Then, for the rest of the day, if my mind starts to wander towards planning I can reel it back in… because I’ve already planned when I’m going to plan.

(Totally justifiable to speculate on how my brain hasn’t exploded yet.)

ii) I’m terrified of wasting my life. Whether it’s something genetic, something from my upbringing or just that I already threw away a significant lump on the TV show Lost, I’m often more aware of what I’m not doing than what I am doing. (And, when you’re working full time and have two kids, there’s a lot of stuff you’re not doing.)
This mind-set was making me quite depressed for a while. The solution I found was to identify exactly what I wanted in my week-to-week life so that time outside work felt well-rounded. My wife did the same. My list was:

- Plenty of time with the kids & quality time with my wife

- Dinner/drinks with friends at least every couple of weeks
- Writing

- Sports & Exercise. Weekly football / cardio / weights. Tennis / hit some balls on the driving range / horse riding every few weeks (see Learned Wisdom #17 below) 

Clearly the problem is finding time to fit everything in. Particularly as, after woring all week, we want to maximise our time with the kids during their waking hours. Realism had to bite, and get really good at skiing, improve my Spanish, learn rhythm guitar have been left on the shelf for now. Everything else on my list (and my wife’s) we are finding a way to fit in. Generally by getting babysitters in the evenings (e.g. we were surprised to find that, during summer, we can get a canter-out together from a local stable once-a-month in a Wednesday 8pm-9pm timeslot after we’ve put the kids to bed), but also by doing things like cycling the work commute for cardio a couple of times a week (so that I don’t have a weekend-time trade-off of be with the kids vs go running).

Knowing that there is space for my stuff in the weekly/monthly routine (even though some things aren’t even that frequent) means I worry about what I’m not doing much less.

Now I'm generally in the moment a bit more and I frequently, as Woody Harrelson instils to Jesse Eisenberg in the brilliant Zombieland, enjoy the little things.

(Not every tip for getting through life on an earth where zombies are the dominant species is as applicable to a life with children… actually, see LW #18 below.)

Obviously my life hasn’t suddenly become entirely populated by sunshine and lollypops – if I’ve got something stressful going on at work it’s hard not to have it dominate my thoughts that week – but when I’m with the kids I am finding it much easier to focus on just enjoying that time with them. And it’s dead nice.

Learned Wisdoms

#17: If you grow up proudly working-class in the North and find that anyone mentioning their enjoyment of golf or horse riding causes you to internally respond with “Oh f*ck off, f*ck off, f*ck off. F*ck off, f*ck off, f*ck off. F*ck off, f*ck off, f*ck off… F*ck Off”, then it’ll be a sizable hit to your rugged self-image when, upon actually trying these things, it turns out that you really quite like them. (You may have similar experiences with skinny vanilla lattes, the film When Harry Met Sally and exfoliating facial scrub.)

#18: A surprising amount of things that are good rules for surviving a post-apocalyptic zombie-ruled world are equally applicable to surviving life with small children. For example:

- Be swift and vigilant on the toilet. Something could burst in at any moment

- Come to terms with the fact that you may never see your friends again

- Always carry antiseptic wipes

- Get used to eating fast, you’ll most-likely have to move quickly very soon

- The putrid smells you encounter every day can be lessened if you breathe through your mouth