Last night my wife and I had a rare night out to see the fantastic comedian Russell Kane at De Montfort Hall. Pretty much the whole show was about having kids – rather unexpectedly given that he's not got his own, and slightly disappointingly given that I was hoping for an hour or so not assessing my own parenting.
But this bit certainly got a chuckle of recognition…
‘When I say I’m the opposite to [my Dad], I don’t mean to
disrespect his memory and stuff, I just mean emotionally. He couldn’t have got
more stuff wrong if he tried. It’s the male curse: I’ve inherited this gene,
like most men in the room, the "one thing happens, the whole evening is shit" gene. The tiniest thing, down comes the mood. 80-90 per cent of men carry that
fucking gene. Do you think we want to be like that? We don’t want to be like
it. We can’t fix it.
Maybe women have the gene, but they seem to have better access
to this sentence: "Oh, I know we were late today, but we did get to the gig in
the end. I’m sorry I lost my temper: can we just have a nice night now? I’ve
managed to emotionally regulate myself." Whereas admit it guys, most of you in
the room: "The M1’s fucked, we’re going to miss the show, whole night’s ruined!" Get there on time, it’s not ruined, we got to De Montfort Hall in good time,
there’s time for a drink, don’t stress. "I know all that. But because I lost my
temper for a short period of time, I’m now going to hang on to that mood and
fuck up the rest of the night."
I don’t want to be that Dad, the black cloud Dad. I don’t
want to be the black cloud man, let alone the black cloud Dad if I’m lucky
enough to be one.'
Ring any bells with you?
definitely sounds familiar. But I have found that through trying to teach my kids that they don't need to scrunch up a drawing because of one line out of place or stomp off because they mess up one move in a game I have learned to regulate my own moods more effectively. I have 3 children now and I am definitely a much calmer person because of it
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