How many children have heard that? Millions, I suspect. And what happens when you do get home, tired after a long day, stuck in a traffic jam for 45 minutes and just wanting some peace and quiet. Maybe read the paper, watch the news.
But no. What you get is a screaming wife and a toddler looking bemused because at his age he is quite unable to relate his minor crime of 4 hours ago to the hysteria he is now witnessing.
‘Do you know what he did this afternoon?’
‘No, did he microwave the cat?
‘No, worse, he pulled up all the border plants I planted yesterday.’
(I should point out at this stage that when my mom gave me a little patch of garden in which to plant seeds, I pulled them up regularly to see how the roots were going. I soon realised that they didn’t like this. MY mother, being my my mother let me get on with it. She knew I would learn, maybe the hard way.)
‘Well replant them then’
‘OK but what are you going to do about it.’
Fuck all was the obvious answer. If you cannot handle it at the time of the incident, then there is nowt anyone can do later. There is a lesson here. Children and animals can only associate the consequences of their actions over a very short time span. Punish them quickly or they will never learn.
And don’t put the burden on dads. That is demonising them.
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