It's a Dad's Life/Adam Brophy:My kids have more friends than I have. I know I've burned bridges with a lot of people but it still seems rather unjust that the elder's social whirl puts mine to shame.
Even the younger is greeted with enviable gusto by her pre-school posse on the mornings we drop her into the creche. They clamber around the gate to the toddler room and chant her name on arrival. It's all very tribal.
The elder doesn't so much make friends as fall in love with other girls. I hear stories about new flames quite regularly; the cycle lasts about two weeks. She talks about their hair, their clothes, their jokes, the way they share hugs and hold hands. Recently she told me about an older girl (around eight, 'm guessing - girls that age are most revered right now) who plays with them occasionally. This girl has "long, brown hair
and beautiful, creamy, silky skin". Mills and Boon take note, you could have a prodigy in the offing.
What is most obvious, however, is that getting to know new kids is exciting her hugely and she is revelling in it. From the sidelines, I can worry about her being hurt due to the fleeting nature of some of these relationships, and also about
her hurting others by moving on to her next fixation before her current partner realises her time is up. But that's what kids do; they hurt and get hurt, and hopefully recover just as quickly.
She'll continue on the friends roundabout through primary school. It'll intensify in secondary school because horrible, smelly, spotty boys with aching libidos will get involved. Then she'll go to college and do things I won't want to hear about with people she won't bother to tell me about.
After that, she'll hit me up for a few grand and take off round the world to make international friends before getting a dream job and accumulating professional friends.
Then someone will propose to her and she'll be daft enough to accept. She'll be hitting me up for a lot more than a few grand for a house deposit and I'll be eyeballing my new son for every deficiency. All of a sudden there are babies on the scene again, and it's welcome to my world as it stands.
Goodbye potential new friends, hello nappy rash.
At this stage, your old friends divide. Some enter the fray around the same point, so for a while you're there for each other. You're supportive towards the other's kiddie problems but soon enough your time becomes stretched and you realise it's been two months since you had a pint with your best mate.
Simultaneously, other old buddies, the ones who flinch at the sound of a hungry wail, have thrown themselves back into the singles scene with ever increasing fervour. You see them at either end of the year because they are partying with the enthusiasm of adolescents who have open access to a grown-up's wallet.
Then, surprisingly, you realise that all of a sudden a new crew is beginning to build around you. They tend to be local and seem, like you, to be emerging into the sunlight, blinking and scratching at their eyes as if they have spent a long time underground. They are Other Parents of Growing Children (OPGC). OPGC don't have babies in their houses. They are beginning to sleep for more than four hours a night on a regular basis and may have read a restaurant review in the previous six months with the serious intention of eating out. They are your new friends and you love them for your shared trauma and hope for the future.
Shamelessly, you have pinched the parents of your children's friends. You can play with them and swap stuff and talk about them animatedly every night at dinner. And they all have long, dark hair and beautiful, creamy, silky skin.
abrophy@irish-times.ie
