Wishful thinking in Guide for Parents

It's a Dad's LifeI don't take advice particularly well, and this isn't a good trait. It makes learning far more difficult if the only source of information is your own mistakes.

This is an odd realisation for me because I used to be a great man for getting and accepting pointers. When it came to study choices and career paths, it seemed everyone else's opinion was more valuable than my own. Eventually I twigged most people had as little of an inkling about what was going on as me. The whole property boom opened my eyes. Around 2002, everyone became an expert. It wasn't good enough to have one gaff, you had to get another interest-only mortgage to leverage a second property. Within years, maybe months, you'd have enough equity to bag a third and after that you could start purchasing slums in great swathes and riding round in gold helicopters. Everyone who could, got in on the act. Most acknowledged the good fortune that had allowed them to ride this wave; some blithely, and naively, figured they had created it themselves.

Obviously it couldn't last forever, although for a while it seemed that it would and the banks, the building societies and the Government all pushed hard to ensure the mirage of never- ending growth was maintained. Lots of people made lots of money, while I spent Ireland's golden years studying and earning a pittance. But even in my envious state of fiscal decrepitude, I recognised that, like with any pyramid scheme, the people who got in last would get burned as they provided the exit cash for those who got in first.

This great, propagated lie of eternal growth was one thing that turned me away from heeding advice, especially "expert" advice. This has had a number of knock-on effects. I still only part-own, with the fair missus, one house and it is populated by children who pay no attention to anything I say. It's as if my recently discovered zealot's disregard for the opinions of others is the one thing they have picked up from me. Any amount of ordering, demanding, pleading and begging on my behalf is blatantly ignored. We have children who don't eat what we put in front of them, climb on both precious and dangerous things, run away when you ask them to come back, and, most irritatingly, refuse to sleep in their own beds.

Last night the elder started her night's rest in the spare room. From there I transported her to her own bunk. By the early hours she had found her way in between her parents. That's 75 per cent of the beds in the house in one night, and that's a regular occurrence. Last night the missus cracked. As the younger child mounted the stairs to our room, mewling to join the rest of the family squeezed onto one mattress, the missus sobbed at the unfairness of six consecutive years of sleep deprivation and offered up a prayer that some day soon they would feck off and leave us alone.

It's our own fault of course. We lack discipline, so we can't instil discipline in our evil offspring. Today, I swallowed my pride and went to the Guide for Parentsbooklet provided by Parentline, hoping there would be a nugget in it that would help me slap the offenders into shape. It's a neat little thing covering communicating with and disciplining your children, keeping them healthy and happy, and playing with them. It suggests they can be trained like puppies if you follow the guidelines.

Fortunately it also includes the number for Parentline (1890-927277) because my monsters, as I suspect most do, have eroded my ability to behave in an adult manner beyond repair. But I may call, if only for a sympathetic ear as I sit sobbing gently while my children rampage through the house. I am ignored as I ignore others.