A DAD'S LIFE:For the younger generation, it was just another week
WITH THE influx of visiting dignitaries over the past month, you could be forgiven for expecting every world leader to turn up on our doorstep to keep us amused throughout the summer. Queen Elizabeth hung around a while, made friends and seemed to be checking out potential holiday getaway destinations. Obama, on the other hand, was a short, sharp shock. In and out, Colgate smile turned up to max, he hit us with a dose of personality that had us swooning in the streets and left before we’d caught our breath.
In school, the elder and younger were shepherded to the halla mór during class to watch him work his magic on TV. They and their friends must have been the only people on the island impervious to his charms. Back home that evening we suggested watching the news together and were swatted aside.
“No! We had to look at him in school today. It was so boooring.”
Mmm. While the rest of the country busied themselves stashing portraits of the pope and JFK in the attic and replacing them with colour shots of Lizzie and Barack, the kids wondered what all the fuss was about. I tried to side with them, bring out my inner cynic and refuse to bow to the showbiz, but he was just too damn good. The news was like the bloody X-Factor, no matter how hard you tried you couldn’t help but tear up a little when he told us we really could féidir. And it wasn’t just him. Brendan Gleeson was rabble rousing and Imelda May rocked the party. All was good in the world.
I looked at the missus, she was more emotional than me. We looked at the brats. They looked back, shook their heads and went outside to dig holes and collect worms.
They don’t care. When the news tells us the IMF owns us and 95 per cent of the population wants to emigrate and there hasn’t been a job created in four years, they don’t care. Because days like that are pretty much the same to them as the days the American president comes over and tells us all we’re marvellous, we have a great pint and we’ll survive. They don’t care about that either, as long as they get to hang out with their mates.
We, us grown ups, hang our happiness on vicarious sharings of group success. In recent weeks, having a queen and a president come say hello has provided an undeniable buzz. No matter how bad our troubles may be, their presence halted the unending flow of depressing news. Their presence altered nothing in reality, just the flow of news and replaced it with a more upbeat variety, if only for a while. And this was enough to shake us up and emerge a little more confident and positive than before.
The sharing of success, of happiness and positivity can do that to groups, from the smallest crowd to a nation. The Leinster rugby team resurrected themselves in the second half of the Heineken Cup final and pulled off a victory that at half time seemed beyond implausible. Since then people have spoken of it with unusual passion, as if they too have been lifted to achieve things they couldn’t have imagined beforehand. An inspired, unexpected victory has had the effect of putting more than a smile on people’s faces, it has quite possibly made us more determined and hopeful.
Adults spark off each other and the mood is contagious, spreading quickly across vast land masses. The life of the child is more internal. A royal wave may cause excitement but happiness and hopefulness are more instinctive than inspired.
Dropping the kids to school the day after the presidential visit, the younger mugged her way in the door but her sister loitered behind and finally came back to me at the car.
“I don’t feel well. I’m not sick or achy, just tired and I don’t want to go to school.”
“You feeling sad for no reason?”
She welled up a little and nodded: “I don’t know why.”
That kind of feeling sad is normal. Just as feeling happy on the mornings she bounds in is normal. She is affected by the immediate events around her but unperturbed by the big events of the news day. If Obama came to read her a bedtime story she’d probably think he was a nice bloke but it wouldn’t make a huge difference to her.
That morning she wandered in the gates, more subdued than usual. She got on with her day as best she could. By afternoon, she was fine. President or no president, the world turns.