IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:I don't believe in nips and tucks and dread the day the kids think they are less than perfect, writes ADAM BROPHY
THE MISSUS went to the doctor. Pretty regular, one would think, but in fact a monumental occasion in her schedule.
He couldn’t, of course, be a regular GP; he had to rub herbs together and stick needles in tender places as well as having a medical degree to be deemed acceptable, but she went.
I thought for a moment about divulging her ailment here, but chose life instead.
It’s not that she doesn’t like doctors or is afraid of them. It’s just that she believes they’re all trying to destroy our immune systems with massive amounts of antibiotics foisted, in advance, upon them by pharma reps (who are, according to her, the actual spawn of Satan) in return for golfing holidays in Portugal.
In anticipation of any outcry by the medical community (sensitive community that it is), I acknowledge there is no statistical or empirical evidence for this, but when did that matter to somebody who has even a passing interest in homeopathy?
So, she went to the doctor. He was only a tenner more expensive than a regular doctor but he can raindance and the like so it was worth it. In fact, what made it worth the extra was her coming home in a barnstormer of a good mood with any number of minor anxieties relieved before they approached becoming larger stresses. The word of a doctor comes with a heavy dose of soothing balm when applied in a gentle tone.
Everybody happy. The elder is intrigued. She doesn’t know her mother to go elsewhere for medical advice; her mother is the oracle for medical advice. She quizzes her mother: “Did you have plastic surgery?”
I eye the missus’s chest for unexpected developments but nothing brewing (no early birthday present for me), and return to my eavesdropping.
“Why do you think I would have plastic surgery?” asks wife.
“Well in Mamma Mia Donna’s really funny friend teases their other friend that Donna wouldn’t recognise her because she had plastic surgery.”
“So, can you not recognise me or something?” queries wife.
“No, it’s not that but, like, what else would you go to the surgery for?”
And there you have it. In 2009, according to a seven-year-old, the only reason a woman would have to see a doctor is to have her lips plumped or her love handles drained.
The missus twigs the elder might be worried her mum is sick and not letting on. She attempts to console. “I’m fine you know, nothing wrong with me at all.”
“Oh, I know. I mean granny is 66 and she’s still alive.”
Unbelievably, she survived to a pensionable age. We are astounded, as I’m sure the grandmother is herself, touching her headboard every morning for luck.
“Not only that, you have two great grannies and they’re a bit older than 66.”
“Oh yeah,” says the elder.
“Gweat gwanny is weally old,” pipes up her sister, rolling her eyes at the miracle that is her ancestors’ continuing survival. “She is older than a house and definitely older than a car.”
I decide to get involved in a reasonable and mature manner: “Do you think mum should have plastic surgery?”
They both reply in the negative. The elder says she wants to be able to pick her own mum out in a line-up. I get over my disappointment at the merest glimmer of Pamela Anderson (1990s Pammy as opposed to post-Kid Rock Pammy) disappearing from the marital bed and acknowledge that the missus needs no physical adjustments.
She shoots a look that informs me I have stepped back from the precipice and may receive dinner in the not-too-distant future. But it might be a while before I receive anything else.
We don’t have rags in the house, no OK!, Hello, Now or Heat for us. This is possibly the only physical rule I have effected on my household and stood by; everything else is flexible and usually ridden roughshod over. These magazines do not come in unless contained in a visitor’s handbag who does not know the law and now, unwittingly or not, must face the consequences.
I understand these mags. I stand in the supermarket and flick through. I goggle at Jade’s impending death in the public eye. I think Cheryl does need to rediscover her curves and hope that Lily Allen never goes the way of Amy Winehouse.
But I’m a decrepit old geezer with no ambition for a “best celebrity beach body”. I am father to two girls, prime target market for the hysteria these mags peddle. One already expects her mother to be botoxed at a check-up. I dread the day either asks me do they look fat in something. I dread the day they think they look anything other than perfect.