I had the pleasure of being on Radio 4’s Womans Hour last week in order to talk about my favourite complaint; too many women in a house with only one bathroom.
The subject turned towards the competitiveness difference between male and female offspring.
Another guest, who had a house full of boys, told of how they turn even the simplest of tasks into a measure of who is the best.
I can’t say that the Molineaux females have ever been that competitive; preferring to gang together to discuss nails, makeup, clothes, and TV.
There are, however, odd occasions where they are quite happy to move in to fight mode. The one that springs to mind is when we organised family Easter Egg hunts for them when they were children.
As parents we tried to set the rules of the game such that each of the four girls would end up with an equal amount of chocolate.
Our intentions were rarely realised as the girls dashed around the house fighting their way towards their Easter reward.
Our girls are now grown up, with the youngest approaching nineteen, so such events are part of our collective folklore. Last year however we managed to perform a minor miracle and get all the girls, plus husbands, together for the Easter break.
The conversation soon turned to recollections of the fun they had all had during their earlier years, when my Mrs Molineaux’s eldest suggested they organised one now.
What you need to understand is that when she suggested that ‘they’ organised it what she actually meant was that I did it. The collective shout of ‘Daaaaaaaad!’ drew me from the kitchen to hear about their plans.
I dashed to the supermarket to see if there were any Easter eggs left at such short notice and managed to collect together enough items to make it a true competition.
As in earlier years the family were sent out for thirty minutes so that I could run around the house like a mad man with handfuls of melting chocolate.
When they returned I explained the rules not least so that our new son-in-laws could join in too. They looked slightly bemused and for a moment I worried about their safety but I figured they were old enough to deal with what ever trauma might come their way through this new experience.
I signalled the start of the race and too our amazement, and parental delight, the girls reverted to young children again and assumed their earlier roles. Daughter number one screamed her way from room to room. Daughter number two failed to see even the most obvious of hidden treasure. Offspring number three quietly collected a hoard of quality chocolate, and Mrs Molineaux’s youngest happily took chocolate from her sister’s collections.
It was like going back in time except that is for the presence of two rather bemused lads who didn’t quite know what had hit them.
Are males more competitive than females; probably yes but not when it comes to Easter egg hunts.
Competitive Girls
Empty House
Sunday was a very strange day; it was almost as if time stood still. I am not referring here to the end of the Manchester derby where the ref seemed to be set on confirming that time is indeed relative. Seeing that my allegiances are of a red hue I was more than happy with the result.
The slowing of time that I refer to was when we dropped our youngest daughter off at her new student home in York.
She is technically an adult so one might wonder what the fuss is all about but there we were with all the other worried looking parents, letting our offspring fly.
Time stood still as we watched and waited for the right time to leave and return home.
It was obvious that all but a few of the new university students were more than keen for their parents to depart; I believe the announcement that there was live music and cheap alcohol available in the student bar drove this wish to be left alone.
My wife did what mums do and fussed her way around our daughter’s new room. I did what dads do and made sure her TV was tuned in correctly.
It was clear, however, that we could stall no longer; we were no longer required and so Mrs M stopped fluffing the pillows and I put the remote control down and we prepared to head back to our quiet and daughter free home.
I had made the ultimate sacrifice of missing the football in order to deliver our precious package to York and so on the way home I was quick to switch the radio. I managed to catch the last and controversial five minutes and twenty-seven seconds of the match.
Judging by the tone of several text messages my many Man City supporting g friends did not share my delight in the result.
Still celebrating this Mrs M and I began to reminisce on our twenty-five years of having children in our home.
It was at this point that time started to speed up as we asked the question that all parents of a certain age ask at times like this; ‘where has all the time gone?’
The paradox of time is that in the same moment of reflection the birth of our youngest daughter seemed like only yesterday and many years ago all mixed together.
We arrived home to a house that still had all the signs of having had a teenager manically filling suitcases with essential items of clothes.
We enjoyed having the freedom of being able to choose any programme on the TV and waiting for a text message from daughter number four assuring us that all was ok.
When the message finally arrived we eagerly looked to see how our precious girl was coping without us.
It read: going 2 club, can U bring my coat phone charger and extra money on Tuesday night.
We should have been annoyed at having to make the trip to York again but felt comforted that we were still needed.
When lol means laugh out loud
Some friends were rather pleased to receive a hand written letter this week; yes, a hand written letter!
They were both amazed and excited, and I have to say I understand their feelings. I cannot remember the last time I had the fun of trying to decipher the scrawl of another human being.
Most communications these days are either computer generated being sent by email or text. The language and writing style in these new forms of dialogue are often completely different than the more traditional style.
Mrs Molineaux’s youngest, who is fully versed in this new condensed messaging system, got me thinking the other day. She was sending a message via her mobile phone and asked ‘How do you spell………?’
Herein lies the problem; she wanted to know how to express the noise you make when you are offering sympathy or emotional agreement. The sound that phonetically sounds like the word ‘or’ but with more of an ‘a’ sound in it.
She tried Ah but that can sound like an expression of surprise. Her sisters joined the conversation and offered Argh then realised that it sounded like what you would shout if you had trapped your finger in a draw. Apparently the inclusion of the letter ‘g’ makes it a harder sound.
The eventually settle on Aaaaaaah which, to my mind, still has the potential to lead to confusion.
Such is the world of the mobile phone conversation. Even though they have the facility for what is known as predictive text (it guesses the word you want as you start to enter the first few letters), we still feel the need to shorten words and phrases.
Using the number 4 instead of taking hours typing the three letters FOR is a favourite. Time is of the essence it seems because it is not unusual to receive a message containing ‘NE’ as a replacement for ‘ANY’. It hardly seems worth the effort. Daughter number three answered one of my messages with a simple Gr8 to let me know that my suggestion was, in fact, GREAT. Marvellous!
Some of this is a generational thing and I can see a difference in the way I type these quick messages compared with my daughters. This said, my mother, who is in her seventies types text messages in a different way than my generation. She still insists on including correct punctuation; something that must take her a long time to do.
The whole thing is set to cause generational confusion I am sure. A male colleague recently sent me a joke via my mobile phone and ended the text with ‘lol’.
I was surprised if not a little scared because had always understood this to mean lots of love. I mean, I appreciated his friendship but I wasn’t ready for such shows of emotion.
When I asked him about his greeting he informed me that the youth of today have now redesignated lol to mean Laugh Out Loud.
Argh!
