I never thought you and I would become intimately acquainted, because bacon. But it seems we are in fact destined to meet after all, because of a Small Person and its love of animals.

Perhaps I should have seen you coming, vegetarianism. Because I have in fact always had a wussy soft spot for animals myself. I grew up with cats and dogs, but not in that real life farm/stable girl way that breeds pragmatism and realism. In a fluffy, ‘ahhh it’s sooooo cute’ kind of a way. The dog was my best friend and confidant. (The cat hated me but that’s a different story).

Yet for some reason I had always vaguely assumed that I would be really cool about food production processes and totally matter of fact and honest with my children. In my imagination I would become suddenly and unexpectedly outdoorsy, wearing a waxed jacket, strolling around in Hunters wellies (how much????) and pointing out all the cuts of meat on a real life cow frolicking in a field.  My child would LISTEN, and even smile at my wisdom, perhaps asking nice, comfortable questions.

(It continues, btw, to be one of my greatest disappointments in life that I didn’t miraculously turn into a new and better person with kids. Turns out I’m just me but with PTSD, chronic sleep deprivation, extra neurosis – and passengers).  

I never, ever thought I’d actively lie about where meat came from. I mean who does that? But then I was gifted with a Fussy Eater. Something I had previously assumed didn’t exist and was just the product of poor parenting. (I was a DICKHEAD. I’m working on it).

Every meal with a Fussy Eater is an exercise in complex and detailed negotiation. We discuss the philosophical fundamentals of a ‘meal’, the true meaning of what constitutes a ‘bite’, and the semantic value of the word ‘more’. E.g:

Me: “Please can you eat some more carrots?”
Big Small Person: “I have eaten more already!”
Me: “No, I mean more on top of that more.”
BSP: “But I already did the more!”
(Repeat x 100).

The negotiation takes place over what is a average 2 hour meal time. (I really wish that was an exaggeration). Every mouthful is precious, and giving the Big Small Person any excuse to dismiss a whole (other) food group is literally unthinkable.

Let me set the scene. Sprouts very early on became ‘baby cabbages’ in our world. Cauliflower is referred to as ‘mini snow trees’. Tomato ketchup is ‘red sauce’ (you know, the stuff they put at the bottom of pizzas which absolutely no way has anything at all, ever, to do with tomatoes. No Siree, no tomatoes here). Every twee term has been deployed, every euphemism, every stealth vitamin and subliminal mineral – every bloody trick in the book. We have literally made up anthems to sing as different food items are ingested. My personal favourite remains ‘Pink Meat, like the piggies eat’ to the tune of ‘Go West’ by the Pet Shop Boys. (This is our term for gammon, and yes, pink is a motivational tool in our house, not merely a colour).

We have begged. We have bribed. We have shamelessly emotionally blackmailed by pretending individual peas are sad and lonely and just want to go down into her tummy to join their Mummy and Daddy peas. We have even given each pea a name and a voice. (You cannot begin to understand the depth of my hatred for myself, or the magnitude of the desperation which has led to such ridiculous measures. Don’t judge me until you’ve been there).

Meat, as you can see from ‘Pink Meat’ example (I defy you not to be singing this next time you eat gammon), has been something we’ve both – by mutual and silent consensus – become quieter and quieter about as the child gets older. Because she has now reached the stage where she’s perfectly capable of associating chicken with, well, chickens. And lamb with lambs – including her stuffed wooly pal ‘Lamby’ that’s been with her from birth.

So we have gradually fallen into the keeping of the Secret Of The Meat. But this secret, I fear, is not destined to remain in the bag for very much longer.

My first inkling, vegetarianism, of just how fast our tracks are hurtling towards each other, came on a leisurely weekend morning, kids playing happily, with a rare moment of Mummy and Daddy telly running innocuously in the background. It was a cooking programme, where some semi-celebrity chef was gutting a fish. And inevitably the Big Small Person froze amidst the Lego and stared.

BSP: “What’s he doing to that fish mummy?”
Pause. Mounting horror.
BSP:  “Is that a REAL fish?”
Pause. Note of actual panic.
BSP:  “We don’t REALLY eat animals do we Mummy?”
Tactical deployment of imploring eyes.
BSP: “That’s not kind is it Mummy? We don’t do that, do we Mummy?”

What would you do????  “No Darling, no!” I crooned/lied while desperately mashing my hand against the telly buttons.  “Let’s watch some Peppa Pig shall we?” In hindsight this probably wasn’t the wisest of diversion moves. Because we definitely don’t eat pigs. Or bacon. Mmmmmm bacon…

In fact, vegetarianism, I blame kids media far more than I blame you. Because we bring children up on a diet of Shaun the Sheeps, Peter Rabbits, kindly cows and anthropomorphised chickens. And then we merrily serve them up as meals, possibly even at the same time. Ham sarnie in front of Peppa, anyone? Fish fingers under the televisual glow of Nemo? Nuggets before Chicken Licken as tonight’s bedtime story? Hardly consistent parenting!

Our children’s role models, heroes and best cuddly friends are the very animals we then expect them to gobble down at dinner time. It’s frankly a miracle any of them grow up carnivorous at all.

I do also have to take some of the blame onto my own shoulders, because I have been an active part of this process myself. I have encouraged the child’s interest in animals and animal welfare.

Like many toddlers she exhibited a natural affinity for sadism at an early age, and would try to exterminate or torture her fellow creatures by doing things like stamping on ants or pulling the cat’s tail – for the kicks (and inevitably –  scratches). Like many parents – horrified by the prospect of breeding a mini psychopath – I leapt right in with lessons of empathy. Think how the ant feels. How would you like it if someone bigger than you chased you into a corner and pulled your hair? No Darling, we don’t do that to animals. Gentle hands! Kind strokes!  Unless of course you are killing them for their delicious flesh.

It just doesn’t work, does it?

If I’m honest with myself, vegetarianism, I’ve been avoiding you for large parts of my life. I went out of my way, for instance, not to see that horrendous battery chicken documentary a few years ago, which has ruined cheap supermarket breasts for large numbers of meat-eating middle-class shoppers. I turned over from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his River Cottage Farm and it’s ethical meat rearing, slaughtering and consuming. I didn’t want to know. It might have made me think too hard, and that might have made me flee into your celery arms and spongy tofu bosom even sooner.

Having once been vaguely bullied by some Friesians on a stroll through their field, I even convinced myself I could probably take one of the bitches in a fight, and especially if I could afterwards munch on it’s juicy steaky bits. (After un-caking them of poo, obvs). I hardened my heart against their big brown eyes by focussing on this one instance of unwarranted aggression and by simply not looking. It was easy. Not thinking generally is, I find.

But now I’m going to have to face some home truths. And the truth is I can’t reconcile my own (admittedly fluffy) love of animals with my love of roast chicken. And bacon. (OK, so I know there are many better arguments – practical and ethical – for vegetarianism other than the bleeding-heart cute thing, but these are not the factors swaying me or – more importantly – my Small Person).

The fact is I couldn’t take a heifer in one-to-one combat, not even with a stun gun. Not even a bazooka. I just could never bring myself to squeeze the trigger. Hell, I can’t even effectively swat spider with a newspaper and I am ACTIVELY HOSTILE towards them. I genuinely wish they were all dead – I just don’t want to kill them personally. I could probably bring myself to personally kill a fish, if I was really hungry.  And stranded on a desert island. And if Bear Grylls was insisting. But I’d have guilt-laced nightmares for at least a week.

So vegetarianism, at some point in the next 5 years we will meet. We’re on a collision course. Because when the Secret Of The Meat is finally out, Dadonthenetheredge and I will be forced to confront our latent shame by the almighty power of Small Person logic and morality. We will no longer be roasting Lamby on a Sunday. We will change our meat-eating ways – probably for good. You are my fate, vegetarianism, and I will embrace you when you arrive.

But first I will eat a bacon sandwich. And I will savour its crispy, salty, goodness while I still can.

Mumonthenetheredge

Don’t get me wrong, it’s clear that in some ways Disney must LOVE parents (and their disposable incomes) as they keep creating wonderful child-entrancing animations that keep the little darlings occupied when I can’t be bothered to otherwise engage with them.  On a bad day, we’ve already watched two Disney offerings by 9am, and I’m thanking God for their existence.  

But on other days, I’m comforting a sensitive small person who is simply distraught a character she identifies with hasn’t got a mummy or daddy.  When you are small and your world consists mostly of your mummy and daddy, this is BIG STUFF.

There are some children I’m sure who take these absences and even horrific deaths in good part.  Mine are not among them.  And actually, this isn’t that uncommon.  In fact it runs in my family because as a small child I was (apparently) similarly afflicted with a morbid interest in the immediate lineage of, well, pretty much anything I came across.  ‘Where’s its Muzzer?’ is in fact part of our family dialect, as a question I would ask upon seeing anything, animal, vegetable or mineral, not accompanied by a bigger version of itself.

So perhaps, given this experience, I should have been a wee bit more cautious about what my small person was introduced to.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not stupid.  I didn’t sit her down in front of Bambi.  I’m not mean.  But I admit that I thought The Little Mermaid would be fairly innocuous (give or take the un-feminist undercurrents [boom boom]).  Not so.  Immediately on meeting Ariel’s elderly father, Triton, the small person wanted to know where her mummy had gone.  Obviously, I went with ‘the shops’.  It seemed as likely an explanation as any other.  Several years down the line, the question of the whereabouts of said mother, and what shops she’s gone to, for how long, and what she was buying, have somewhat tarnished our Little Mermaid viewing pleasure.  

I completely understand the narrative justification, in that removing caregivers and authoritarians from the equation creates more space for adventure.  I also understand that not every family has two parents.  But this really is an epidemic!  Surely there are other storytelling devices that could be used, sometimes?  Come on Disney, get more creative!  And less murdery.  Why not, for instance, invent a spurious reason for a princess to be removed from her parents and bought up in the woods by three spinsters/fairies?  Or, say, in a tower by a youth-obsessed narcissist?  Or maybe she could run away from home and join the army as a cross-dresser?  What?  Oh yeah.  Well, keep it up.

It is not necessarily that I want to protect my children from all exposure to death, thereby leaving them wholly unprepared for the horrors and traumas of real life.  It’s more that I’d like 90 minutes of peace without parent-loss-induced wailing, and without deep conversations about the meaning/futility of life, ok?

Anyhoo, I have gathered below my evidence for Disney hating parents.

1. Bambi  

Nuff said.  This film has been traumatising the young for decades.  

2.  The Lion King

I saw this after the age of 15 and I still cry when Mufasa dies.  No worries?  When a parent has just been trampled to death in front of you and you believe it to be your fault??? Wow.  This has caused innumerable tough conversations/teary convulsions across the small person world.  At nursery they just wind right through to the Pumba and Timon bit.  

3.  The Little Mermaid

Where IS her mother?  Has this shopping trip lasted all 16 of her years?  I think probably yes.  This, in combination with Ariel’s much older and seriously neglectful father, has left her with an obvious need for love which leads her to give up pretty much everything for a pretty face she’s glimpsed once in the romantic light of fireworks.  (We’ve all been there, sister, and it doesn’t end well).  Who does she turn to?  The ample and maternal bosom of the Sea-witch…  It just goes to show that a rasta-crab babysitter is no substitute for attentive and loving parenting.  Dammit.  

4.  Snow White

Personally, I’d rather read ‘The Rabbit Who Wanted To Go To Sleep’ – the world’s most BORING book (the secret to its effectiveness) – 15 times end to end, rather than watch Snow White.  But sometimes (perhaps thrice in living memory) I do have to give in and let the small person have its way.  Inevitably, she wants to know what has happened to the original mother, and why she’s been replaced by the Wicked Stepmother.  (Personally, I believe the Stepmother is a perfectly rational woman who has only been driven to murderous rage because SW is so fucking irritating).  

5.  Cinderella

Even in the introduction to the cartoon the narrator identifies Cinderella’s daddy as a pretty indifferent, if not downright shitty father.  We’re not certain what happened to the dead mother, but the father follows her example within the first few seconds.  Very wise.  This leaves an engagingly vulnerable orphan to be entertainingly abused.  Another classic!  

6.  Beauty and the Beast

Where is Belle’s mum?  This is presumably where she got her looks from.  Just like Ariel, she’s so love starved she’s a Stockholm Syndrome waiting to happen.  So perhaps this one is a necessary plot device.  Not that I think kids are minutely examining the accuracy of the character’s psychological motivations, but hey.     

(Btw, does anyone else out there fancy the Beast waaaaay more than the Prince he turns into?  Just me?  Feel free to examine my psychological motivations at your leisure…)

[Disclaimer:  I do understand, by the way, that none of the films so far were originally authored by Disney (inc Lion King’s Hamlet roots).  I don’t care.  I need someone to blame].  

7.  Frozen

The Frozen parents, who have obviously NOT read a manual on the raising of healthy, well-adjusted gifted children, are disposed of by means of a 40 foot wave on a spurious trip abroad (probably their first holiday without the kids), in order for Elsa to become Queen.  Also, why was poor Kristoff raised by Trolls?  Is this strictly necessary to the plot?   Anyway, in our house, the parents are euphemistically ‘lost at sea’.  I like to think that their slightly awkward return is actually the plot for Frozen 2.  Let’s see.  

8.  The Princess and the Frog

Beloved father dies early on, in order to inspire a mental work-ethic that leads to froggy voo-doo shenanigans.  What fun!  

9.  Tarzan

Parents eaten by Tigers in the first four minutes.  

10.  Pocahontas

Another missing mother, older father.  This mother handily bequeaths her daughter a necklace to be symbolically/incriminatingly ripped from her neck towards the end of the film.  

11.  The Jungle Book

Obvs.  

12.  Hercules

Who cares?  No one’s ever watched it.  See also The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  If I did watch them I’m pretty sure they would hate parents too.  

13.  Aladdin

Where is Jasmine’s mother?  Where are both of Aladdin’s parents??  These two look so remarkably similar I have incest worries…  You can see it in the eyebrows.  Maybe one day I’ll write the back story.  

14.  Finding Nemo

Mother is horribly killed by a Bad Fish at the very beginning.  Along with all Nemo’s brothers and sisters.  Basically it’s a massacre.  Classified U.  (??????)

15.  Princess Sophia

No daddy here, folks.  This leaves Sophia’s mother free to seduce King Roland over his sweaty stockinged foot in a ‘witty’ Cinderella role reversal, making Sophia a Princess, who after all are the only girls truly entitled to adventure.  

16.  Ice Age

Yes, I know this isn’t Disney, but I rarely require consistency or logic in the evidence I use to build any particular thesis.  Drowning mother nobly hands baby to big, hairy, tusky mammoth.  Responsible parenting in a nutshell.  I told the big kid she was just going for a swim and would meet up with them later.  

Look, I could probably go on, but this is becoming a fairly long blog post and you’ve probably stopped reading it by now.
For my part the one saving grace for Disney and their now poorly-documented penchant for matricide/patricide is the inexplicably underrated Brave.  Here the parental relationship is actually central to the plot, even if the mother is a control-freak bint who spends most of the film as a bear.  At the end she and Merida gallop their horses through the highlands, hair flying, bonds tying.  It’s a beautiful thing, and me and my girls’ favourite part.  More please, Disney!

Mumonthenetheredge

Before children, bodily fluids and functions probably played a relatively and gratifyingly small part in your life. No more.

Suddenly you will find yourself finding the contents of nappies all consuming, and will freely discuss the consistency of human faeces over the Sunday dinner table, like that’s actually okay. Innocent bystanders will be discreetly gagging and eyeing the mustard seeds on their roast beef with new disfavour.

This is not the person you thought you’d become. You had standards. But the fact is – like everything else – they’ll change.  You will find you have new thresholds for ick, and you will eventually discover yourself doing abhorrent and disgusting things whilst barely batting an eyelid.

I’m not really talking about the surprise wee that inevitably catches the new and unwary parent in the face during a nappy change, the baby puke in the mouth when doing an ill-advised post-feed aeroplane, nor the runny poonami disaster that requires an immediate bath for two. These are very much rights of parental passage. They are also events in which you are largely a hapless victim.

I’m not even counting the repellent moments you will actually and unfathomably celebrate – like when your kid finally does a shit in the potty and you pour it down the loo, and get the splashback right in the eye.  (You’ll be so pleased not to be scrubbing another pooey gusset you won’t mind in the least, and will in fact go straight back to praising the offensive offender).

No, what I am concerned about here are the physically repellent incidences where you are complicit in the grossness.  The ones where you suddenly find yourself a willing – and relatively unphased – participant.  The ones you would never have dreamed you would do before you had children.  

Certainly I would never have dreamed of these things as I have suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder since childhood and can tell you categorically that Lady Macbeth was an amateur hand washer.  Not even trying.

I remember a specific incident many moons ago at a friends house, when she had children and I wasn’t even sure I ever wanted any.  (This next bit didn’t help, btw). I blithely went to the loo – and suddenly found my sock wet through. Her little boy, who was toilet training, had ‘missed’. Upon recovering my composure enough to report this, I was told (and I quote)

“Oh, it’s only a bit of wee. It’s mostly just water.”

FILTERED THROUGH HUMAN BEING!

FILTERED THROUGH HUMAN BEING!

FILTERED THROUGH HUMAN BEING!

I screamed silently in my head. (At least I think it was silently).

She may well have provided me with a new pair of socks but I can’t really remember because I was too bloody traumatised. What I do know is that upon returning home I burned my socks and dipped my feet in pine disinfectant.

Boy are those days looooong gone. So here is a short and in no way definitive list of some of the revolting things you will do as a mum or dad.

1. You will welcome random gifts of snot

These could come at anytime, regardless of whether you’re near a tissue or wipe, accompanied by the dreaded refrain “Mummy I’ve got some snot!”. You will happily accept the snot because the alternative will be to find it later that day matted in their hair/stuck to the sofa/smeared across the fave stuffed toy/dangling from the cat/transferred from sed sofa to a guest’s bottom.

Snot will be a new part of your life. Babies have an average of 1,436 colds in their first year. (Approx).  It will run thick from their tiny nose, and will stick in strings to your nipple as you breastfeed.  And as long as the latch is good and the baby is feeding, here’s the thing; you won’t give a damn. You will become inured to the green slime oozing from your toddlers nostrils, because frankly you can’t face catching them to wipe it AGAIN (because they will resist – strongly).  Snot will grace your shoulders and knees and you will give up wiping in-effectually at this too.  Black clothing will no longer be your friend and saviour.  

Eventually you will learn to follow the example of your childcare provider and let it form a nice crusty plug so you can take a couple of hours off wiping duty.  I remember in the olden days seeing these kids and wrinkling my nose, thinking, ‘Why aren’t those parents wiping up that horrible snot?’  Now I know.

2.  You will catch vomit in your bare hands

Possibly you’re round at Grandma’s, at a restaurant, or you’re on a play date.  It doesn’t matter where, it doesn’t matter why.  You. Will. Hold. Somone. Else’s. Sick. In. Your. Bare. Hands.

This is completely disgusting and the very thought of it would have made me vomit in my own mouth just a few short years ago.  Whether it’s a refluxy baby or a feverish toddler, sick will now be part of your life, as surely as snot.  And if the only available receptacle to contain the contamination is your hands, you won’t hesitate to use them.

3.  You will consume food partially ingested by another being

At some point – when you least expect it – you will be given an item of food, partially sucked to death, that your child has spat out and is now refusing to have in their immediate vicinity.  There are no wipes.  There are no tissues.  There is no bin.  The child is threatening to smear this tidbit across your friend’s cream carpet/your only clean work shirt/the ball pool.  There is only one thing to do.  So you man-up (mother-up), pop it out of the way in your own mouth and dispose of it for good.  You may even lick their fingers, to boot.

What’s even worse is that you will in fact welcome the opportunity to have a guilt free sugar rush – things have gotten that bad.  I have even licked encrusted yoghurt off the baby’s ear on the way into the Doctor’s, because obviously I don’t want them to think I’m a bad mother.  (It may have once been strawberry flavoured).

4.  You will drink your own breast milk

It’ll start small. Licking a few drops off your hand. Giving it a quick taste to see what it’s like. Pretty soon you’ll be stuck under a sleeping baby with a cup of coffee either too hot or too black, and you’ll just give up and squirt some in.

To put that in perspective, you are ingesting your own bodily fluids. Before kids you would only have imagined this scenario if you were for some unspecified reason stranded in a desert.  And then you’d have doubted your own fortitude.

5. You will sleep on miscellaneous wet patches

They won’t be the good kind of wet patch, and they won’t even have been made by you.  Those days are also long gone, my friend.  It’s the middle of the night (ok, it might even be the middle of the day).  The baby is sick on your duvet, or the bigger small person has a nappy leak on your sheets. You will look at the stain, sum up its size and severity against the effort of changing a king sized bed, washing and drying the linen. You will then give it a cursory rub with a baby wipe, and go back to sleep. (You will find suddenly that there are very few spills or stains that can’t be satisfactorily fixed with a baby wipe. They are the cleaning industry’s greatest nemesis and best kept secret).

Your bed sheets probably won’t get changed more than six times a year, now, anyway. They won’t be ready to walk to the machine – they will have to slither as they are so buttery soft with sweat, regurgitation and urine. And you won’t care that much.

After all, it’s just a bit of wee.

It’s mostly just water really, isn’t it?

Mumonthenetheredge