Writing -- Baby Talk: A lot to live up to

The following article featured in a weekly column on parenting in the Women on Wednesday supplement of The Evening Echo, one of Ireland's leading regional daily newspapers. It appeared in the 06 October 2004 issue.

"Dad, what's that?"; "Dad, where's my blanky?"; "Dad, where's that bird going?"; "Dad, what's that doggie's name?"; "Dad… what's the square root of 238274?"

Okay, so I made the last one up, but it illustrates the point that as far as children are concerned their parents have the answer to every question under the sun. The twins ask questions incessantly, and while some are easy to answer others are completely impossible. I remember when they first uttered the word "Dad" a few years ago: I was giddy with excitement, overcome by emotion and, it has to be said, more than a little smug (at the time I didn't know that almost all babies say "Dad" first). These days, with the impossibly obscure questions flying thick and fast, Dad tends to be one of the last words I want to hear.

For young children it's inconceivable that Mum and Dad can be anything other than perfect. They don't see our inherent flaws: in their eyes we represent the pinnacle of knowledge, experience and achievement. At perhaps the most impressionable time in their lives we are the yardstick by which they judge all others. It's a tall order, and one that we can never really live up to. Sooner or later the children will have to deal with the crushing reality that Mum and Dad are far from perfect.

As they get older our children will choose other role models - heroes and heroines from the world of sport or entertainment perhaps - but in the meantime it's up to us. We have to lay the foundations that will support them their whole lives - foundations that have a profound effect on the people they will ultimately become.

Knowing that doesn't help much when the twins are at full tilt and their little sister is joining in at the top of her lungs. When they push us beyond the natural limits of parental endurance, as they are prone to sometimes, we just revert into survival mode. All thought of laying foundations for the future is forgotten in a simple desire to get through the moment.

If you could see us all at our worst you'd probably wonder, as I sometimes do, what sort of a flawed foundation we're laying for our three. On balance though there are much more pluses than minuses: the girls are an integral part of a solid family unit and we try our utmost to be positive role models most of the time. We slip up now and again, of course, but on the whole I don't think we do a bad job.

I guess in reality no parent can really judge how well they're doing in the early days. We're all far too close to the coal face of parenting to view our actions with anything approaching objectivity. It's only as the children grow, and start to show signs of the young people they will eventually become, that we start to get any real feedback on how successful we've been as role models. By then of course it's too late to change things.

Early parenting is very much a shot in the dark. You do what you think is the best thing at the time, perhaps sometimes with a thought to the future, but more often just to survive the day. With a combination of luck and judgement you hope and pray that the foundation you're laying for your children is a deep and solid one - but in the end only time will tell!