Rebel all you like but we all turn into our parents in the end

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Back in the dim and distant past, the ultimate threat for bad behaviour around our place was that the guards would come and get you, and stick you for an extended period down the big black hole.

Presumably this was supposed to be some sort of solitary confinement in the bowels of the local station, and a location that – even before the advent of Childline and children’s rights – would be an utterly inappropriate punishment for a young fella who didn’t eat his tea. 

The fact that, clearly, no such place existed – in the Garda barracks or anywhere else around Oughterard – was immaterial, as was the reality that most of the local constabulary were decent people with much better things to be doing with their time.

But to this day, I still tend to think of the black hole as the ultimate sanction for bad behaviour – it was the mother’s clarion call to instantly restore order from the jaws of domestic disaster.

And then, in the blink of an eye, you become your parents and you threaten your own offspring with something almost as ludicrous.

You repeat the same threats and phrases that your parents used on you – no matter how ridiculous they may be.

“Sweets? I’ll give you sweets,” you roar – which, in any other context, would qualify as the perfect result. Except they and you all know you mean the exact opposite – and the same applies to money, staying out or up late, Playstation games or any of the other treats that brighten a child’s day.

And the ultimate answer if they question your authority, as in ‘why do I have to go to bed?’ Truth is it’s never changed through the generations – it’s the same explanation your dad offered you: ‘because I’m your father and I said so’.

We’re also good at observations and rhetorical questions: “Money doesn’t grow in trees, you know”;  “I wasn’t born yesterday” or “If he put his hand in the fire, would you do it too?”

When did the joys of our youth give way to the catchphrases of our fathers?

“Don’t eat that; it’ll spoil your dinner” or “Don’t make me stop this car” or “Where do you think you’re going dressed like that?” or “turn down that bloody racket” or “what time do you think this is?” even though you’re the only one capable of focusing on a watch.

And anyway, when did four in the morning go from a time you yourself fell in through the front door to an hour you now associate solely with groggily getting out of bed to go to the toilet so that your bladder doesn’t rupture in your sleep?

Of course we’re not exactly the same; we have access to more technology and perhaps a greater awareness of the world at large, simply because communications have opened it all up in a way they could never have imagined.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.