My son has gone to big school. He’s over the terrifying period, he’s made some friends and he’s settled in. I still take him in the car but he makes sure I drop him off a safe distance from the school gate and we now ‘bro fist’ instead of hug and off he goes in to the day job. We’re still close but times are a changing. He’s eleven, going on sixteen.
In describing my current relationship with my son, I would say I am on the cusp of being a Dad that is not cool As any parent will tell you, your kids think you’re a god when they’re young (between 0-5), they then enter a phase where they try to have adult conversations with you, which is beautiful and loving but also hilarious (try to laugh behind their back, rather than in front of them, to minimise any self-esteem issues).
You also find common ground with shared interests. In our case it’s football and Larry David’s,’ Curb your enthusiasm.’ But as they edge towards double figures, you can feel the independent streak coming through and your role as a parent diminishes. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, this was best displayed by my son switching from Spurs (my lifelong love) to Chelsea (I’m not so keen).
Despite this, every now and again, you get a little glimmer of hope. A feeling that all may not be lost and that your son still looks up to you as some sort of modern day superhero. We had such a moment last week. As part of being the ‘cool set’ at school, my son and his friends have started to share music. They’ll get together in breaks (not play time, as I keep calling it) and share music from their phones.
My son has my old iphone, with some of my favourite artists and albums still on there and when he came back from school last week and said that he’d been listening to my playlist, I feared another Chelsea moment.
I need not have panicked, as these precious words came out of his mouth; ‘Hey Dad, I really like Stone Roses and Sugarhill Gang.’ After more chat, I discovered he also likes Jay-Z and Gorillaz and he loved ‘Don’t look back in anger’ by Oasis.
I’ve still got it and I’m still a cool Dad.
Thank god he didn’t scroll down to Q for Quo.