Kids can be tiring
Bill Rea

My wife and I don't have children, although it would be kind of nice if that could change.

Despite that, my desire to experience the happiness that fathers traditionally enjoy, along with the aggravation my old man had to put up with, seems to take the occasional pause. And those occasions seem to coincide with when I am with my nephew and niece.

Please don't get the wrong idea. I am very fond of both of these kids, and I'm pretty sure they feel sort of the same about me (either that, or I'm better at kidding myself than I thought). And although I only get to see them occasionally, like maybe every couple of weeks, these times do provide a certain number of magical memories.

There was a joint family gathering at Beth's mother's house a couple of months ago, and I was somehow put to work doing something (I forget what) in the kitchen. Our little niece, who turned three just last week, came up to me while I was working and announced, "Uncle Bill, Mommy says you're supposed to give me a hug."

Now how do you reject an approach like that? So after a bit of negotiating, during which I secured the promise of a hug in return, I fulfilled my end of the arrangement to which my sister-in-law had signed me up.

And this little girl is generally easy on me. Somewhat different from her brother, two years her senior, who's been known to run up to me and ask, "Uncle Bill, can I climb you?"

I had two uncles as a kid, both of them fine fellows. And I grant I wasn't the nicest or most considerate kid on the block. But I never once sought permission to climb them. There was a pine tree in our back yard, there for the climbing when my dad wasn't watching.

So needless to say, these two kids can wear out an old guy like me without too much difficulty.

They are little bundles of unharnessed energy, lucky enough to have an uncle who's enough of a kid at heart to let them take certain advantages. And when these encounters have ended, and we have all gone our separate ways, I am often tempted to tell my wife to call 9-1- 1.

So you can see that the prospect of parenthood scares me a little. I am essentially an energetic person. Many of you reading this are aware of the hours I put into my work and the way I get around. At the risk of sounding like I'm boasting, I think it's accurate to say sedate people couldn't keep up such a pace. Yet two little kids can drive me to exhaustion. Fortunately for me, little children are not allowed to seek election to public office. If they were, I'd be finished in a matter of weeks. But then again, so would most media types (which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your opinion of the media).

So the concern is whether or not I would have the stamina for parenthood. There are probably some 20- something moms and dads out there reading this and nodding knowingly. I'm a lot older than that.

There are other things about being a parent that worry me a bit. I don't know what of disciplinarian I could be. The only role model I would have had for such a challenge has been dead for almost 16 years, and a lot of things he did I wouldn't dream of trying. I'm not trying to knock my father, who I think did the best he could in a task that I believe one has to approach by winging it. I doubt he ever read a book on parenting, largely because he was the type of guy who would have believed no useful book on the subject was ever written. But the fact is parents trying today the types of things my parents practised on my brother and myself in the interests of good child rearing would probably end up doing time.

Perhaps I am being harsh on the older generation.

But is it not often the case that the older generation is harsh on the up and coming one?

I was at a public meeting last week, dealing with policing issues, and I heard more than a few people, comment on how bad kids are today. Adults, many of them clearly a lot younger than your humble, were commenting on how contemporary kids can be intimidating, rude, disrespectful, violent and a menace to society. And I will concede that facts are facts. There are a lot of bad kids out there, just as there are a lot of bad adults too. People like Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olson and Charles Manson achieved their infamy long after they had achieved their majority.

While I can sympathize with people who complain about specific incidents involving young people I have very limited use for those people who would dump on a whole generation just because they are guilty of the sin of being young. That is especially the case when I reflect that this generation that so many might be inclined to condemn will produce the person who will authorize the issuance of my pension cheques (assuming I live long enough to collect them), dispense me the drugs that I will get at a seniors' rate (and we know what that is, don't we?) or administer in facility where I might eventually die. It will also produce the people who will teach my children., if I ever have any, and treat them if and when they become sick. It could also produce the person who finally cures cancer, the common cold and any number of ailments we have been trying to correct for centuries.

It is a well documented fact that coming generations have been criticized, sometimes harshly, by the ones already in control for thousands of years, and there have been occasions when the younger generation has stepped up and rebelled. It was a bunch of kids, maybe 10 years my senior, who caused some serious rebellions in the 1960s.

Kids will always be a little rebellious. All the adults reading this probably were, to differing degrees to be sure. A lot depended on what sorts of provocations we faced.

So would I have the stamina to deal with a rebellious teen in my 60s, and stand up and say "no" to him or her?

Of course, if things were to get really hot, I could always fall back on the line that fathers (including mine) have fallen back on for years, "Ask your mother."