Kidults

Kidults are those people who refuse to grow up. They say things like, ‘Having a baby won’t change my life, absolutely no way.’  They say that all you need is a babysitter, it won’t cost much and yes you might be knackered the next day but you just get through it, by hair of the dog.

I want to ask them one question. Are you mad? This attitude to having babies and the certainty some kidults hold up about their existence not changing is frankly stupid. Of course you can get a babysitter, all day and all night, if you like.  In fact, why stop there? Have an almost childfree life, if you so choose. But the truth is that these people do not take into account the anxiety and emotional impact of a baby on one’s life.  That said, some do claim that their lives haven’t changed at all since baby was born. I just do not believe them.

There’s a song –The Oldest Swinger in Town –which is the story of a man in the process of realising that his age separates him from younger people. I imagine this man in a nightclub, leaning at a bar, a pint and a whisky chaser, eyeing up young girls who, when they notice he is ogling them, give a grimace of disgust and mutter, ‘pervert’, to each other. He might wear a shirt, opened too far, maybe there’ll be some gold around his neck, and maybe he has little self-awareness. These girls don’t want you, or any Peter Stringfellow lookalike, they want young, fit men of roughly their own age. It doesn’t prove so attractive either, even if you are rich.

There’s another type of kidult too – those who encourage others to be ‘zany’ (awful word) to do crazy things like when they were in university. Steal traffic cones and put them on your head, pick daffodils from people’s gardens, sing loudly in the street at 3 am, even on a weekday when non-kidults have to go to work and are trying to get some sleep to deal with what will come at them the next day. As Tim in The Office says, ‘It’s other people’s zaniness I can’t stand. I speculate that what Tim means here, and what so precisely chimes with my own view, is that zany acts feel phony, false and forced. It’s not real spontaneous fun. It’s planned, it’s stereotypical and in the main, it’s not funny.

I do realize that maybe some people would accuse me of not wanting to have fun and of being too serious. They could not be further from the truth. A genuine laugh is priceless. A sharp witty comment that makes all laugh heartily is one of the world’s treasures. But there is a time for seriousness and getting stuff done. Keep yourselves to yourselves kidults, you’re not kidding me, but you may well be kidding yourselves.