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СпутникиРНSpaceXРоскосмосNASAMy daughter prefers her mother to me so much that to suggest anything else really would be laughable
“Who’s cooler -” I asked at the dinner table last week, “me or your Mum?” My son didn’t even hesitate. “Dad” he said, pointing at me and giving a thumbs up. I sat back in my chair and basked in the international hand signal of “cool guy”. “Cooler in what way?” asked his mother, in an act of craven desperation you’d never hear from a cool guy like me. “All ways” my wise and discerning son replied, “but it’s okay, because I like Dad… and she likes Mum.”
He was pointing at his little sister, who was sitting on my wife’s lap at the time, since she is indeed so devoted to her mother that this is how she currently eats all her meals. My daughter smiled at this and nodded, giving her mother a great big hug to underline the point.
“You love both of us the same, I’m sure,” countered my wife, perhaps worried that this exercise in saying the quiet part loud had gone too far. “Sure,” said my son, as both he and my daughter burst into laughter at the very concept.
In truth, my daughter prefers her mother to me so much that to suggest anything else really would be laughable. I guess I don’t really mind not being her favourite, but I wouldn’t mind being her favourite a bit more of the time. My moments in the sun have been fragmentary and limited: occasional joy at seeing me when I’ve been away for a few days; brief sprints into my consoling arms when my cruel and unfeeling wife is trying to untangle her hair; and those sweet occasions when she comes to me, eyes wide, requesting something her Mum has already denied her. Then, and only then, does Daddy have any utility, but I’ll take what I can get.
Incidentally, I say “Daddy”, but so programmed is she to call her mother’s name first that she calls me, exclusively, “Mumm-Daddy”, my title always following on from my wife’s, in the manner of someone correcting themselves upon realising the name of the Uefa Cup changed some time ago.
Bedtimes are where the feeling is most stark. Here, kindness takes a holiday and bluntness reigns supreme. During waking hours, my daughter can at least attempt circumspection as to her parental preference, moderating her language in a manner that reveals at least some hesitance about hurting my feelings. This level of self-awareness in a four-year-old can often be more upsetting than just having her state things plainly, since it implies she’s fully aware that I have feelings, but doesn’t see the need to do much about it. “I do like you too, Daddy,” she’ll say, as if court-ordered, while blocking off the space beside her and my wife on the couch, and asking whether I wouldn’t mind sitting on the floor.
At bedtime, however, all such decorum is forgotten. This is where her true id resides, and the full power of her preference articulated. “I don’t like you, I like Mummy,” she’ll say, sometimes with such vehemence that my son will come upstairs to hold my hand in support. This is a thoughtful gesture, albeit somewhat hamstrung by his immediate need to then ask me 612 questions about Minecraft, while I’m attempting to settle a four-year-old who regards me as a stranger in her home.
He, by contrast, is a daddy’s boy – at least lately. When he was my daughter’s age, he too preferred my wife. She was the centre of his cosmos, God of all creation, the being who’d hung the stars and moon. I was more like God’s friend from work, a well-regarded gentleman who did an awful lot of feeding, bathing, cleaning and cuddles, but whose name he just couldn’t quite place. Any time she walked into the room, he’d react like he was in the throes of Beatlemania, laughing and cheering and screaming at the top of his lungs. When I’d follow her into that very same room 0.18 seconds later, he’d regard me with the cordial smile you’d offer a friend’s uncle if you bumped into them in Halfords. “Ah, yes,” his thin grin seemed to say, “Father isn’t it? I trust you’re well.”
He came round to me eventually, in his case because I know lots more about football and computer games than his Mum does. I’m sure my daughter will come round too. Not that I mind, one way or the other, you understand. Cool guys like me? We don’t worry about things like that.