I had to babysit a ten-year-old and an eight-year-old last week. My girlfriend offered to look after them while their mother did some last-minute Christmas shopping. She’s nice like that, my girlfriend.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I was a bit scared before their visit. After all, the last time I spoke to a ten year-old, I was one myself. I felt deeply unprepared. What are ten-year-olds like? I wondered. What kind of developmental milestones have they reached by that stage? Can you have conversations with them? Or do you just stick a crayon in their chubby fists and wipe away their drool occasionally?
They arrived. Firstly, I was surprised by how seemingly capable they were. They were able to do things by themselves, and they wore little coats and everything, almost like bonsai versions of normally-sized people.
The older one even shook my hand, which was weird, like having a pixie’s hand in yours.
‘I’m Beatrice,’ she piped.
‘Nice to meet you, Beatrice,’ I said shyly, pumping her pixie hand. The younger one hadn’t learnt how to shake hands yet. So I just held up my hand open-palmed to him, to show him I meant him no harm, and smiled in a way which was supposed to be kind of reassuringly aunt-like but probably made me seem like a lascivious paedo welcoming new prey.
My girlfriend spoke to them a bit like how she talks to me, sort of loudly and slowly and including lots of orders. It seemed to work well. But then she took the older one out of the room, leaving me sitting opposite the eight-year-old in deafening silence.
My palms started sweating.
‘So, Henry,’ I commenced, clearing my throat, ‘what are you doing for New Year’s Eve?’
He looked at me blankly and remained silent.
Fool! I mentally chided myself. He probably doesn’t know what New Year’s Eve is! Anyway, he’s eight! He doesn’t have New Year’s Eve plans! It’s not like he’s about to announce he’s pre-booked VIP entrance at Mahiki with champagne and nibbles!
‘So you’re on holiday at the moment?’ I tried again, while furiously texting my friend Tarry ‘topics of conversation for 8-yr-olds asap pls urgent’.
‘Yeah,’ he mumbled, not troubling to hide his boredom.
Ask them what they want for Christmas, Tarry texted back.
‘Is that a Blackberry?’ asked Henry, with a grudging flicker of interest.
‘It is indeed!’ I cried enthusiastically. ‘You can hold it if you like!’
I slipped the phone into his hands with exaggerated care to emphasise its fragility and specialness.
He inspected it for about three seconds and handed it back, bored. ‘My dad’s has a touchscreen.’
With that he got up and exited the room, repulsed by the conversational tedium. Almost instantly the ten-year-old took his place.
‘What do you want for Christmas, Beatrice?’ I asked brightly. She observed me dispassionately for a moment.
‘You do know my father’s just had a stroke,’ she said, with the air of someone pityingly dispensing information to a social inferior.
‘Yes,’ I said in a neutral yet resolute manner, determined not to show weakness.
‘Well, so I haven’t had a lot of time to go shopping,’ she continued, with the frazzled, world-weary air of an overworked investment banker reduced to buying last-minute gifts off Amazon. ‘But I’ve made Henry a present.’
She beckoned me closer so she could whisper what it was. ‘You know the story of King John?’ she hissed.
‘Yes,’ I lied firmly. I cannot afford to reveal ignorance in front of this freakish little prodigy, I thought. I will have to pretend to know everything in the world.
‘I’ve copied it out in my best handwriting, and drawn pictures at the bottom. That’s what I’m giving Henry.’
‘I’m sure he’ll love that,’ I said unconvincingly. What a crap present! I thought. I’d be pissed if someone gave me that.
‘Ooh, look!’ Beatrice squealed, her attention diverted by a comic figurine on the mantelpiece. ‘A bobble-head Jesus!’
‘Yes,’ I said sententiously. ‘Do you know about Jesus, Beatrice?’
Beatrice rolled her eyes in an unnecessarily exaggerated, theatrical style. ‘I’m an atheist,’ she drawled. ‘That’s how much I hate Jesus.’
Gosh! I thought, taken aback. That’s a bit harsh!
Mini-Richard Dawkins launched into a complex explanation about the lack of empirical rigour characterising the arguments of those responsible for spreading theological doctrine, but we were mercifully interrupted by the return of my girlfriend and Henry, the former bearing a bowl of biscuits and various icing implements.
We’d baked the biscuits the night before. We weren’t able to find any Christmassy cookie-cutters in the shop, so most of them were in the shape of spindly giraffes.
‘Giraffes!’ chuckled Beatrice, inspecting one of them. ‘I love it! Giraffes have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas – but, y’know, it’s so wrong, it’s right!’
I stared at her in disbelief.
No! I countered furiously in my head. What’s wrong is ten-year-olds delivering knowing little aperçus about confectional incongruity, in the manner of a wry Nigella Lawson! What’s wrong is the fact that you are almost certainly cleverer and generally more capable than me, 17 years your senior! And finally, what’s wrong is that despite your general precociousness, you keep licking the cookies to fine-tune your icing designs!
Kids today, eh. They may look just like scaled-down versions of ourselves, but they’re not like us at all. Trust me.
