It feels like I’m sat in a school hall at lunch time. No, that’s being kind. I’m in the middle of a borstal canteen. I’m waiting for a young Ray Winston to come at me with a sock full of pool balls.But it’s me who is the daddy now and I’m sat with my two boys in McDonald’s.
Two big promises that my wife and I made when we had kids is that we won’t buy our kids toy guns and we won’t take them to McDonald’s. So after a trip to The Golden Arches full of Ket they’ll be sure to go home and shoot each other with NERF guns or ‘head shot’ some kid on Fortnite. There goes that promise.
Each year, our kids are given guns for their birthday presents from other kind parents. And after much consideration my wife and I realized, perhaps with resignation, that children have always played with toy guns and probably always will. I played with cap guns, spud guns and water pistols but I didn’t grow up to be El Mariachi. Nor do I try to blow Roadrunners up with TNT because I watched Wile E Coyote and I’m not a Satanist because I went to a Marylin Manson concert as a teenager. So maybe we need to lighten up.
Since kids were having birthday parties at McDonald’s and mine were invited, which enabled their palette to taste such..erm,,delicacies then we have decided that they can go now and again as a ‘treat’. It might only be a quarterly event, but it fills me with dread with every visit. I had a mare today.
The first thing I noticed is that it felt like I was walking into a nightclub. Two security guys looked me and my lads up and down as we walked up to The Arches. Now, my youngest had just downed a bottle of fruit shoot which can make him seem a little tipsy but I was sure we would get in. I held his hand to stop any swaying and gave a confident nod to the doorman. He opened the doors for us. We were in!
The nightclub feel continued once we got inside as a bleeping noise akin to an electronic dance anthem was heard above the euphoric noise of revellers. But it was just the ubiquitous noise from the serving area.
And since when did Maccy D’s have touch screen to make an order?! My kids have very specific requests when it comes to how they have their burgers. It’s not something that I can get across on a touch screen. Chicken nuggets it is then.
As we sat down, brushing away a few courses of food on the chairs from the previous customer, I glanced around the room and my initial description of a school lunch hall was pretty accurate. Except instead of teachers telling the kids to get down from the tables it was the security guys. At one point they told a teenage boy to stop vaping or he’ll be thrown out.
McDonald’s food has always reminded me of toy food. It looks and tastes fake. I’m not a food snob. I’ve had many cold kebabs the morning after and I buy fake Pringles. I’ll eat most things as long as it’s not looking at me and I’ll even eat seafood sticks (formerly known as crab sticks) and I don’t know anybody else who will touch those! I’m not too fussy. But a McDonald’s burger has left my taste buds feeling empty except for a saltiness that I’m hoping my seventh pint of water will get rid of.
As we walked back to the car I was pleased to hear that my boys didn’t really like their burgers either. We all left feeling a little awkward that this ‘special tea’ experience was a bit crap.
But I can’t deny the influence of this global patty giant. Like the chain or not, it’s 850 restaurants closing in Russia is as significant today as it was it’s first opening 32 years ago. Yet every time I eat there I refuse to believe that it is their great tasting menu that makes it what it is. As McDonald’s grew in popularity in the USA the rest of the western world all wanted to eat like Americans, smoke, drink, wear jeans and drive cars like Americans. And this obsession stretched to the rest of the world too.
My kids pick up lots of accents and ‘isms’ from YouTube influencers. There’s an Irish guy who is popular at the moment but the majority seem to be American. Our leftovers go in the trash according to our kids. They put their pants over their underwear and they fall on their butts. It just seemed like yesterday that they were watching Paw Patrol on Channel 5. Today it’s YouTube channels. Their intrigue into new accents, cultures and languages don’t bother us, they can watch it but the content on YouTube is obviously closely monitored by us. Every decision like this is always discussed by my wife and I. Is it the right decision? We dunno.
Should YouTube be banned in our house? Do toy guns, statistically, cause future violent men? Do McDonald’s burgers affect healthy eating choices?
I was allowed to watch horror movies at a fairly young age. Maybe I was Jonas’ age when I watched Friday The 13th. And as I pointed out earlier I’m not an axe wielding murderer. Yet as much as I tell myself I need to lighten up our children have much more access to sex, violence and ‘swears’ as my kids call them with just the wrong click of a button. Maybe it’s different from a scary film from Blockbusters.
I’m a great believer that people need the opportunity to realise their errors for themselves. Having studied theories like Rogarian Therapy I understand how important it is for an individual to come to their own conclusions about their own life, even if these individuals are my young children. Maybe the next time we have a spare hour in town they might suggest somewhere that they actually enjoy eating at.
Last season I cringed as Jonas took his coat off during a football training session. It was a cold and wet November evening. The other kids were dressed as the Michelin Man but, despite the coach’s attempts for him to put his coat back on, Jonas refused saying that he was warm. I understand his coach having Jonas’ welfare in mind, but I also understand that until Jonas experiences a freezing cold November and can’t go back on his decision to put his coat back on in front of his mates, he won’t learn how to make the correct decision the week after. He knew it was a bad call to take his training jacket off, but bravado had gotten the better of him and it was too late for him to eat humble pie. But he has always worn his jacket on cold nights ever since. He won’t be making that mistake again.
If I don’t allow my kids to make measured mistakes now, in ten years time when they are met with much greater decisions to make they will struggle. Those who work with me will know that I embrace failure. Failure, or bad decision making, should lead to reflection on how to make better decisions next time around. If I tell my kids not to put YouTube on, or that McDonald’s is not an option, then the desire to eat the forbidden fruit will grow. I’d rather that they taste it now and hope that they realize that the forbidden fruit isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. YouTube channels of people playing on computer games are tedious after a while and a McDonald’s burger is nowhere near the standard of one that they can make at home.
But this is all a ‘hope for the best’ situation. I’ve trained people for longer that I have been a father. I’ve taken a journey with hundreds of trainees, whereas I’ve only been to McDonald’s with my kids half a dozen times. I’m qualified at training people with their physical and mental wellbeing. I’m not qualified at being a dad. Maybe a few lessons and an exam would have been helpful. As it is though I’ve got to wing it, like all parents do. In my job I know every given situation and how to deal with it. Eating disorders, self harm, depression, athletes with Olympic dreams, bodybuilders, fat loss or weight gain goals, I have a plan for every person who approaches me.
But in McDonald’s with their touchscreen ordering, two hungry kids, doormen chasing unruly customers and an incessant bleaping noise coming from the tills and I’m a nervous wreck by the end of it.
Tomorrow it’s beans in toast.
Never Give Up PT 