22 DAD’S DIARY
THE THEORY OF
EVOLUTION You don’t have to be a scientist to understand evolution, says NICK WILKINSON. Simply have children and you’ll know all about it…
I
haven’t read any books by Charles Darwin, but I have watched a few nature programmes so I think I’m well-placed to explain to parents what he meant by his theory of evolution. It all comes down to the kids. They are cute, adorable and give parents a sense of responsibility and purpose in life. Plus, we get to re-live our own lives vicariously through them. With this in mind, our house has become something of an anthropological playground. What I want to know is, are we evolving as a species? One of the ways of testing this is to have a look at gender stereotyping. Science fiction would have us believe that in the future, men and women will all wear some sort of titanium-threaded, silver one-piece that leaves very little to the imagination. I put it to you that in a thousand years’ time, little girls will be wearing pink fairy dresses, while little boys will be figuring out how to fasten the velcro on their Bob The Spaceman overalls. We might all be living on the moon, but parents will still have to decide whether to paint the nursery pod pink or blue. One area in which I hope we will have reached some kind of equilibrium is how grown-up girls and boys take it in turns running the moon or whatever galactic colony they choose to live on. Excuse me if this sounds sexist but it seems to me that in the adult world at the moment, too many men are in charge. How come when children are small, females are the bosses, and males, despite the odd rebellion, do exactly what the little girls want them to do? How do men suddenly take over? Yesterday, my daughter’s best friend from school came over. She calls him Little Paul, because although
they are the same age, he only comes up to her shoulder. When Little Paul arrives at the house he is ordered to the dressing-up box and after a lengthy fitting, is kitted out in an appropriate prince costume. Any attempt he makes to wear one of my son’s Spider-man outfits is immediately dismissed. Little Paul then spends his entire play date following my daughter around in a kind of wide-eyed wonder as she tells him what to do. His task yesterday was to turn her bedroom into an exact replica of a Disney princess castle. To us it might have looked like a mess of duvets, cushions and tinsel, to them it was Arundel. In an attempt to replicate the ballroom scene from Frozen, he was ordered to scatter a bag of ice cubes across the floor. When we got cross, she told us that Little Paul had done it. He just gulped like a fish. Luckily, the dog, who had been decked out with antlers, ate them all up. Today, I had Little Paul over again, along with three five-year-old girls. His prince outfit and the castle have become even more elaborate. The girls had commandeered a bedroom where they held court. Nobody was allowed to enter. Except for Little Paul, who brought whatever treats and trinkets took the ladies’ fancy. I felt sorry for the poor kid. Until I heard shrieks of terror coming from Arundel. I ran upstairs, and found Little Paul with a satisfied grin fixed on his face. The girls were cowering in a corner of their castle. On the floor, blocking their way out, was a strategically placed, very realistic, rubber dog turd. The girls were convinced it was real. They remained trapped in their own fairytale while Little Paul went to put on a Spiderman outfit. That, I believe, is the theory of evolution.
“How come when children are small, females are the bosses, and males do exactly what the little girls want them to do? How do men suddenly take over?”
MI Summer 2016_Dads Diary.indd 22
06/05/2016 15:35