I used to walk to school.
I used to walk to school at a time when many children walked to school; I lived in a rural region where everything was close by except civilisation.
But I have learnt something new this week. Something which I already knew but which I have now recognised as being the case. I have learnt that the school run is potentially the most important forum for discussion between parent and offspring.
So I'm wondering whether my solitary walks - never a 'run' more a determined stepping out - have resulted in an emotional shortfall, an inability to share my feelings in this over-sharing world.
It seems that psychology experts now agree that the average male does not reach emotional maturity until age 26, the average female age 22. So it would appear that the period during which teenagers require particular mental massaging and understanding has lengthened compared with previous generations and, moreover, that this therapy is best carried out in the car on the school run.
To say that I am cock-a-hoop at this revelation would be to understate my delight. Ever one to champion the underdog, I am ecstatic that the convoys of parents shipping their babes to school and back daily should no longer be vilified for increasing traffic volume, blocking roads, and single-handedly burning the world's precious resources via that invention of the devil, the internal combustion engine. All these drivers now represent the contemporary face of parental care and attention by dint of the fact that they are listening to their children who, apparently, infinitely prefer to reveal all their innermost secrets and worries when not making eye contact; this, of course, renders people carriers with sideways seating useless, but I could never think of a good excuse for those anyway.
I understand the same effect can be gained when the ironing is being done - presumably the activity being carried out by the parent, not the child; the latter could in no way have something so important to say that it would be necessary as to reach for the ironing board, save for complete life meltdown perhaps. Although, on second thoughts, my teenage daughter has had several complete life meltdowns but never once has the ironing been the backdrop.
I also understand that eye contact is difficult when you're at the stage where you cannot hold your head up due to weakness of the neck, a developmental period suffered by teenagers, predominantly male; perhaps the ubiquitous headrests found in even the average modern family vehicle goes some way to solving this physical disability.
There is, of course, another reason for celebration; we, as parents, could now set the costs of ferrying our children around - so often deemed 'part of the service' - quite simply as part of our service to society. There must be tax breaks for this.
And just think of the dosh we'll save on shrinks - for both them and us. No longer will it be necessary to prop their boneless bodies in front of an exorbitantly expensive head reader. We merely nod sagely whilst negotiating the latest intersection, mention how interesting is their point of view, intersperse their diatribes with the occasional 'OMG' - which might also 'double-up' as an observation on fellow drivers - and they'll be as right as rain. So will we, because we'll be enlightened; problems which we held to be so important and which might scar them for life and which are all our fault, we can appreciate as being absolutely unintelligible or irrelevant.
We'll be able to sack the shrink we've been seeing to try to come to terms with parental failure.
It's so simple and should have been made much of before; let's face it, London cabbies have been offering this mobile shrink service for decades - all your worries either completely confirmed, with suicide the only option, or 'load-a-ole-rubbish', at which you descend from the cab able to take on the world. And all for the fare from Putney to Fulham. At least they offer a solution - you feel you've had your money's worth - unlike visiting the average shrink who perversely, by default (aka silence), allows you to blame your parents if you are a parent, or your parents if you're a child.
I feel robbed of this eye to eye contact stuff, having been a child before its time; when cars were an aspiration not a footprint and legs were as indispensable as shrinks are now.
