Very little will ever affect you as deeply as parenthood. It is, after all, the only reason we exist – to foster more little us-alikes. Although to be frank most parents have a secondary role - to help reduce the surplus of red wine left on Earth.
So it’s natural that our thoughts, as nurturers and carers, will sometimes turn towards mortality. Not ours – no that’s ridiculous – we’ll be around for ever. But the mortality of those who dare not utterly adore our children.
It’s often said that when you spawn, you drift to the right of Genghis Khan. Not necessarily politically, but in terms of defending your kids from the tiniest slight. I’ve seen tiny, timid mothers successfully attack members of the SAS for being noisy near their sleeping, buggy-borne child. I’ve seen a scarlet-faced dad drive his Ford Mondeo straight through the Chelsea Flower Show, scattering biddies like skittles because they didn’t allow his darling boy in the sherry tent, where, to be fair, there were baby-changing facilities. I’ve seen worse. I can’t talk about it. Hair trigger is not the word for us parents. Every day is like Vietnam with bottle warmers.
It’s inbuilt, though. Not long ago defending our children really did mean that. Wolves, snakes, deep rivers and the Welsh all posed a significant danger. We humans had to be ready. But frankly the risks have subsided. Wolves have gone. Snakes are generally rubbish, rivers, yes, are still hazardous, but we tend to have bridges. And the Welsh are now proud possessors of stunning vistas and exemplary hospitality.
However the vital, violent urge to defend our children can’t be eliminated as it’s in our very DNA. So to be released, it has to aimed at the tiniest slights. A mother I knew raged that someone had once indelicately suggested her little boy had a fairly large-ish head. I said that its not unimpressive size surely indicated it surely contained more brains. She never spoke to me again.
Indeed, when I returned home, my suburb was a smoking, cratered ruin. I looked up from the devastation to see the same mother piloting an Apache helicopter gunship towards her home. Two things struck me. One, full of adrenaline, she’d mastered rotary-winged flight in about twenty minutes and had delivered a salvo of Hellfire missiles with unique precision at my car and the five square miles around it, and two: there was a child in the chopper with her. Wearing a really big helmet.