KIDS
Daily Telegraph - June 2006

The other week at the Museum of Contemporary Art I noticed a sign at the entry to one of the galleries warning parents the exhibition contained “graphic” images.
This was very civic minded but it might have served parents better if it had read, “Warning: If you take your child to the Museum of Contemporary Art then you are a yuppie prat and will deserve it when they grow to despise you.”

I'm not sure if parents taking children to conceptual art exhibitions is a growing trend (it warrants its own sign so you can be sure there's a market) but I have observed an increasing number of disgruntled brats attending events that have been hitherto considered strictly AO.

Undoubtedly the worst example is what I now call the Russian Ark incident.

Picture, if you will, the scene: an easily disgruntled writer attends a screening of Russian Ark, a notoriously high-brow Slavic epic with no apparent plot.
Seated behind him is a Paddington power couple with their two children, no older than three and six.

Throughout the film perfectly reasonable questions such as “Mummy, what's happening?'' or ``When can I go toiwet?” are answered with “Shh, darling, this is the Russian Revolution” or “This is when Peter the Great dies.”

The MCA is bad enough but compared with Russian Ark, an afternoon of installation art looks like a three-day pass to Dreamworld. I was tempted to call DOCS.
As for the horrors of Sunday morning brunch with darling little Hugo and Madeline, don't get me started. Here's a tip for parents who insist on taking their kids to cafes. Next time you decide to hold up the queue by asking your child whether he would like a mandarin or raspberry friand, try asking instead whether he would like to fly to Jupiter or own a talking speedboat. I think you'll soon find the answer to any question you ask a five-year-old is either “yes”, “more” or “fire engine'”.

Don't misunderstand me. I have an unnaturally high tolerance of children in most social situations. What I don't have is a tolerance of parents who treat their child as an equal.

It is a child's right to get bored easily. (At a screening of Russian Ark, it is an adult's right too). It is not, however, a child's right to be consulted on every detail of their life, as though they were a visiting celebrity author, still less to get what they want.

Making your child do adult things is not educational, just lazy.

It is as natural for a child to watch Pocahontas 400 times and still be delighted as it is for an adult to watch the same film and consider flinging themselves from a high balcony.

This does not mean the kid owes you a movie.

As my parents were fond of saying, this is not a democracy.

© Brendan Shanahan 2008