Olly Mann's insights into the challenges and strategies of parenting two young sons
Olly Mann is a presenter for Radio 4, and the podcasts The Modern Mann, The Week Unwrapped and Today in History with the Retrospectors
I’M AWARE THAT occasionally in this column I’ve made it seem as if I have an idyllic relationship with my kids. That I’ve written a little too often about how joyful it is to walk them to school, expand their imaginations at the library or stand with them aside a train track and point at the locomotives. That they’ve taught me so much. That it’s all been life-affirming.
So, let me be clear: parenting two young boys is unbelievably stressful, and a lot of the time they are utter jerks. They are nearly constantly hitting each other, moaning, making stupid noises, winding each other up, mooning at me, jumping on the sofa, jumping on the dog, rolling their eyes, spitting, kicking, whingeing, crying and completely ignoring me.
Actually, it’s not even what they do that’s irritating, but what they don’t do, despite me pleading with them until my throat is hoarse: wash their hands, put their shoes on, brush their teeth, do their homework…
And those cute photos I’ve posted to social media, portraying them as cherubs? Pure PR. Sure, there may have been the odd "Kodak Moment" for which they paused to stroke a farm animal, stroll through the forest or play pooh-sticks, but believe me: behind the scenes we’ve had to frogmarch them back to the car because they’ve jumped in a puddle, lost a welly in the mud and collapsed on the floor in hysterics because the gift shop was closed.
With two children under seven, you come to accept this way of life, on the presumption that, at some point, this supposedly "cute phase" will end. Indeed, misty-eyed parents of smartphone-addicted teens urge you to appreciate these early years, before your offspring treat you solely as a taxi service, start up their own OnlyFans, and have no ostensible interest in whether you live or die.
But now our older one, Harvey, is about to turn eight; an age by which he really should be able to sit in a restaurant without scrambling under the table, walk round a supermarket without having a tantrum in the toy aisle, and get out the car without running into oncoming traffic. We’re not there yet. I suspect this is mainly because of his younger sibling: when you have a four-year-old brother, it’s easy to keep behaving appallingly, yet still appear relat
