My office room overlooks a London green space, and the other day tents started to go up, and enclosures for horses, and caravans, and I thought, “How wonderful, a circus.” Then it came back to me, all in a flash: circuses are crap.
There are exceptions – Giffords Circus is one of my all-time favourite family experiences – but the run-of-the-mill travelling circus with its high-ish wires, bulging acrobats, prancing horses and unfunny clowns is more ordeal than epiphany. It’s no surprise that Leiber and Stoller chose to include it in their list of bathetic experiences for that masterpiece of disillusion, Is That All There Is?
I started thinking about how many other family experiences are overrated – and underrated, for that matter. I was surprised how many are actually worse or better than you expect. So here’s my list of the five most overrated andunderrated family activities:
Overrated
1. Going to the circus (see above)
2. Swimming pools
I dislike swimming at the best of times. Up and down and up and down; wet, crowded, dozens of unhygienic bodies in proximity. However, when you’ve got kids you’ve got to play “shark” or “holding your breath”, or “throw the child” (the aquatic equivalent of dwarf chucking and, I think, in equally bad taste). I can never wait for the moment when one renegade infant or other soils the pool and they evacuate.
3. Art galleries/sculpture parks
I don’t know what you think your children are going to make of Mondrian, Henry Moore or Rothko, but I doubt they will have a clue what’s going on. On the other hand, taking them to a modern work, such as the Chapman brothers, can damage them for life. (One of my younger children ran out of a recent exhibition of theirs at the Serpentine crying, “You’ve ruined my childhood”.) Trying to stuff your kids full of culture is a vain exercise in – well, vanity. “Oh, Blaise and I went to the Kiefer and he was just so moved.”
4. Puppets
When my eldest was nine, I tried to take her to a puppet show. She begged me not to. I said it will be fun. It wasn’t.
5. Swings
Fine for the first few minutes. But children can’t get enough of it (what’s that about?). Back and forth, up and down, repeat, repeat, whee! After five minutes, I’m already fantasising about the chains snapping.
Underrated
1. Feeding birds
It’s a real show down at the ponds – scary when the swans get surly and acrobatic, when the seagulls snatch the bread out of the air. And the ducks – they are just so grateful.
2. Going for a walk
The most basic form of entertainment of all, but when the world is so full of competing attractions on phones and screens simply being together in a quiet open space is a joy.
3. Guns
Can’t think of what to give your son or daughter for your birthday? Give ’em a toy firearm. Think they won’t like it? Go and watch kids playing Laser Quest. Nothing beats pretending to kill people for good, clean fun. For girls, it’s a great way to break down gender stereotypes.
4. TV
Once, watching TV was considered a low-rent activity, for morons. But compared with everyone on their own screens doing their own thing, everyone watching a film or TV programme together is a genuine social experience. If you doubt it, take a peek at Gogglebox.
5. Flying a kite
Actually, I like this a lot more than my children do, but once you force them out into the park and get the damn thing up there – often a lot more trouble than it says on the box – it is a wonderful feeling. It’s what cured Mr Banks of cynicism in Mary Poppins and it’ll do the same for you.
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