Never, ever ask if your child can be a bridesmaid, pageboy, flower girl thingy, etc. It’s unbelievably rude, and someone will only get hurt.
Take some sweets for the service that don’t come in noisy wrappers. Oh, and a small book, and an extra dummy if your baby uses them.
Sit by the aisle to facilitate a hasty exit. Near the front is fine, so they can see, but an aisle seat is essential.
Leave immediately if your children start to make noise.
Don’t get there too early. They will be bored before the bride arrives.
Don’t get wrecked at the reception. You still have to be able to look after your kids, even if Jane and Tom did just get hitched. Hic!
Try to find a hotel with a babysitting service near the reception. Then you can really let your hair down without worrying about them (much).
Agree who is taking the kids home before you get there. It is usually me, because I fall asleep at 10 p.m. and am happy to go to bed. My husband likes to be the last man propping up the bar at 3 a.m. More fun, yes, but he looks like shit the next day—hah!
Funerals
Parents often debate whether children should come to funerals, and indeed whether they should know about death at all until they are well beyond the tooth-fairy stage. How much this becomes an issue for your children obviously depends on how many grand-parents and other elderly relatives they have, and lose, as they grow up. Our kids had young parents and so were lucky enough to have four of their great-grandparents still alive until recently. This number has now dwindled to leave only one, very youthful great-grandmother, with the result that they have already been to a number of funerals. We have always been very open and honest about death, preferring to tell it straight rather than making up any ‘going to sleep for a long time/going to heaven’ type of stories, but it’s a personal choice. Here are some death-related tips worth knowing:
Know how much your child can understand. We felt ours could handle the whole Death thing, so we told them. They have never had a problem with it. If you think yours isn’t ready (but remember they are often a lot more matter-of-fact and ready to accept the weirdest of notions than we are) then you’ll have to find some way of explaining it gently, or of keeping schtum.
Don’t tell lies. Kids are so smart it makes us ‘intelligent’ adults look several sandwiches short of a decent picnic. If you say you’re just off to a family party and then everyone sits there dressed in black and sobbing for an hour, they might smell a rat, and never trust you again. Tell them it’s a funeral, tell them people might be crying, including you, and explain why. Not to do so is to insult their intelligence and to set them up for a nasty shock.
Show your emotions. I think it’s very important for our children to see us crying, whether out of happiness, sadness, despair or anger. If we hide our emotions from our kids they won’t have a clue how to handle their own, and they will have a very peculiar impression of what being an adult entails. I sat next to my six-year-old at my grandfather’s funeral recently, and cried uncontrollably because they played the Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem—enough to send me into the deepest pit of sorrow for several hours, even if I’m in a good mood. She held my hand, comforted me and was amazingly grown-up and sensitive about the whole thing. I asked her afterwards if she had minded seeing me like that and she just said: ‘No, of course not. I cry sometimes, so why can’t you?’ What a girl.
Ask if they’d like to come to the funeral. When we asked my daughter about it she said: ‘I think it’s important for us to come too. I mean, he was in our family too, not just in yours, and we should all go and say goodbye.’ Really, they blow me away sometimes.
Ask the nearest relatives what children should wear. All black can be inappropriately sombre for children, so I always customise a normal outfit for a funeral. I make tiny black velvet drawstring bags for a handkerchief and some essential ‘keep ‘em quiet’ sweets, tie black ribbons in the girls’ hair and around their waist, and make sure they all have black shoes. This way they look very smart, respectful and funereal without going over the top. On one occasion my son wore some grey trousers and a shirt and waistcoat that I borrowed from a friend, and looked lovely. If black is expected, though, then you should go along with that. Ask, and you’ll not go wrong.
Take it easy. With emotions so high, it’s possible for things to be said that really shouldn’t be. If you can try to keep all other family ructions out of the equation for the day, it’ll be a lot easier for everyone.
While we’re on the cheery subject of death, it’s a very, very good idea to have a will made up once you become a family and actually deal with the issues of who would look after the kids, who you would leave what to, and suchlike. It’s something most people don’t want to think about, are superstitious about, or just can’t be bothered to do, but the amount of heartache, work and confusion that is caused by two people dying and leaving no will is pretty huge, and that’s not fair on anyone. If you want to find out how to go about it, then go online and search under ‘making a will’, and you’ll find hundreds of websites offering advice and information. Alternatively, speak to somebody who has done it and ask them for their top tips.
Family parties
Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, christenings—there’s always a reason to have a family party, and always a possibility that something will go wrong if you have kids in tow. Children have this knack of going ever so slightly over the top, and turning an enjoyable occasion into something almost as fun as having your fingernails pulled out by George Clooney—what could be so much fun somehow turns into a living hell. As the parents, it’s your unfortunate duty to spot when this is about to happen, and make swift moves to diffuse an imminent explosion.
Don’t bring your troubles to a party. Bring a bottle, of course, but don’t bring your bottled-up issues. Having a husband-and-wife spat at Great Uncle George’s eightieth is unforgivable. If you must, then avoid each other for the duration, and have the row when you get home. Ditto for disagreements you
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