Julie Jay: Spoiling our children from time to time isn’t a bad thing

Indeed, it was only after the fact that I realised that it was actually lunchtime for most people. 

(In the warp zone of parenting small children, eating lunch at 11am is totally acceptable, especially if you’ve been up before even Ian Dempsey has had his Weetabix.)

As a former front-of-house worker, I know the pain of two American tourists ordering one starter ‘to share’ and proceeding to take up an entire table for the better part of 90 minutes. 

That is why I ordered an ice cream with a portion of fish and chips on the side to avoid any accusations of being a tight bottom. 

After all, if there is a worse reputation than that in Irish society, I’ve yet to encounter it.

As my eldest leaned back on his comfortable lounge couch, I had to remind him we weren’t at home as he momentarily put the feet up on an immaculately upholstered seat. 

Realising how this must look, I was suddenly hit by the fear that should we make this a regular thing, he could become — perish the thought — spoiled.

Generally, when we think of spoiled children, their poster girl Veruca Salt in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory springs to mind: rude, entitled, self-centred, and totally unable to factor other people’s feelings into their decision-making. 

To be fair, this description would probably apply to most of my former flames, and they’ve only gone from strength to strength since kicking me to the kerb.

Not spoiling your child is all about setting limits and being firm but kind. This sounds easy in theory, but it is a lot less easy when you are at a checkout surrounded by treats and your four-year-old is demanding a USA biscuit tin. 

(Recently, I discovered that these tins not only contain sewing sets but have on occasion been known to contain a chocolate chip cookie and a shortcake biscuit — who knew?)

The want to give your child everything probably stems from the fact none of us feels like we are giving them nearly enough, especially in the current climate where there seems to be no end to the demands placed on mothers and what we are expected to squeeze into a 24-hour period. 

Within my friend circle, some mammies adhere religiously to just birthdays and Christmas for presents.  Others like to indulge their small people when they can, by trips to toyshops on a Tuesday and designer jackets that cost more than I earn in two days teaching.

And more power to them because what is the point of any of us slaving away if we can’t get our offspring the latest football jersey — except of course, if that football jersey is English, in which case you are really just making it too easy for schoolyard bullies, particularly if that schoolyard exists outside the Pale.

Just last week, I popped into a toy shop while on a work trip to pick up a couple of toys for the boys.

“Somebody’s birthday?” the very nice lady at the till asked, and for a second I was going to tell a fib, but then decided to own my indulgence.

“Actually, no, just getting them something because I love them so much,” I said, in a quintessential moment of over-sharing.

As she placed the items into the bag, she held my eyes for a moment. “You can never spoil them too much,” she said, “and don’t mind anyone who tells you differently.”

A cynic might say that this mantra is partly fuelled by the fact this woman owns a toyshop and so probably wants as many parents to channel their love through materialism as much as possible, but there’s a truth in it too. 

We don’t need to justify spoiling our children, because why not? They aren’t small for long, and we might not always be in a position to do it.

In an iconic scene from the 1971 cinematic version of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Veruca encounters geese laying golden chocolate eggs. 

Like any of us, Veruca quite fancies taking one home but is instead eliminated at the end of her musical number ‘I Want it Now’ after climbing a machine which deems her a ‘bad egg’ and disposes of her down a garbage chute. 

It is a cautionary tale about the laws of gravity and the risk we all take when we covet a magical goose.

The theme of getting it all continues in the film’s final moments when Willy Wonka turns to Charlie and says: “But Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.”

“What happened?” asks a dutifully wide-eyed Charlie Bucket.

“He lived happily ever after,” muses Wonka, and the adult audience is left to wonder if Roald Dahl is deliberately messing with us here, or merely suffering from a case of chronic optimism.

In reality, nobody gets everything, nor should we, because, of course, the person who gets everything they want will probably end up being the least happy in the room — mainly because they will be the only person in the room.

Whether Veruca Salt really was a bad egg or simply a girl who knew what she wanted may well be a feminist quandary to be debated for many moons to come. 

Either way, the moral of the story is that geese are not to be messed with, especially those which are underworked and underpaid. 

Regardless if it’s geese factory workers or your kids, maybe a little spoiling from time to time isn’t a bad thing.