Barbara Ellen
Observer TV critic
I doubt any reality TV concept was conceived as a mother-child bonding tradition, but that’s how it’s worked out for me and my two daughters. From their teen years and roaming through their 20s, our reality-TV viewing has become ritualised: watch the shows (together or not), discuss the contestants, gossip, preach, speculate, and feel regretful and (in my elder, not-wiser case) slightly unclean. Hey, I didn’t say it was edifying, just that it was happening.
You may wonder: how does watching fame-hungry desperados morph into an intergenerational bonding tradition? Well, somehow, magically, it does. First you wade through the surging tsunami of shows (Love Island, Love Is Blind, RuPaul’s Drag Race, I Kissed A Boy, Glow Up, The Traitors and so on). You nix some (too trashy; not trashy enough) and fasten on favourites. Now let the maternal “teaching moments” commence!
Spot the phonies declaring eternal love before the fake tan has dried. Did she just side-eye a rival’s smoky eye? Who’s kind enough to help other drag queens make their gowns? Who’s enjoying being a “traitor” far too much? Love Island alone can inspire veritable TED talks on relationships, body language and body image. Look at her, happy and chatty, oozing confidence and appeal. What about him, a nightclub vampire turning to dust in unforgiving sunlight. What’s being hidden? What’s being revealed far too soon?
As much as these shows are entertainment, they’re also about human nature, connections, life. As for “teaching moments”, it’s not about my daughters listening to me, rather that the conversations exist at all. Lowbrow it may be, but it’s also low-risk (depersonalised), opening up topics that may otherwise float dangerously out of reach. Watching these shows, I feel I know my daughters better, and that they know more too.
Bee Wilson
Food writer
Eggs are one of the simple things that bind my daughter and me together, like yolk in pastry. When she was a toddler and we weren’t adding salt to any of her meals, I used to watch with wonder at the way she took such joy in eating a whole, peeled hard-boiled egg without so much as a scrap of seasoning.
Later, when she was eight or so, her favourite weekend breakfast was French toast, AKA eggy bread. I taught her how to soak the bread in the egg and the milk before frying it in foamy butter till golden.
During her teenage years, my secret for getting her to talk to me was shakshuka: a one-pot dish of eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce that’s popular all over the Middle East. Our version is seasoned with cinnamon, cumin and smoked paprika, and I usually include carrots instead of peppers because I am more likely to have them in the fridge. When my daughter was in sixth form, she would arrive home hungry and monosyllabic at unexpected times of day. But if I asked: “Do you want shakshuka?” she never once said no, and by the time she had scraped up the last mouthful of spicy sauce, she was chattier.
Our egg rituals changed again after my husband left. Experimenting with eggs was a simple way to make the days less sad and to feel that we were building something like a new life. Together my daughter and I branched out with eggs, discovering two new ways to make a quick omelette especially tender and delicious (one with lemon and one with mustard).
Now she’s studying in another city. But when she is home, I sometimes hear the comforting noises of her making herself breakfast (several hours after my own). The gentle sound of shells cracking and cold egg hitting warm butter in a pan and I feel that all is well.
Bee Wilson’s The Secret of Cooking Recipes for an Easier Life is out now
Jim Al-Khalili
Scientist and broadcaster
A now sadly discontinued family tradition enjoyed by the Al-Khalilis when my children were small was putting on our own magic shows. When I was a young boy I would design elaborate sets at home for my sisters’ birthday parties, and my brother, two years my junior, would act as my assistant or secret stooge in the audience. Years later I carried on the tradition with my own kids – nothing too elaborate, but some of the tricks were quite memorable, like the now famous “sawing the Barbie in a shoe box in half” (I “borrowed” a spare Barbie whose lower torso came off – I know, ingenious). But mostly it was tricks with disappearing rings and coins or psychic ability. My many rather, though I say so myself, impressive card tricks weren’t appreciated until the kids were older.
The Christmas 1997 magic show in particular lives on in the Al-Khalili household’s collective memory because I filmed it. My son David, then almost six, was the star and performed to an audience of three. Those recorded nine minutes are pure gold. It starts off with him not having thought of a professional name in advance and announcing himself with the now immortal line: “I am the Great… Magician.” Thereafter, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and yet, like a true professional, he powered through as though every dropped coin, bit of spilt water or forgotten punchline was part of the performance. His younger sister Kate was so impressed she rushed up to give him an uncharacteristic hug at the end. Even more uncharacteristic was that he allowed her to do so briefly before shoving her away and mumbling a line we still use for a surprising number of situations: “You mustn’t get too close to magicians.”
Ever since then (he is now a married man of 31), we have insisted on showing the recording to every one of his school friends, girlfriends and workmates who visit us. Luckily David is happy to indulge his parents’ mockery and sentimental pride.
I am hoping this tradition can be revived with my grandchildren when they arrive. I’ll keep practising, just in case.
Isy Suttie
Comedian and writer
“Once upon a time, there were two naughty boys called Arthur and Martin,” each story begins. Then we say together: “You know them – they just live down the road.” Arthur and Martin are best friends and spectacularly naughty. Arthur is the ringleader and wants to trick people; Martin, the follower with a penchant for baked beans. Over time, their back stories have evolved. Arthur’s parents are Linda and Steve. Linda doubts herself at every turn, cries easily and gives her son whatever he wants.
I’ve been making up these stories since my eight-year old daughter was a toddler. They’re based on what’s going on at that time, like changes at school or us walking home in the rain because the bus hasn’t come. Sometimes she appears in them herself: “Then Beti, a red-haired girl from their class, said…” and she’ll improvise a line, normally castigating them for their behaviour.
In the most recent story, Arthur told his mum he wanted to eat his Jelly Tots “off a plate” and that her credit card would do. He then managed to wheedle her pin number out of her, pretended he needed the toilet and rushed to the ATM to draw out £300. It was spent merrily at the funfair until a policeman became suspicious. The key things are that the boys are naughtier than my children, and that Linda is a worse mother than me.
When I was young, my dad told me stories, in a similar vein, about naughty boys making sardine toffee. I only realised recently that they were his own versions of Richmal Crompton’s Just William stories, which presumably his own parents told him when he was little. I hope one day, in years to come, my children sit down with their own children, and begin.
Fiona Maddocks
Observer classical music critic and author
I was about six when my father asked me to read a poster in the street: “Yommen of the Goorard,” I tried. He corrected it to “Yeoman of the Guard” and explained that it was an operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan. I was no wiser. Soon after, he joined a local G&S society. Night after night, we tested him on Gilbert’s fiendish words. My vocabulary advanced in bounds. G&S became a musical backbone of my early childhood. Part of the first-night ritual was a box of Black Magic for the overture – no rustling allowed – then, as the curtain rose, trying to identify my father in the chorus of policemen, pirates or sailors. Going backstage afterwards, the exotic transformation wrought by wigs, makeup and costumes held me transfixed and rendered me shy. It was a long time until I realised there were other kinds of opera. My father, now 97, would probably still remember the words if you gave him the cue.
Allan Jenkins
Author and Observer Food Monthly editor
My daughter Kala and I sow flowers together on her birthday. It’s our family thing. Gardening in our blood. Until May, I’ll collect hordes of seed packets from delis, garden centres, online, on my travels. Love in a primary palette. Expressed in childlike petal shapes and colours: Nigella and cornflower blues, calendula orange, giant sunflowers in rust reds and yellows. There’ll be sweet peas. Always our favourite: Chrysanthemum “Rainbow Hippy Lovechild”. Kala’s flower alter ego. Much of the growing will be gradually swarmed by nasturtiums. The old-school flower my foster father first gave me.
I see Kala’s garden blossom and grow from my window. Happily, she lives just a few doors down. I’ll wave and watch her commune with her flowers or simply sit with her morning tea.
A dad and daughter sowing and growing together. Nature and nurture. Our quiet code for love.
Alex Moshakis
Observer writer
Most evenings, after they are washed and before they are ready to sleep, my two young children clamber on to my bed, stand as tall and straight as they can, request I firmly grip the backs of their ankles, and jump. The jump, because I am holding on to them, is thwarted – their feet never leave the ground, no matter the effort. Instead, they topple forward on to the duvet like little felled trees, and though for a while they lie face down, delighted with what just happened, soon enough they get up and demand I do it again, over and over.
It was my son who started this – who knows why; he was two at the time – but now this strange non-jump thing has become a daily moment of playful connection. I’ve always supposed the enjoyment comes from the anticipation that, one day, the improbable might happen: my children might break free and fly, which seems as much a metaphor for growing up as anything else. On rare occasions I allow this to happen. I relax my grip mid-jump, their tiny bodies launch into the air, and everyone thrills. Then it is off to bed.
Alice Fisher
Observer lifestyle editor
The singing started when my children were babies. When they wouldn’t stop crying or refused to eat or sleep, I found the easiest way to vent my frustration was to sing to them. Not lullabies or happy songs, but just words to express how I was feeling or describe what I was doing, set to a random tune. “Eat Your Food” sounds less angry if you sing it to the tune of Frère Jacques. We still resort to that nursery rhyme to this day – my children are eight and 12 now – as a way of expressing anger without shouting.
On long, tedious car journeys we often sing the songs my younger daughter has made up. Song is a generous description. The lyrics of her favourite composition are: “Moss grows everywhere, everywhere, everywhere/ Moss grows everywhere all around town.” The other is a song for Christmas journeys. That goes: “Jesus and his goat.” You just belt out the phrase at the top of your voice until someone else in the car begs you to stop.
I don’t know how much longer my kids will be able to sing through their problems, but we’ll always have Frère Jacques.
Rob Biddulph
Children’s author and illustrator
When my daughter Poppy was four years old and started staying for lunch at school, it was a big deal. Up until that point she’d only gone to nursery for mornings. So I decided to draw a picture on a Post-it note and hide it in her lunchbox to cheer her up when she opened it. That evening she asked what I was going to draw for her the following day. I had thought of it as a one-time-only gig, but I drew her another. This time when she came home, she said that all of her friends, the teachers and the lunchtime staff were just as excited as she was to see what was coming next. By the end of the week I was locked in.
Over Poppy’s years at primary school I didn’t miss a day. I drew her more than 2,000 packed-lunch Post-its. There’d be book characters, TV characters. We’d have A-Z lists, top 100 countdowns and advent calendars. One term I recreated the works of the great artists. When you find yourself getting out of bed at 2am to draw a Girl with a Pearl Earring because you’d forgotten to do it earlier, you begin to question your life choices.
The thing that I love most about our Post-it note adventure is the bond it created between me and Poppy. It was our thing, and it still is our thing, even though it went viral on social media (search #PackedLunchPostIt). We have all of the drawings, though some are slightly stained with orange juice or yoghurt, and we have plans to exhibit them all at some point. When you see them en masse, it’s quite a dizzying sight, and I can’t quite believe I drew them all. For me, though, the whole piece is a physical embodiment of the love a dad has for his daughter and a time capsule of a period in her life that hopefully she can look back on fondly. I like to think that when she’s older and I’m not around to make her feel better, she’ll always have her Post-it notes to cheer her up.
Rob Biddulph’s two latest books Gigantic (HarperCollins) and Peanut Jones and the End of the Rainbow (Pan Macmillan) are out now. Search #DrawWithRob to find his free collection of draw-along videos
