Over a recent weekend, my six year old boy Abe went psycho at two different kids in two different playgrounds. It began when the kids did fairly innocent things - yanking him while he was on the roundabout; pretending Abe was an alien intruder - and Abe took huge offence to these supposed insults and angrily demanded apologies from each kid. He chased both kids around the playground and had a go at me when I intervened.
When we got home and we told mummy Sarah our versions of the story, debating whether or not Abe should get a time out, Sarah blamed me. Why? Because I bring violence into the household, apparently. Don't complain to the Press Council just yet: I bring violence in the name of love and bonding.
• My favourite sport (heavyweight boxing) is one in which hundred-kilo brutes bash each other's faces until one of the brutes is so injured he cannot continue. My kids are allowed to watch this with me and I have been known to teach my boy how to throw a perfect boxing jab during the ad breaks. It's a legitimate sport, it's manly bonding AND it's self-defence (for when Abe needs protection from fights he himself started)
• I sometimes put on my second favourite sport (professional wrestling) and me and the kids get inspired and form a mini wrestling ring on daddy's king sized bed and they beat their dad into submission while quoting 90s wrestlers like The Rock and Hulk Hogan
• We sometimes watch the six o'clock news, so my kids can learn about (violent) current events. Unfortunately, often the main story is somebody being obliterated by a volcano, runaway train, or runaway train with a cargo of lava. It's violently educational.
Now, the kids' mummy Sarah - who adores medieval surgical antiques, David Fincher movies and the gruesome short stories of Michael Botur - is becoming increasingly unimpressed with the kids doing anything remotely violent. Mummy Sarah even scrutinised The Emoji Movie last week, looking for what's been inspiring the violence.
I say don't question it. Violence is a skillset which could really advantage my li'l daughter in her life. Boxing could lead little Violet to become an icon of peace in Ukraine, like the Klitschko brothers. Her wrestling talent could lead to her becoming governor of Minnesota, like Jesse 'The Body' Ventura. As for the biting and cutting off people's meat, I don't know. Corporate restructuring or something?