I’m a peace-loving sort of person. There are 80s-era photos of me wearing CND badges and Doc Martens to prove it.
So I've tried to raise Flea in a non-violent environment. Our mantra is: "We don't hit. We use our words."
That applies to her and to me. Well, apart from that time Flea was really, really annoying so I flicked her nose. So, at four, Flea's never had a fight, never hit anyone, never even pulled hair. I know, right? TOP NOTCH parenting.
Flea and I were lying on her bed last night after reading her story, when she told me she’d played the most BRILLIANT game at school today with her friend Max. “Oh, that’s cool, what did you play?”
Flea’s eyes were sparkling, and she said, “The magic ingredients game. It's my favourite game to play, in fact.”
In my head, this sounded like a nice cooking game. It's not.
“Yes, you have to put your fingers like this [Flea makes a gun shape] and then you shoot the Magic Man who is standing on the roof of the school. Then he is dead, and he falls down the drainpipe into the water at the bottom and so we drop in magic ingredients.”
Not exactly what I was expecting. “Gosh, do the magic ingredients make him better?” I say, clutching at straws.
“No,” she says, looking at me like I’m a moron. “We put in magic apples and magic bananas and magic vitamins of course and they all make the magic man’s body smell gross, and then you smell it.”
So basically, four years of pacifism and she's playing snipers. Nice.
