Parental Sovereignty in Troubling Times – Part One

For those blessed with nature’s bootilicious bounty the home and family can be a place of sanctuary and joy. Some of us, though, also have children, and that raises all sorts of problems.

Fortunately children elect an authority which takes a mature, considered and evidence-based view of the world and makes decisions and commitments that are in the best interests of the Family in the short and longer term.

That elected body is me, their father. Now I’m not trying to be sexiest here so let’s just say “Parent” shall we.

In a healthy household one insists on a thing called Parental Sovereignty where the children are compelled to do as I say on pain of, well, pain. Parental Sovereignty stands in the way of complete anarchy in the home and it should probably be important that the Parent in question has a modicum of intelligence, compassion, thoughtfulness and courage. I know I do, that’s how I got elected to the job. Modesty is not an essential requirement but comes in handy if you want to sound good at awards ceremonies and that.

The Parent then, and I use that word to include all three sexes collectively and severally, has been democratically put in place to steer a safe and prosperous course for the Family and if some ungrateful children don’t like it, well they can just elect a new Parent – one that is more aligned with their inclinations. And that’s the way it has been since a reliance on divine intervention was recognised as a bit of a lottery.

I must say that in my experience it works absolutely perfectly. As a Member of Parent I work selflessly with my honourable friend (occasionally opposition) and Good Lady Wife to maintain an overwhelmingly happy Homeland. All of the children have voted time and again, unanimously, to show their appreciation and trust. In return the Parent body does a bloody brilliant job for them.

Just the other day, for instance, me and my two bouncing bags of derived DNA (not to be confused with just “bouncing bags of DNA” – something quite different) decided to fill our Friday evening with a film from the internet! Yes, it was film night. Unfortunately, this delightful treat has been somewhat dirtied of late because my two lovely little children have been arguing about the kinds of film entertainment service they’d like to use and it was really getting on my tits.

No matter how many times I explained that we were getting wonderful films from Netflix they just kept bickering about being free to stream whatever they wanted from pirate sites and saving the £350M per week subscription fees to spend on popcorn. More than just the fees, they also insisted that being in Netflix meant that there were loads of unwanted programmes slipping in and taking up our valuable TV space.

“Last week”, my daughter insisted, “an unwanted Dream Boat landed in the TV!” She claimed it was full of shifty looking men who whilst appearing quite fit they just weren’t interested in working honestly. Although to me it did sound like they did a few jobs.

Anyway, completely out of character for me I just couldn’t make up my own mind what to do. I think mainly I realised that whichever side of the fence I came down on, one of the damn kids wouldn’t like me as much, at least for a bit. So I had a brilliant idea – I decided to hold a referendum!

I told the kids that as Parent I really do know best and that sometimes I have to make tough decisions that they may not like, but to be sure these decisions were always right and in their best interest.

However, when it comes to really, really important decisions that may hold me personally up to account it really shits me up… so I’m going to properly ask them what they want to do, finally, once and for all, and whatever they decide I will honour! Because that’s how I roll.

The referendum process itself was not without a little fruitiness. I like Netflix a lot so I tried to explain to the kids how staying in there ensured great films and TV series for years to come, how we’ve really enjoyed Stranger Things and A Series of Unfortunate Events, and that it really was excellent value for money. Yes, there might be a shed load of content that you personally don’t want to see but on balance the good stuff outweighs the less go stuff. A rather compelling argument.

Then again, some rumours were going around that out there on the high seas of the internet all the good Netflix stuff and even much better artistic content could be accessed via the Dark Web. It was suggested that coming out of Netflix would actually put our Family back in charge of our entertainment choices – the way it used to be, before Channel Four.

Now my kids can’t remember what it was like before Channel Four so helpfully those rumours illustrated the incredible opportunities that we enjoyed back then and that we are missing out on now. Like the complete absence of foreign material on the airwaves – except for Manuel who was from Barcelona (a city close to a wonderful summer holiday destination in Spain).

Eventually we got to the day of voting – which went very smoothly – and if you include me and the two kids almost 70% of the population cast a vote. Unprecedented! The question “Do you want to stay with Netflix?” will finally be answered.

Just one minor point to note: due to Parental Sovereignty the referendum must legally remain a consultation exercise – it can never actually dictate the actions of Parents, merely be an indicator of popular opinion.

So, finally, when we counted up the votes I was delighted to announce that 51.9% of the votes said “No” to Netflix.

I was devastated. I never imagined, not even for a second that these two children, the fruit of my very loins, could have voted so decisively against Netflix.

My son, a devout Leave campaigner, was so delighted he immediately opened up a bottle of fizzy pop and declared that the will of the children must be obeyed.

My daughter was a bit subdued (as was I). She belly-ached a bit about how my son had not only made unsubstantiated and populist claims in support of the Leave vote, but that as it turned out his friend from School had given him a load of sweets to dish out to swing voters to try to influence their vote at the last minute – something I had prohibited: but what can you do?

Now, dear reader, I can sense some furrowed brows. Three voters and an almost 70% turnout with a very clear and decisive result of 51.9% Leave to 48.1% Remain? Could that be right? Accepting that any measuring system contains systematic and operational errors one can never guarantee a 100% exact record, so there has been a tiny whisper that this result actually might be a tie. In other words the voting on both sides were so closely matched that there was no measurable majority on either side.

In other words, if you can only accurately measure something to, say, within a 1-2% error then that means you really cannot draw any conclusions if you need to rely on a measurement of less than 2%.

Thus, in the very unlikely event that not every single one of the pieces of paper could be recorded without error, a referendum could only indicate an outcome that showed a larger difference than that error.

I can assure you however that my referendum contained zero measurement error. I am so sure of that in fact that I simply cannot consider the possibility that it did. Both votes were recorded correctly and thus the 51.9% to 48.1% Leave majority is a significant and decisive expression of the democratic will of the bloody kids.

It would be ludicrous to suggest that the result of the Referendum was actually inconclusive. Just think about it – the Parent body would be forced to declare its own preference and be held to account for it. And besides, one or other of the kids would be really angry with me. I just couldn’t win!

Nope, democracy has spoken. The kids overwhelmingly want to leave Netflix and that’s that.

Of course I never wanted to leave Netflix so at this very conclusion I leave the room and want no more to do with this bloody mess. In my place I leave my lovely wife, another Member of Parent, to sort it all out. It’s amusing to note that both my daughter and my wife have the same incredulous expressions on their faces as I wave, smiling from the living room door. They’re funny.

This departure is allowing me to concentrate on writing my memoirs, but the NetflixExit saga had more surprises in store! At least for the Sovereign Parent.

Part Two coming shortly.