We drove on some more until we came to a red light, barely visible as the thick rain lashed down all around. My dad nearly missed the light, slamming on the brakes just in time and skidding to a stop as my mother muttered something loving under her breath about him being a ‘homicidal maniac’, and then we waited. What a holiday this was shaping up to be. I should get the selfie stick out right now!
After a few seconds I noticed a huge Antiguan man walking alongside the car. Now Antigua isn’t one for pavements and all that boring infrastructure stuff, and why not, it’s a paradise. You don’t need pavements in paradise. We all know what happened to paradise when they put up a parking lot so I was delighted that Antigua had decided to keep things simple. While we waited patiently for the lights to change, this behemoth of a man was now sludging his way through the grassy knoll that ran adjacent to the road. Eventually he stopped, almost parallel to our vehicle, and started to fiddle with his belt.
Now the next 30 seconds of my life are etched into my psyche in such detail I don’t think the images will ever leave me. I could be on my death bed, surrounded by loved ones, adoring fans, my wife and kids staring into my dimming eyes, and as they all ask me, in perfect unison, ‘What are your dying words, our beloved?’ I will whisper with my final breath, ‘Once, in Antigua, me and my mum spent 30 seconds staring at the same stranger’s penis … Oh, and I once told an eight-year-old to go fuck himself.’
Our Antiguan man-mountain of a friend had decided to remove his aforementioned penis – from his shorts, not physically from his body; he didn’t rip it off, stick it in a jar and hand it to my beloved mother – he simply popped it out his pants and started having a widdle in the street. So as a man peed in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the road, the Stirling family stared on. Mother seemed furious that yet more unwanted drizzle had affected our main holiday. I was paralysed with fear – ‘paralysed by the penis’, if you will. Someone had to do something, but who was it going to be?
‘WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?’ I’VE NO IDEA, MATE. I’M ONLY SEVEN.
It’s weird the first time you find yourself in a situation in which you feel like you need to protect your parents. The role reversal is a real rite of passage into adulthood. That first time your dad can’t pick up a particularly heavy box or needs consoling following the loss of a pet, or when your mum is left helplessly staring at a stranger’s penis. Having these figures of strength and unconditional love turn to you for help and showing they’re not infallible – nothing makes you feel more like a grown-up. Like the first time you cross a road before the green man comes on and you notice those around you follow you on your journey to the other side of the road. I’ve never felt more powerful in my life. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Iain Stirling is a fucking alpha male!
The reason this role reversal hit me particularly hard was in no little part down to the fact that when it comes to my own parents I am a textbook millennial. My parents have always put my hopes and desires above their own at any cost. Evenings were spent taking me to any club or hobby that remotely tickled my fancy. Football, tennis, golf, swimming, boy scouts, amateur dramatics – you name it, I was painfully average at all of them, but Christ was I diverse. In theatre, people speak of the ‘triple threat’, one of those talented son of a guns that could sing, dance and act. Well, I, Iain Stirling, was more like an sexuple threat. I would sing, dance and act, while in a swimming pool, playing golf with Akela looking on, ready to give me my putting badge. This severely watered down my ability to excel in any particular area, but I was having a lovely time and Mummy said I was good, so what does actual objective success even matter? As I type this I can imagine my mum saying to me, ‘You weren’t average at all, son. You were uniquely talented.’
Every problem I ever faced was never faced alone. I always had the support of my loving parents no matter what. And when it came to her baby boy there were few lengths my mother wouldn’t go to. When I got bullied, my mum didn’t just go into the school. She didn’t just tell me that I should ignore it. What Alison Stirling did was sign me up to self-defence classes three times a week. She had to buy me all the gear, drive me there and back in the evenings and give up her weekends for competitions and exams – all because of that one time Gavin pushed me in a puddle.
Now I’m not saying all my mother’s acts of parenting were needlessly overbearing. Self-defence is undoubtedly a useful skill, and the weekly socialising and exercise were great for my physical and mental health. The issue I have is with the discipline Mother decided for me – judo. The problem was that judo didn’t have any real-life implications in terms of thwarting those evil bullies (well, Gavin). As a martial art it is definitely one of the more passive disciplines. On the intimidation scale I was less Conor McGregor and more Gandhi. First of all, for judo to work you and your opponent need to be in a hold, and secondly for that hold to work you both need to be wearing the appropriate gown. ‘Oh, you want my lunch money, do you? Well, stick on this dressing gown because we’re about to cuddle.’ I carried on with judo for a further seven years, until a little girl called Katie snapped my collarbone and, as a family, we decided I should maybe focus on the arts. During those seven years the bullying never subsided, but my health improved significantly, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. I imagine Gavin is now a professional internet troll.
Although it seems like a great thing for millennials to grow up with parents willing to go above and beyond in order for them to live the best lives possible, some experts have spoken out, claiming millennials have grown up with what is now being regarded as ‘bad parenting’. This phrase might make it sound like we all grew up with some sort of abuse or neglect, but actually it’s quite the opposite. ‘Bad parenting’ is the idea that our parents told us throughout our childhoods that we were special and could achieve anything we wanted, so long as we wanted it badly enough. During my childhood I remember my mum constantly telling me that I was ‘special’ and could ‘achieve anything’.
Other ultimately useless information was also thrown at me on regular occasions, such as ‘Iain, the bullies are picking on you because they’re jealous.’ Yeah, that’s right, Mum, the bullies are jealous of my stutter and my lazy eye. The truth is that kids pick on kids because kids are pricks and picking on people is fun. It’s called ‘making fun’ for a reason. Sometimes as a child you need to be told about the harsh realities of life, which I was protected from my entire childhood. I was never told about failure growing up; I was constantly protected from it. I don’t think I went to a funeral until I was at university. Heaven forbid I would be made aware of the fact that all people eventually die. I wasn’t ready for that. I was only 20.
As well as limiting our exposure to the harsh realities of life, our parents would also go above and beyond to ensure our dreams and desires could be realised. Millennial kids were never brought up with a belief that they were flawed or that they had to be realistic in their dreams. Yet despite this increased protection and support, millennials are still overall a lot less happy than their Gen X parents. How can this be? The answer is in our increased life expectations, dreams that were far ahead of anything Gen X parents ever hoped for. Essential happiness comes down to a very simple formula.
HAPPINESS = REALITIES – EXPECTATIONS
It makes total sense if you think about it. Your happiness is essentially the current situation you find yourself in, less what you expected your life to be like. This is the mistake many parents have made. Tell your kid they will grow up to be an astronaut and, shock horror, a reliable, well-paid job in admin will never really live up to their childhood expectations. This is not to say a child’s dreams shouldn’t be nurtured and encouraged, but you also need to teach them about the world’s harsh realities to temper expectations. I asked my mum whether she felt any pressure to monitor my expectations when I first started in comedy.
IAIN STIRLING
I’m at university. I’m studying law but I clearly want to be a comedian, which in our family is not a thing you do.
ALISON STIRLING
No.
IAIN STIRLING
Is