A demented cage-fighter has taken over my home. It’s terrifying

10 July 2010

Toby Young suffers from Status Anxiety

In the last few weeks my life has begun to resemble the plot of a Hollywood B movie. An alpha male has invaded my home, terrorised my children and enslaved my wife. If I raise the slightest objection to anything he does, he kicks me in the balls. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I have become his bitch, running and dashing to satisfy his every need.

I’m talking about my two-year-old son Charlie. He has always been my most difficult child, refusing to sleep through the night, prone to tantrums, etc. But until recently he existed on the periphery of my life. He was a little ball of anger, thrashing around on the floor and howling with fury. He was someone who had to be stepped over rather than engaged with.

However, in the past month or so he has suddenly acquired the gift of intelligence. In the case of my three elder children, I’ve noticed that their intellectual development has taken place in spurts, struggling to speak in sentences one minute, asking you to explain the Pythagorean theorem the next. But never has it been more pronounced. It’s almost as if Charlie’s been possessed by the spirit of a dead politician. Stalin, for instance. Or Hitler.

‘S’mine, actually,’ he’ll say, prising the remote control from my fingers as we’re all watching television. The channel will then be switched to the Cartoon Network — prefer-ably to some ultra-violent programme like Ben 10. If any of my other children challenge him, he will use any means necessary to fend them off, including biting, scratching and eye gouging. Often he just stands in front of the TV and takes on all-comers like some demented cage-fighter.

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