A Conversation with Dad #1: A Wool Wig (Original Cast Recording)

ROB

All of this is down to my Mum and Dad really. Recently I asked Dad, how did this all

start?

DAD

I can remember I’d finished work early once and I can remember walking in and your

Nan literally was whipping something away from you and shoving it into the – like,

she had this little pouffe that I sit on now...

ROB

I remember.

DAD

And I like, looked, I said “What’s that?” and she said nothing and she was smiling,

she was saying “It’s nothing. It’s nothing.” I said “What was it?” She said “We’re just

playing. We’re just playing.” She said “I made—” and it was all plaits.

ROB

It was a wool wig.

DAD

A what?

ROB

A wool wig. She made wigs out of wool.

DAD

Yeah, it was like cream plaits.

ROB

It was wool, yeah.

DAD

And Mom was going “Oh he loves it. He loves it. And he- he likes all the dressing up

and whatever” so then I was like “Have you got a soldier outfit?” and I think it was

like- like- 12, 18 months later I bought you the Beast outfit, thinking “Oh, well, if he’s

that way inclined, I can change it with this outfit. Instead of buying him Belle... I’ll buy

him the Beast”.

ROB

It’s okay. As parents, you do your best but I think there comes a point where you

have to give up trying. It’s too much energy. There was no stopping this wool wig.

We’re nearly at the end now. Let’s go back to the beginning, Dad. Remember what

you said when I posted the video of when I turned the house into Disneyland?

When I posted that video online, it came to my surprise that mine was a familiar

story. So many people put on shows in the living room, so many people fell in love

with Pied Pipers, so many people built their own stages when others said they

couldn’t, all in their own brilliant, different ways. And then I got a comment from a

parent...

“My beautiful little girl is now an extremely handsome little boy. I’m blessed to have

him as my son. He is such a sweetheart with the most beautiful soul. Unfortunately

once we came out to his friends’ parents everyone turned their backs on us. He has

no friends. We can’t ever have birthday parties because nobody will come. I love my

son so so much.”

For once, I was lost for words. So it’s Dad that responded:

“If our only duty as parents is to allow our kids to be what they want to be... then it

makes parenting pretty easy in my opinion”

That’s it, isn’t it. Simple. Here I am trying to put on a whole show about it and Dad

does a better job in one sentence. Suppose I can forgive Bert for missing his cue.

There’s a lyric in Beauty and the Beast: “we don’t like what we don’t understand. In

fact, it scares us”. I don’t think a kid wearing a wool wig is that terrifying. But some

parents do. Shame really.