Julie Jay: When sharing is not caring 

In our house, it is a case of finders keepers and losers are also keepers, at least when the loser is Ted. Yes, our toddler lays claim to anything and everything that tickles his fancy. And given that I am considered to be a “geriatric parent”, I don’t have the energy to argue most of the time.

Yesterday, I spotted a particularly obnoxious-looking one-legged toy soldier I hadn’t encountered before.

“Is this Marie’s?” I asked because his childminder was the only other abode he had recently hung out in.

Ted shook his head furiously. “It’s not Marie’s,” he maintained, “it’s mine.”

Staring quizzically at the plastic figure, I persisted. “But where did you get it?”

“Marie’s house,” came Ted’s response.

“So it is Marie’s?” I asked.

Ted was aghast. What part of this was I missing? “No, it’s not Marie’s, it’s mine.”

And round and round we went — it’s like debating, but there’s only one argument in town: Ted’s.

So far Ted and JJ have been the best of buds, but my friends are bordering on gleeful in reminding me that this probably won’t last long.

“Just wait til JJ tries to play with his toys,” my friends inform me, positively giddy at the fraught future that lies before me.

And it’s true, JJ has been relatively inoffensive and given that he can’t roll onto his tummy yet the chances of him rifling through Ted’s toy box are slim. But the day JJ reaches out and takes Ted’s beloved Ducky is the day I officially turn to the drink as a coping mechanism for what is bound to be all-out toddler fisticuffs.

On more than one occasion, Ted has clambered into JJ’s cot to retrieve what he refers to as “his” bunny, though he hasn’t actually shown any interest in the soft toy since he was a newborn. Whatever about sharing his parents with this tiny interloper, sharing his bunny is where Ted draws the line.

What makes the scenario particularly confusing is that Ted’s favourite phrase is “sharing is caring”, though sadly it only appears to work when he is the one benefiting from the sharing.

Picking him up from a party the other day, I asked for one of his jellies only to be told there “weren’t enough”. When I pointed out there were, in fact, more than enough in his party bag, he turned to emotional blackmail and informed me that if he gave me one, it would make him sad.

“And you don’t want me to be sad, Mammy,” he said.

Honestly, the child runs rings around me with his circular logic. Move over, David McWilliams — there’s a new and equally cute economist in town.

Still, Ted can be easily duped when I apply the only lesson I gleaned from Mark Twain. In his book about a mischievous young scamp called Tom Sawyer, the protagonist is tasked by his Aunt Polly to whitewash a fence as punishment for some egregious crime.

In a genius move, Tom convinces his friends Ben and Jim that painting a fence is up there with apples for fun. (If my Junior Cert history serves me right, they were only mad for apples in the 19th century.) The image of the two boys painting the fence on Tom’s behalf has stayed with me as an example of how we covet what we don’t have.

And so it was that I feigned enjoyment when tucking into a bowl of chopped carrots the other day. Sure enough, Ted’s interest quickly peaked and as he reached for some root vegetable goodness, I gave an Oscar-winning performance in telling him that they were most definitely my carrots, not his carrots. Ted was riled to such an extent he ended up wrestling the bowl from my hands quicker than you could say: “Two can play at that game.”

Finally, I had defeated Ted and used his objection to sharing against him. I felt nothing short of triumphant.

But Mark Twain’s apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I also despise sharing with a passion. The other day I bought a multipack of Rolos and my husband had the audacity to ask for a tube as I sat down to watch Masterchef. I explained I had eaten one tube in the car on the way home, one tube for dinner, and one while the culinary contestants struggled through the preliminary skills round.

Just one tube was left — which I needed to keep “in case of emergencies”. When Fred quizzed me on what kind of emergency would call for a tube of Rolos, I muttered something vague about gestational diabetes and blood sugars, and he retreated. After all, sharing is most definitely not caring when you are an adult currently running on a combination of chocolate and fizzy pop.

On that note, if I were ever to run on any political platform, it would be to overturn the recent decision to discontinue Animal Bars because as a parent, lord knows, I need all the chocolate available to get me through.