Who's The Daddy: Sailing away to new and exciting adventures

A few weeks after her 19th birthday, daughter #1 and a buddy backpacked their way around South America for three months. Argentina, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. And me and the boss collectively **** our pants every single day she was away.

Now daughter #2 is off on her travels after she graduates from university in a few months after she landed a six-month contract with a cruise ship company to work on one (or more) of their gargantuan boats, each with a population greater than the little town in South Cumbria where I grew up.And she’s pretty thrilled about the whole thing. One of the boss’ friends got a similar job when she was daughter#2’s age and liked it so much she did it for two years.

Now daughter #2 is nothing if not a realist. She knows full well that cruise ship staff aren’t holed up in the Presidential Suite for the duration of their stay with 24-hour concierge service. If anything, she’ll be the one on call from her tiny shared cabin six feet from the engine.

But hey, when she sails she’ll be 22 with a degree in her back pocket and at that age you’re made out of Kevlar and titanium. Injuries and ailments that would land middle-aged people in A&E are brushed off in your early 20s like a bothersome wasp at a picnic.

It has been a badge of honour that me and the boss have worn with pride that from their mid-teens our daughters have gone out and got jobs and earned their own money. In no particular order they’ve worked in a pub, a pharmacy, a supermarket during the Covid toilet paper wars, a council helpline, a restaurant, a school and a clothes shop. And one time daughter #1 even got a part-time job for a few weeks while she was waiting for the job she really wanted to start.

I’d say you learn a lot more stuff that’s going to help you in the real world doing part-time jobs than you ever do at school. Put it this way, it hones your BS detector to perfection as you deal with a steady stream of absolute nimrods and, if the money’s not right and the job’s more trouble than it’s worth - leave and get another one. It’s not school or prison, you can quit whenever you want.

And unlike yours truly at their age who saw a paycheque as something to burn through in bars, nightclubs and football stadiums up and down the country, they look after their money a little more carefully.

They invest in ISAs, but when I wasn’t much older than they are now, to me, Isa was a meddlesome but loveable character in the Scottish sitcom Still Game, not a product designed to legally shield your long-term investments from tax.

Plus, both daughters were out the front door aged 19 and 16, only returning home for a few months four years ago when the world shut down for Covid.

Recently I asked daughter#1 if she’d like to come home and have the run of the place the next time me and the boss go on holiday, and she said: “Dad, I’ve got my own flat in Manchester, I have the run of that anytime I like.” Touché!

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