Sun, Sex & Sheltered Parents

Back at the tender age of 18, when I had just completed the hurdle of my A levels and with university on the horizon, myself and 5 friends jetted off to the island of Crete for a week in Malia. Why Malia? Cheap booze, clubbing and slack quad bike laws and the definite freedom from my parents. Even though we choose to ‘tear up’ Malia and ‘make it our bitch’ the fact is that we could just have easily ended up in Laganas, Ayia Napa, Kavos or Magaluf with almost an identical experience to be had.

There have been a load of TV programmes knocking around lately that follow teens around  whilst getting boozy at such holiday resorts. The BBC of course went for flying a teen and a bunch of their friends out for a good time… totally unknowingly followed by their slightly obsessive, but innocent parents: Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents. 

Suspicious? Or just completely out of touch with their kids?

When I was 18, I was fully aware that if I put my penis in someone else, it might not come out as clean and could even lead to being called ‘Daddy’.  Despite my knowledge, this did not deter my mother from giving me advice and a packet of Jonny’s before I left home but she drew the line there… She definitely didn’t say a false goodbye, catch a flight out to Malia the proceeding day, spend the next 6 days pretending she was military trained whilst watching me try to drink my own body weight and finally ruin my holiday by surprising me on my final night. Between us we had a mutual understanding, ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ which luckily does not conflict with the other promise I made to my friends being ‘What goes on tour, stays on tour’. #LAD

However, parents on the BBC3 show seem oblivious that young people today engage in drinking, clubbing and often casual sex in such holiday resorts as Malia, even though it was not dissimilar from what they did many years ago. Surely the parents cannot be so ignorant to realise that their children are as innocent as they let on? Obviously not as the majority of the hilarity from the show comes from the parents realising their children’s behaviour.

Possibly the best example of the show is from the first series where Greg (pictured below) travels to Ayia Napa for his first ‘Lad’s Holiday’… Like every other episode, his parents travel out later and sit down every night and watch a monitor showing their son’s activities. Pre- holiday, his parents rated him as a ‘nice bloke’ however as the episode unfolds, they realise that he is a rather large bellend and his mates are not that fond of him. Oooh er!

Greg turned out to be a dick – his parents didn’t like him much.

Whilst Greg epitomised the dick that you wouldn’t want to share a room with on holiday, the majority of episodes feature predominantly pleasant people who drink and know how to enjoy themselves in their own way. In true BBC fashion, the focal point is the alcoholic consumption and of course paints a bad picture.Luckily the programme isn’t made by the Daily Mail, who would be significantly less than gracious. Dicks

Let’s be honest for a minute, whilst everyone’s first holiday abroad is somewhat messy and is an experience that you wouldn’t want your family to be a part of, when compared to Fresher’s Fortnight or any one of ‘The Lash’s’, it is pretty average. Imagine that for a minute, your mum and dad standing at the bottom of the Union steps whilst you emerge at 2am covered in Zwack, vomit and saliva being carried home by your housemates. Its not a good look and may hinder the next time you ask for financial help.

Needless to say, every tuesday night my house all convene to watch Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents and after an hour of watching, we all conclude that we firstly all want one final ‘Lads’ holiday before the end of university and secondly, that our parents never need know what we get up to. End of.