Mother’s Day cards tend to paint us through rose-tinted glasses.
However, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have some faults … that our children can use to embarrass and humiliate us in public. Sam Pope admits to her maternal slip-ups before her daughter Holly beats her to it.
Motherhood myths
Before children, I’d always thought I would be a super-organised mum,
who would successfully work some of the time and teach her child how to
read, write and speak fluently in Spanish and English the rest. My husband
Carl would come home to a beautiful and orderly house, something delicious
cooking in the oven and a drink handed to him.
Who the hell was I trying to be in my mind anyway: an independent woman
AND a model Victorian wife? Talk about identity crisis. Soon after my
daughter Holly was born four years ago I soon realised my expectations
were somewhat too high. It soon became clear that I wasn’t going to be
one of those perfect mums who grin fondly as their toddler smears excrement
onto the bathroom wall and who cook cordon blue dishes with organic ingredients.
I was not a size 10, I didn’t shop at Boden, and my house wasn’t a shrine
to cleanliness. Instead I was a ‘curvaceous’ size 14, I shopped at New
Look and my house, well, let’s just say it is obvious that cats and a
Marmite-addicted toddler live here.
Reality bites… or poos
My delusions of motherhood were proved false one disastrous afternoon
a few months after Holly was born and I was exhausted from dealing with
acute 24/7 colic. I raced to the shops to buy something pretty to wear
that evening when my husband came home, wanting for once to look attractive
instead of shell-shocked.
I was desperately hoping Holly would stay asleep long enough for me to
try something on. However, within seconds of entering the changing room,
she woke up and filled the most humungous nappy you have ever seen. Or
smelt.
Desperately I changed her before the odour could permeate through the
rest of the changing rooms, grabbed the skirt and top and dashed home.
I slipped on my new clothes and started dressing Holly after her bath
so we both would look gorgeous for Carl.
However, Holly had other plans: to do her first, and virtually only,
projectile poo of her lifetime, covering my new outfit with yellow slush.
Carl came home to Holly wailing, me stinking and running around in alarm,
screeching for help with the wipes and poo all over the floor. Romantic
or what?
Driving Miss Copycat
Since then chaos has more or less ruled our lives. I am not the most
patient person in the world and I have struggled to remain serene in the
face of all the demands that working and raising a child involve.
Yes, I have tried yoga. And meditation. And don’t even dare to suggest
time management. I hoped that my permanent state of agitation has been
somewhat hidden from Holly but she’s too bright for that. My first indication
that she was learning from me was when I let her play in the toddler car
in Mothercare.
She sat herself down and started pretending to drive. Not quietly and
happily. Instead, she started beeping the little horn, shouting out loud
‘Go away!’ and muttering under her breath. I looked on, horrified, realising
that she was imitating me, especially when she shouted, ‘Stupid driver!’
No publicity please
Why is it that our children always learn our faults, not our merits?
Or at least why can’t they hide them in public? It’s like they have an
in-built radar that goes off at the most inappropriate times. We were
seeing the health visitor about Holly not eating well and, on the way
there, called into the library, where she chose four books and one DVD
(Cinderella).
I kept thinking, ‘I hope to God she doesn’t pull out the DVD and show
the health visitor’ in case I was gently berated for allowing her too
much telly. True to form, halfway through the session, Holly came up and
said, ‘Mummy can I show her the foom?’. (She has trouble with ‘film’ and
did a marvellous impression of Inspector Clouseau). I smiled brightly
and said ‘You want to show her the BOOKS we got at the LIBRARY?’ I smiled
smugly at the health visitor as if to say, “See? I don’t need the patronising
public health information you give to us new mums.” Holly shook her head
and said, “The foom”.
The health visitor turned to her and asked her she wanted and Holly,
now becoming agitated, kept repeating, “Foom. FOOM. FOOOOOOM!!!!”. “You
want a LIBRARY BOOK Holly?” I insisted, desperately. “No, mummy, I want
the FOOM!” she insisted, and pulled out the DVD. “Ah,” said the health
visitor, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, Holly, you have always
rather liked your fooms haven’t you?”.
Is it a bird? A plane? No, it’s BatFart
These episodes aren’t too bad, you might be thinking. Of course you also
might be thinking what an idiot I have been in certain situations. Take
your pick. However, the worst was still to come.
Generally, I try to watch my language around Holly as she does pick
up words and expressions very quickly. However, when cut up by an aggressive
driver or falling flat on my face in public I find it very difficult not
to shout out a choice expletive. Rather stupidly I hoped Holly had selective
hearing. She did – she chose to learn the words and repeat them to her
friends at nursery. I discovered this one day when I picked her up and
was stopped awkwardly by one of her key workers.
“We had a bit of an… incident… with Holly today,” she said, not quite
looking me in the eye. “Oh dear,” I replied worriedly. “Did she hit another
child?” “Well, no,” she replied awkwardly. “At dinnertime, she sat down
next to Annie, looked her in the eye, and shouted, ‘You BU**ER!’.” I blushed
furiously, lost for words. Another key worker came up and said. “We thought
we ought to tell you so you wouldn’t think that she learnt that sort of
language here.”
I then received a very pointed look. I took Holly home and told her that
it wasn’t nice to say naughty words and that she shouldn’t do it anymore
because it made me look like a bad mummy. For a few months, all was fine
and I forgot about it. Then two months later, the nursery manageress called
me over to tell me that, once again, Holly had been showing off her knowledge
of Anglo-Saxon profanities and had been kind enough to share them with
an eager-to-learn friend.
“Holly caused a bit of a stir today,” she said, a smile playing on her
lips. I felt my heart hammer in my chest. “What’s she done this time?”
I whispered. “Well, she said the ‘eff’ word, to be exact,” the manageress’s
smile was twitching nearly uncontrollably. “The problem was, her friend
heard it and started running around shouting it too. So it was quite an
event.”
From that day on, I let my husband pick her up for a while. We’ve been
in the clear recently, though I dread saying that because when I do, I
can be guaranteed that she’ll choose yet another swear word to add to
her repertoire. We are avoiding mumchum gatherings because of their absolute
disgust at the word ‘fart’. One mother said to us that she had to stop
her husband from saying ‘farts’ in front of their sons and to call them
‘windypops’ instead.
Holly then promptly used the word in the most imaginative way possible
in front of the whole room. I asked her friend, who was in fancy dress,
if she was supposed to be dressed as BatWoman. The cold reply was, “No.
I am Batgirl.” Holly sniffed and said, “No, you’re BatFart“.
Silently I cheered her on against this snooty beast but we’ve stopped
getting invites to coffee mornings…
Rebel with a cause
Reading this back, I realise that I actually do sound like a very naughty
mummy indeed. But I think I do some things right. Yes, I admit that my
language, and Holly’s, needs some work; instead of Holly becoming fluent
in Spanish, as I had originally intended, she has become skilful in Anglo-Germanic
expletives. And I let my daughter watch fooms occasionally. And that I
am not the most serene drivers on the planet.
However, people also tell me that Holly is a bright child (which admittedly
can work either in our favour or against it). That she is confident, sweet
and helpful. She’s also pretty good at art and tidying up. Come to think
about it, maybe she’s rebelling against me…
Where to next?
