When
children grow up and go off to university or move out, it often leaves parents
with a depression known as 'empty nest syndrome'. The eerily quiet house, the
lack of mess to constantly tidy, the absence of managing someone else's life
and a sense of not being needed anymore contribute to the loss of identity of
being a mum or dad. (This doesn't actually happen; you soon realise that, as
your child transitions into adulthood, hands-on, daily dealings with them are replaced
with being the provider of remote support – a virtual assistant, on 24-hour
duty for at least a couple of years before they really find their feet in the
world.) We may wish they were still children, living under our roof, but there's one thing that a parent will not miss – as they stand in an empty
bedroom, wondering whether it's fit for Airbnb – a thing that they'd probably
had enough of after only a few weeks of it, a thing that has significantly
contributed to the alarming appearance of worry lines, a thing that they
absolutely, definitely will not miss... the school-day morning routine.
Oh, my goodness, if you could
harness the stress levels in parents getting their children ready for school in
the morning and convert it into energy, you could compensate for the surge in
demand on the national grid that occurs at the same time.
From the early hours of the morning
until the magic school registration time, five days a week during term time for
at least fourteen years it's a ground-hog day of the same – and sometimes new –
spanners flying into the works. No matter how carefully you prepare the night
before (uniforms laid out – tick, packed lunches – tick, books in bag – tick,
return slips filled with exact payment – tick, PE kit washed and by the front
door – tick, water bottles refilled and in bag – tick), you will never, ever
have a nice, calm start to the day.
Younger children get up
ridiculously early and have to be entertained, whilst you are desperately
trying to get ready for work and not turn up with only one eye mascaraed and
your skirt tucked into your pants; older children get up ridiculously late and
very grumpy and have to be chivvied and cajoled every step of the way. If I had
a pound for every time I had to repeat an instruction (have you cleaned your
teeth, please can you put your shoes on, stop playing on the Xbox, put your
phone down and get ready, what do you mean you've left your coat at school...),
I could take early retirement. That hour requires the skills of a personal
assistant, United Nations envoy and a child psychologist rolled into one.
You battle on as the time for
leaving the house gets ever nearer, and you're still trying to shepherd your
children into some semblance of readiness. At last, and miraculously on time,
you open the front door and usher your children out. You think you've made it when one of them (at least) pipes up and
presents you with THE DOORSTEP CHALLENGE.
The doorstep challenge is a
complete curveball. It can be anything:
Oh, Mum, we're meant to wear
something spotty/pink/Roman today.
I need to go back into the house
and find my hat/fidget spinner/script for the school play.
We have to wear sun cream today or
we won't be allowed out to play (sun cream in loft).
It's school photos today (2nd day
of wearing their uniform, hair not looking good).
I've got to bring my saxophone into
school (saxophone not in case, music
nowhere to be found).
An author/footballer/circus skills
coach is visiting today – I need £5.63 in exact change to buy a book/football/diabolo.
Can you test me on my
spellings – wait while I search my bag for the list.
It's Skipping Day today – I need my
skipping rope (locked in garden shed).
I've left my homework in my room –
I just need to finish it quickly – it has to be in today!!!
Now, you could, quite justifiably,
turn around and tell your child that it's too late for that. Give them the
lecture about being more organised and that the deadline for all these things
is the night before, not now. You could tell them that this will teach them a
lesson, and maybe they won't do it next time.
But you know you're just wasting
your time. You love them, and the last thing you want to do is let them go to
school worried or angry about the day ahead. You want them to have a good day
and to like school, and you know that putting your foot down will achieve
neither of these things.
So, you stand in the doorway,
shouting at them to hurry up or race around the house, searching for something
that will do for dressing up as Matilda for World Book Day until finally, much
later than you should be, you can all head off for school. You arrive at work,
utterly frazzled, feeling like you've already done a day's work and knowing
that there will be a repeat performance tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow).
But when your children do finally
fly the nest and leave you feeling redundant and bereft of their company, you
can look back with pride, through those rose-tinted glasses, that you've
successfully (almost) survived going on 3,000 mornings.
And then see if you can do anything about those wrinkles.
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