Looking back in miniature (From The Northern Echo)

Looking back in miniature

12:17pm Thursday 29th December 2011 in Mum At Large By Ruth Campbell

PARENTING is a constant challenge. But writing a regular column about family life is useful. For, as 2011 draws to a close, it allows me to look back over the year, take stock and reflect on all that has happened. These are just some of the things I have learnt over the past 12 months:

1 Don’t expect too much sympathy or concern from your children, even when you have just taken your life in your hands. I set off on what should have been a 15-minute journey to the shops in January, but got caught in a snow blizzard and stranded, in treacherous conditions, for three hours. When I eventually arrived home, pale and shaking, the younger boys just had one question: “Did you get us any sweets?”

2 Never admonish your children by text, no matter how cross you feel. In February, shortly after I sent a message to 17-year-old Charlie telling him how disappointed I was by his bad behaviour, I got a call from school to say he had been knocked unconscious playing football and was on his way to hospital.

He made a full recovery, but as I looked at him strapped on a spinal board, groaning in agony, I sorely regretted how cold and harsh my angry written words must have seemed, frozen on a screen. In future, I resolved to give it to him with both barrels face-to-face instead.

3 When you pay 84-year-old granny a surprise visit, bursting out of a binbag by the dustbin as she puts out the rubbish is probably not a good idea. When nine-year-old Albert did this in March, poor granny nearly had a heart attack. But jumping out of the large recycling wheelie bin, like a Jack-in-the Box, and catching his auntie unawares later – that really was funny.

4 We tried Sainsbury’s new menu planner, which advises how to feed a family of four for a week for £50, in May. By Tuesday, our boys had almost consumed the lot. By Wednesday, the bigger boys were threatening to devour their younger brothers. I have come to realise we do not eat like normal families. There isn’t an in between meal times in our house because the eating never stops.

The burning question of the day is always ‘what’s for tea?’ and when teenage boys are hungry, and there’s no food in the house, life becomes a living hell.

5 How do you get boys to study? I accepted I might be fighting a losing battle in June, as I cajoled 15-year-old Patrick to work for his exams. Following a long lie-in one Sunday morning, he announced, after lazing about in his pyjamas until 12.30pm, that he may as well wait until after lunch before starting work. He eventually opened a book at 2.30pm. At 3pm he was on his way out to play tennis. “But aren’t you supposed to be studying?” I asked. He was indignant: “I’m allowed a break, aren’t I?”

6 Don’t believe everything you overhear. When 19-year-old William was telling his brothers how his lads’ holiday in Bulgaria in September was “much wilder than anything you saw in the Inbetweeners movie” I admit I panicked. “Two of us were nearly arrested, and one of us was hospitalised,” he boasted.

Thankfully, I still had my ear to the door when his girlfriend added: “Being nearly arrested for weeing in the street is hardly wild and going to hospital with conjunctivitis is just pathetic.”

7 Ensure your children are properly house trained before they leave home. “It’s an emergency, me and my mate Rich need your help,” said Charlie, now in his first year at university, when he phoned in October. Had they been mugged? Thrown off their course? Set their flat on fire? No: “We’re in the laundry and can’t understand this separate whites and coloureds thing,” he said. “I have a white t-shirt with a coloured picture of Rihanna on it. How does that work?” It was probably too much to hope that he, a philosophy student, and Rich, a law student, could ever begin to understand a simple wash label.

8 If only I had known ten years ago that you are supposed to brush your cat’s teeth every day, I could have saved us the £306.25 vet’s bill for having Hermione’s tooth extracted in November.

It’s not as if I’ve ever allowed her to have sweets or fizzy drinks...

9 Having banned the C-word in our house until December 1, I broke my golden rule when the younger boys pleaded to see Santa turn on the Christmas lights in town at the end of November. There was much pushing and shouting, Santa was mobbed by screaming children, an argument broke out and someone ran over our feet with a pushchair. We went home early, with Albert in tears. I didn’t even need to say “I told you so”.

10 We had a major breakthrough in December when nine-yearold Albert, after struggling for years, suddenly realised reading could be fun. Comic David Walliams’s book, Mr Stink, about a smelly old tramp, seemed to light his fire. A friend who read this particular column told me her son was a similarly late developer who only took off when he discovered the Horrid Henry books – and he’s just been for an interview to read English at Cambridge University. So much for pushy parenting. I’m all for relaxing and letting them get on with it in their own time...

Happy New Year to parents everywhere...