Confessions of a Bad Mother (21 page)

‘Have I told you I smacked my child? Twice?’ I want to tell
people in the newsagent’s, at the park, over drinks. What am I looking
for? Some kind of punishment, then I can feel absolved. And once again, I get
my wish.

The Bad Mothers Club press release has been picked up by the
Daily
Mail
, who interview me, Kath, and three other friends with stories to tell.
On the day it comes out, I get a call from ITV’s
This Morning
.
Three of us go into the studio, and I tell the story of Our Day Out At Wisley.
Of course, before I can get to the part about no one being perfect and the
whole point of Bad Mothers Club, the presenter says: ‘If you can’t
look after children, you shouldn’t have had them.’

When I get home, the website has received 200 messages from mothers
saying they know how I feel. And they keep coming.

‘I think,’ says Peter, ‘you may have struck a bit of a
chord.’

Lawrence, two at the time, wants 20p to ride on the Postman Pat van
outside Sainsbury’s. It’s the usual worthless effort: a minimal
rocking to and fro – hardly enough to loosen your nappy – while the
speakers blast out that bloody awful song. A Formula One, Supercrash, or
riddle-you-with-bullets arcade game I could see the point of, but this? No way
worth 20p. And I know that after one ride – because they’re so damn
short – he’ll want another. And two rounds of that tune will put me
in a very bad mood. So clearly, to say No is best for all concerned. I know how
to say No. You just put your lips together and—

‘Postman Pat! Postman Pat!’

‘No way. Come on, we’ve shopping to get.’

‘Postman Pat! Postman Pat! Aargh!’

‘No! Come
on
!’

‘I want Postman Pat!
Aaaarrgghh!
’

Sympathetic looks from fellow parents are replaced, as I drag him away
from the cause of his anguish, by more perturbed stares. I try the advice from
the books: ‘
Do not reward bad behaviour by paying attention to it.
Ignore
the outburst and carry on with the task in hand.
’ So I
get Lydia in the trolley and move purposefully towards the automatic doors,
which open and close again, leaving the screaming Lawrence on the edge of the
car park. A woman in a hairband gives me a glare.

‘
Muu-mmeee!
’ he screams, without moving. A mother who
refuses him 20p for a Postman Pat ride is clearly not worth following
anywhere.

I grab him off the forecourt, stuffing him too roughly into the second
trolley seat so that he cries even more, and grimly begin the ordeal of
manoeuvring a flailing, scarlet toddler – and now a weeping one year old
as well – down the aisle. I do this, obviously, for the satisfaction of
those perfect, childless shoppers who believe that parents take their children
to supermarkets, not to do any shopping but to fight. My frustration is
exacerbated by self-loathing because I’ve bashed his hand on the edge of
the trolley. As we stop at Pasta, I’m thinking of telling Peter –
again
– that the whole thing has been a mistake; I shouldn’t
have become a mother after all, and both children should be removed from me and
brought up by nuns. By the time we get to the Bakery section, my guilt is such
that I have to buy them a doughnut each, and then I need one – well, two
– because I’ve used up all my blood sugar having my tantrum. We all
nibble away with relief, covering ourselves and the rest of the food in sugar.
At the checkout we are all calm, and Lydia is dazzling shoppers with her film
star beam. But when we come out: ‘Postman Pat! Postman Pat!
Aaaarrrrgggghhh!
’

And they ask why we give them sweets.

Talking to my friend Rose, whose son Jack is a bit older, I discover
there’s a wonderful technique known to more experienced parents which
isn’t in any of the books. It’s called Lying. You just load the
Lies for Windows
software and off you go!

‘Oh, dear, it’s broken. Never mind!’

Or:

‘I’ve got no change! I’m really sorry, kids
…’

It’s amazing how empowering dishonesty can be. Rose says she has
another friend who deals thus with the icecream van: ‘As soon as she
hears that music, she says: “
Oh, sorry kids: they’re playing
that tune that means they’ve run
out of ice
cream.
”’ At this I fall silent, recognizing when I’m in
the presence of talent.

But, as usual, this new gun in my armoury is ineffective in the next
battle. Peter comes in from work, where he is reviewing cars.

‘Hello,’ I say. ‘What did you do today?’

‘Compared the Aston Martin Vanquish with the Lamborghini Murelago.
How about you?’

‘I took Lawrence to play at Daniel’s, and he wouldn’t
put on his shoes.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Shouted “
GET YOUR SHOES ON!!!
” about 500
times.’

‘Did it work?’

‘No.’

‘Ah. A Cheeseless Tunnel.’

‘And Daniel’s mother’s a child psychologist, so
…’

‘Eek!’

‘Exactly. In the end I dragged him to the car in his socks. He
cried all the way home, and I felt awful.’ I pour us a drink.
‘What’s a Cheeseless Tunnel?’

‘Well … you know those experiments where rats learn to
crawl through a maze, or push open a catch, to retrieve a piece of cheese at
the end of a tunnel? If the cheese is taken away, they eventually give up. But
people don’t. They keep trying, even after what they’re doing has
been proven not to work. That’s the Cheeseless Tunnel.’

‘So what you’re saying is that parents are stupider than
rats.’

‘Basically.’

‘So how do I get Lawrence to put on his shoes?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Well, what use are you, then? Go away.’

‘On the other hand, though, if people were like rats, we would
never have had the Panama Canal.’

‘Or the jet engine.’

‘Or the disposable nappy, which can hold forty-eight litres of
baby urine before it explodes in a blizzard of wet crystals.’ (Do not try
this in an enclosed space such as a lift.)

‘So man can do all these amazing things …’

‘… But can’t get a three year old to put on his
shoes.’ Peter considers the matter for a few moments. ‘What about
encouragement and reward?’

‘You mean another weekend in Paris?’

‘Not you: him.’

‘Oh.’

‘Try noticing when he does something you want him to do and give
him a reward.’

‘Try noticing when I’ve had a shit day and bring me some
chocolate.’

‘No, it’s Positive Reinforcement, you see,
it—’

‘Just leave me alone!’

This, therefore, is why two adults – one or both of whom may have
been educated to degree level – believe that if they shout, ‘
Eat
your broccoli!
’ enough times, the child will eat it. Rats know
better.

The whole vegetable nightmare, and the insane levels of bribery it
drives you to, is brilliantly satirized in Kes Gray and Nic Sharratt’s
great surrealist work,
Eat Your
Peas
. Starting quite rationally
with offers of extra pudding, Daisy’s mother quickly progresses to
increasingly outlandish promises of animals, bikes, chocolate factories and
entire theme parks, in the hope of getting the wretched girl to eat her peas.
And even that doesn’t work.

I tell Lawrence: ‘When you’ve eaten your broccoli you can
have a video.’ And he counters: ‘I don’t
want
a
video.’ But it worked last time! Bugger, bugger,
bugger
it! And
that’s
followed by: ‘I’m tired.’

In other words, what he’d really like is to go to bed early
without any telly. Well I don’t know about you, but in my day that was a
punishment.

The Golden Rule being Not to Disagree in Front of Them, tension and
confusion are racked up further by our failure to agree on the correct
technique. In fact, our worst rows now invariably start this way.

‘If you eat your broccoli …’ begins Peter.

‘When. It’s
when
.’

‘Whatever.’

‘No, not “whatever”. You’re supposed to remove
the element of choice. That’s the point!’

‘Look, can we just get through the meal?’

Lawrence and Lydia see the parental fissure opening up, and ruthlessly
boot it wide open.

‘She kicked me!’

‘He was going to steal my drink!’

‘Well done,’ says Peter. ‘Happy now?’

We are worn out. There is surely no other job in which you effectively
take an exam every day. Every
hour
. And all your rough workings are
shown. Not only are results consistently inconsistent – what works one
day will suddenly for no reason not work the next – but even the
attempt
to follow some kind of strategy is cruelly exposed. Running for
the bus and missing it is tolerable; being seen panting to a halt by the
passengers is not. When that happens I have to run past the stop to pretend I
was running for some other reason, like my health. The children hearing us
debate our methods is embarrassing, like being seen in the car picking your
nose.

Peter – and I have observed that this seems to be a
male
thing – will sometimes
alter
, shall we say, certain previously
agreed parameters, in the interests of an Easy Life. But as we all know, this
is Short Termism, which Makes Things Worse in the End. When I was five, my
parents had a huge row after my dad let us have ice lollies, which we
weren’t allowed. We went on and on at him, and because Mum had gone out,
he gave in. But we were still eating them when she came back. ‘
I
thought we
agreed
,’ she kept wailing, ‘
I thought we
agreed!
’ Shortly afterwards they were divorced.

My own relationship is similarly corroded by the acid of childish
determination. Trying to go to my sister’s, I ring – another thing
we disagree about – to say we’re running a bit late.

‘Where are you?’ she says.

‘We’re still trying to get them into the car.’ Her
astonishment, for she is not yet a mother, can be heard in the awed silence
echoing down the line.

I remember this from when they first began to resist being put in the
pushchair. The body goes stiff and flat like an ironing board, with red,
square-mouthed face at one end, and sharp, kicking legs at the other. You
practically have to punch them in the stomach to fold them in. And now, with
time ticking away, we’re in Car Seat Hell, battling steroidally strong,
whirling limbs with the added option of back strain. To twist round, lean down
and get them into the car seat, the doing up of which – as with an
epidural, requires the subject to be
still
– demands a combination
of determination and forbearance that would defeat Jesus. And he didn’t
have a bad back.

‘Just get in the seat, will you?’ begs Husband, in Defeated
Tone of Voice.

‘NO-O-O-O-O-O!’

Me: ‘Bloody get in your seat!’

‘NO-O-O-O-O-O!’

Him: ‘Get in the car, and – we’ll get an ice cream on
the way.’

‘What? To eat in the car? You are joking!’

‘Well, you do it then.’ (Husband returns to house.)

Weekends are a flashpoint anyhow, even without involving the car. Peter,
who spent his childhood trudging up and down fells, likes to spend Saturday and
Sunday lying about reading the papers and watching films. I, who spent my
childhood at the cinema, lurch through the house clutching at my throat and
gasping because I hate being cooped up. The park is only a short walk away. He
says: ‘The children are happy just pottering around at home.’ Which
indeed they are – until, with their energy building up like a pressure
cooker, they blow their tops and start a war.

As they throw punches I say: ‘See?’ And he says, in his
little-known, Basil Fawlty voice: ‘Right! Mummy wants to go to the
park.’ So everyone’s clear about who’s inflicting this
torture. Although we can get out of the house with less equipment than when
they were babies, the negotiation involved is more exhausting. We reattach
hoods, get out hats, wellies, gloves, water, a carrier bag for worms and a
snack,
then
begin the rounds of talks. Lydia, to be fair, can be
convinced in less than an hour – so long as she can bring a bag full of
soft toys which she will get tired of carrying as soon as we’ve left the
house. Lawrence, however, treats the invitation as husbands do the information
that they’re to pop in for a drink with the neighbours: as an assault on
his precious spare time. The fact that he loves the park once he gets there, is
no help. He glances a millimetre away from
Tom and Jerry
and informs me:
‘It’s my day off.’

Peter says: ‘If you come to the park you can have a
croissant.’

‘Well, what’s the point of the exercise then?’ I say.
‘Why bother ever doing anything healthy?’

‘Can we just get out of the house?’

‘At least consult me before you make these stupid offers
…’

‘OK, you do it then …’ (Husband returns to sofa.)

He is also conducting an ongoing bribe, involving squash. Influenced by
my mother’s squash phobia, I don’t want them to have their water
– and therefore their teeth – ruined by it. He claims to be worried
about their ‘fluid intake’. It’s got to the point now where
we each spy on whoever’s doing the drinks.

‘Oi, no!’ I bark, seeing the pink bottle out of the corner
of my eye. Then while I’m opening the wine, he sneaks Lydia her fix.
Lawrence will at least settle for fizzy water, though even there Peter has to
get back at me by observing: ‘I read somewhere that the carbon dioxide is
bad for their teeth.’

He’s never read an article about nutrition in his life. He thinks
he’s clever, going behind my back with the squash, but I do most of the
shopping and on the next run I’m going to forget to buy any.
Ha-
hah
!

Lawrence knows his father will negotiate endlessly for an Easy Life.