Occasional Scribbles

“Women really are incredibly stupid over their children sometimes”, said my father.  I rather took umbridge at this statement at the time but there are times when I am inclined to agree with him.

A friend of mine, who is no longer a friend, has given me cause to support this line of thinking.  Quite unexpectedly, she cut me out of her life even though I have known her for eight years while our children attended the same school.  Many a dinner have we shared or meal at the pub together, picnics on the beach, parties and so on, have dotted our friendship.  And then, just about the time my youngest Teen was being a bit of a pain in school, she vanished from my life without so much as a ‘see ya’!

Perplexed at this, I could only surmise that she probably thought The Teen’s behaviour was catching in some way or another and she must surely have forgotten that her own very spoilt offspring have had their turn at being somewhat of a nuisance on a few occasions.  And rather stupidly, in my opinion, instead of realising that whilst it is my child now, it could well be hers next, she chose to involve herself between the children and worse their mothers and thus I found myself a friend or two short as she sought out similar Mum’s and turned them against me.

It is always incredible to me to find that these sorts of women exist.  Nearly all of us have had our children behaving, to some extent in a way unbecoming, on occasion, whether it is a case of hair pulling, pinching someone’s pencils, spilling paint water all over a budding artist’s work, or, as they got older, creeping out of the dorm at night and playing rugby at midnight, smoking a cigarette and so on.  Even, gosh, no, I can hardly bring myself to mention the word, bullying on occasions, such as when my little son was hung up on the coat pegs, left there, legs dangling, unable to free himself from the wretched hooks. Did I cause a scene and send the mum and son to Coventry?  Of course I didn’t.  I very quietly had a word in the teacher’s ear, because I know that these things can be done by any of the little monsters.  Women should keep these sort of events in perspective.  If little ‘Willy’ doesn’t make a mistake, he doesn’t learn or see how to get on with all sorts of people in the wide word.  He cannot learn how to manage the difficulties in life, if his mum intervenes.  School days are a microcosm of the bigger grown up world. How else do they learn what is acceptible behaviour.  These silly parents never allow their children to sort out their own problems, when, if left alone, children manage these things amongst themselves much more effectively.

Of course there were warning signs with this particular mum.  You might be talking to her in the school car park and someone else would walk by and you might call out a cheery ‘hello’, not knowing that this Mum’s child was being a nuisance.  Turning back however you might see an icy look cross her face and she would quietly lean towards you and say, “I don’t ‘do’ her anymore, or her son”, and you would know that these people were ‘out’. There were lots of things she ‘didn’t do’.  “I don’t ‘do’ shouting”, she would say, admonishing her children, “I don’t ‘do’ bad behaviour, no, we don’t ‘do’ sulking, in our house do we”?’  When she had her last baby she would say to him, “we don’t ‘do’ crying”, the poor little mite.

I console myself over the loss of this friend by reminding myself that of all my ‘Mum’ friends at school, she is the one I least liked anyway.  In fact, I have come to realise that a lot of people didn’t especially like her but she attracted a large circle because she was an excellent organiser.  She would gather us all at her house or the local cafe, towards the end of each term where she would proceed to ask us, (tell us), what she thought would be good activities and places for us to take the kids each holidays.  She would plan days out at the Zoo, the Beach, a diving course, trip to London and so on.  We would turn up and say how clever she was and get our diaries to fit in with her plans.  For the most part we were all quite happy for her to organise us and relieved to have something to do with the kids.

The funny thing is, I have not set eyes on this ex friend ever since and it was about a year ago that she ‘didn’t do’ me.  I often used to bump into her and so unless she sees me before I see her and does a quick turnaround or hides in a shop or something, I can’t frankly believe my luck.

Just to really get it off my chest and in case my ex friend comes across this blog and recognises herself, I should point out that:

You looked mighty silly turning up at our little country school in bright red PVC stilettoes and died orange/blonde cropped hair.

Faux lepard print coats – ditto.

As to walking around with a plastic see-through handbag with your Coutts and co cheque book showing, sorry, but a lot of the unsophisticated people there have never heard of Coutts.

When you added to your family with that last little surprise, you know you looked like his Grand Mother – way too old.

Finally, in the words of my father, some women really do, behave stupidly over their children.