just another brick in the wall

Dear Marianne,

It’s as though we’d never been away. Six weeks of holidays, park, ice-creams, rain and relatives and the conversation at the nursery returned immediately to children’s school uniforms, 11 Plus results and home improvement. Sewing in name tags providing the majority of comment amongst the waiting Mothers.
I really tried to say something, but I’d found it hard enough to live through the last minute school clothes shopping experience, with every other Kentish mother, wedged in between the dark blue gym pants and the lime green blazers in Hobsons; I didn’t want to relive it. The only question I was really interested in answering was the: “how’s the house selling going?” At last I can say: “Moving in December”, I know this makes the family tainted now, but I’m more than happy to join the leper colony outside Kent.


Anyway, Mike wasn’t keen to go to nursery this morning. As Craig pushed him up the hill in the buggy (which I think he will be using when he goes to university) he was still bleating: “no nursery, no nursery...” – I have been at this parent lark for nearly fourteen years and I still can’t cope with that. Obviously (as I should know what with nearly fourteen years’ blah. blah) he was fine, enjoyed himself, ate biscuits, drank juice and came home happily knackered; which is after all why we take them to these places.

And tomorrow Anna will be back to school, she will be in a new classroom, the location of which I know thanks to my friend Zoe who is a proper Mother, and who was therefore also able to describe the characters of each teacher (there are two, it’s a job share – watch this space for that to kick off) the names of the teachers, the name of the class, and the children Anna should avoid being friends with in the class. Unlike Mike, Anna is incredibly excited about returning to school, proximity to the toilets seems to be one reason, sitting next to her best friend Stephanie at lunch time is another, seeing Archie is very important, wearing her new shoes is another reason and playing in the big playground seems to feature quite strongly too. All of these things of course could be organised without the use of a school, the teachers etc. and more importantly without the early morning struggle between good and evil, that is: the morning cartoons versus breakfast, pyjamas versus uniform, hiding under the duvet versus being dragged out by your feet (only relates to teenagers) and walking forlornly up the hill with children, book bags, lunch boxes, P.E. kit versus Stan's suggested “oh fuck it, let’s nick off!”

That’s the trouble with going “back to school”, the only people who benefit are those with a share in BHS, Woolworths or Hobsons, everybody else was doing fine without it. I know I was counting down the weeks, then the days and most recently the hours, but now all the hanging around the house, wearing pyjamas all day (them not me), being rained on at the park, baking flat cakes, trips to Margate, watching Morris Dancers, fighting badly behaved cousins and making messy hand pictures seems like the right way to spend your time. If the most important things to us about our children’s schooling are sewing in the name tags, getting the right shoes and worrying about the 11 Plus then maybe it’s time to take a step back to rethink it all, and consider “nicking off” for a while.


Rx