Touché

I cannot believe that you buy mashed potato, my mum is shaking her head. But Waitrose Economy is a pound a packet and I make it go three ways, I protest, trying desperately to defend my actions. She’s having none of it and continues: it’s not the same as making it yourself, those poor daughters of yours. Images of starving, deprived refugees immediately come to my mind and I am failing to grasp her point: the occasional chicken nugget and shop-bought trifle, but I would hardly say, ‘poor‘. By the time I have bought a packet of potatoes and accounted for my time, I’m sure that it is cheaper to buy the ready made, I keep going – I’m not giving in on this one. Rubbish, mum counters. Touché.

I have a degree, have represented my country on many occasions, used to speak pretty good French and gave birth to four children, but still I disappoint my mother.

I do fear, however, that I have inherited mum’s high expectations for my daughters. In a past life, whilst on a trip around the world with four children under 8, I dipped my toes into home schooling. When we returned, daughter 4 was plonked in a reception class. I was rather nervous when I attended her first parents’ consultation, as husband and I had been the only teachers she had ever had. The report was good. But don’t you find her concentration is very poor, I enquired at the end. We found that after a couple of hours she just gave up and rested her head on the table. The severe looking teacher looked me square in the eye: Mrs Longhurst, she said. The guidelines stipulate one minutes’ teaching for each year of the child’s life and then a break. Your daughter is 5 and I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with her concentration. Touché.