I don’t know why I feel the need to try and come across like a cross between Dawn French and an earth mother, mixing a stand up routine on the perils of parenthood with a caring but chaotic approach when I meet total strangers but somehow I do. This morning Scarlett had her 2 year development check with the HV. Now she had one at 18 months (up north they do them at 18 months and 3 years, down here it is at 2 years and 3.5years so they have both ended up having two in the last few months!) and was fine then, and if ever there was a child who really doesn’t need worrying about developmentally it is her but we went along anyway.
I have been worried by all the recent speculation on groups and just generally about Big Brother and He children being monitored, worried about and generally hounded so my reaction to this is to be bold and upfront about what we are doing, knowing that I would rather be known and written off as nothing to worry about in what we are doing, than unknown and always waiting for a knock on the door. I am confident that I am articulate and smart enough to convince anyone who cares to ask that I am fulfilling the legal obligation of ensuring the children are getting their age and ability approriate education from me at home, which I think would then cross us off their lists and send them off to worry about the next family…. probably an attitude which angers other HE folk, and I can appreciate and understand others opposing views but that is mine.
So to relate why I typed that last bit, I knew the HE issue would come up, I wanted to be ready for it and create the aura of an in control, able and fit mother with well turned out and healthy children. So Scarlett and I arrived, with her in her second outfit of the day (first had blackcurrant juice spilt on it – don’t want her to appear neglected and in clothes she has been wearing all week!) with her hair combed (don’t actually recall the last time we did that – she hates it, I hate it and within ten minutes it is all tatty and wild again anyway). The HV asked me how I thought she was getting on and I said ‘Oh, she’s horrid. I want to swap her in for a calmer one please!’ Oops! I then tried to justify my claim ‘she’s read Toddler Taming and sees it as her personal challenge to eclipse any behaviour she has seen in it!’ Oops again. I then explained ‘my son never really did toddlerdom. He is much calmer and more sensible so we were hit between the eyes a bit with this one’ Poor woman is now torn between deciding we cannot cope with Tarly and that she is also ruining the life of her older sibling too – should she send me for parent skills lessons, have both children put into care? supply me with handcuffs and a gag on prescription? Where to turn next? Oh yes and then she cautiously asks about nursery, no doubt assuming I have a long list of ones that this minx of a small child (who is sitting angelically completing the first puzzle of shapes, asking what they are and repeating them, naming all the colours and then asking to do the other puzzle ‘but that’s for 3 year checks’) has been expelled from. So I take my deep breath and explain about HE.
I think I do an OK job but I do not have the energy or inclination to go any further than a basic but firm statement that I do realise what I am taking on (HV: that is a big responsibility Me: As is parenting!) and that I am fine and I do have lots of support and help and backup and resources and so on.
I must have done ok as she wrote on her little slip that she had no concerns, all of Tarly’s skills were good and fine and that she is a ‘spirited and articulate child’. Ooh, so I have a label for her 🙂 She did offer support should we feel we needed it, with our ‘challenging child’ and then confided that she too has one who is now 13, so she ‘knows what it’s like’.
Came away determined to send Ady for all future such appointments as he views all such HV type people as suspicious and meddling having dealt with many social workers and the like in the 60s and 70s when he was having his own ‘bad childhood’ and he won’t sing like a little canary about the children when fixed with the beady eye of a woman with a biro and a set of building blocks come to assess our offspring!
Back home to find Ady had been there for all of about an hour looking after Davies but had managed to hoover, clean the bathroom and generally tidy (why? everyone already knows he is a better housewife than me, there is no need to prove it!) and written ‘MERRY Christmas’ on the playroom window in snowspray which will really, really bug me in upper case and lower case mix like that til I can wash it off in January 🙂 He went off to work and Julie and the twins arrived. We had lunch, a bit of a chat, a bit of a get out every jigsaw puzzle in the house and then they all jumped on Scarlett’s bed!
I am now debating whether I can face walking to the post office to post my one remaining Christmas parcel which will involve bribing Scarlett to put on a coat and go in her pushchair as it is too far to walk at Tarly pace and she will run riot in the post office too if she is not contained. But they do need to run off some energy having been in the house all week, and it will prevent further toy scatttering. Yep, I’m off to persuade them into coats and shoes….
LOL, that is So like my Dh. he is an absolutly doting father, really into the HE etc, but then put him in company, and he comes out with all those things that leave me gobsmacked “HE a big commitment? Not as big as getting my arse out of bed to get her to school. HO HO HO” or “We find its easier to hide her from th social worker if we keep her at home” and on, and on…..
Comment by Joyce — 16 December 2004 @ 4:37 pm
I want to be spirited and articulate too. Can I, can I?
…and MeRrY ChRiStMaS to Ady. 🙂
Finally, no you aren’t paranoid, they are out to get you. I think Jax will agree that HVs are pointless, a waste of time and oxygen, but mostly harmless so long as you NEVER listen to them. FWIW, have you thought of saying that you are educating the kids ‘privately’? It is true, you are, but ‘privately’ sounds like you are paying huge amounts for it from a shop, instead of getting home-made, IYSWIM.
Comment by Tim — 16 December 2004 @ 7:01 pm
Listen to the HV? Now that was never in my plan 🙂 They tend to have nothing to offer really, although I am sure that they are good in the event that you did need them, I just don’t know why I seem to come over all Tourettes in their presence and start giving them enough to report me straight to Childline when as it goes I am doing just fine (clearly it is some sort of illness – Joyce does your DH want to start some sort of yahoo support group with me 😉 )
Will pass on your fEstivE gReEtinGs to Ady, thanks (grr!)
and why not Tim, if you want a label then I would certainly go with articulate for you – spirited, well given the fact you asked for alcohol instead of a home made card I reckon that label suits you too 🙂
And yeah, I have planned to use the term ‘private arrangements’ in any official capacity I might one day have to answer so it leads to the assumption that I mean private school as opposed to the dungeon in the cupboard under the stairs where I plan to keep them, only allowing them water when they demonstrate understanding of a past participle and food when they can explain, with pie charts and graphs exactly why they need it 🙂 Shit, I did it again 😉
Comment by Nic — 16 December 2004 @ 7:29 pm
ROFLOL Nic – I don’t know if I will be able to keep up with you when I meet you LOL!!
Comment by Karen b — 16 December 2004 @ 9:37 pm
ROFL, you do know you don’t have to see one again ever don’t you?
BTW, have just discovered F eating the day before yesterday’s breakfast toast as a mid morning snack so I am officially the worst mum ever!
Comment by Jenny — 17 December 2004 @ 11:36 am