Why Mummy Swears

by Gill Sims

  MARCH

  Wednesday, 1 March

  It’s Jane’s birthday. I can’t believe my baby girl is twelve! Twelve somehow seems so much more grown up than eleven. I know it’s such a cliché, but in some ways it doesn’t seem that long since we were celebrating her first birthday. In other ways it seems like forever. I was looking at photos of her first birthday last night, and Simon and I were so young (and so thin, in my case), it feels like a lifetime ago, not eleven years. Though I suppose technically it was Jane’s lifetime ago.

  It’s true that Mother Nature somehow erases your memories of the worst parts of dealing with babies and toddlers. After yet more rows with Jane about her need for inappropriate clothes, over-priced make-up and ruinously expensive electronics for her birthday, I rather longed for those simpler days when one could just do a smash and grab round the Early Learning Centre, flinging anything that looked vaguely age-appropriate and quiet into your basket, safe in the knowledge that it didn’t really matter what you bought anyway, as the birthday child would really only be interested in trying to eat the wrapping paper and playing with the boxes that the presents came in. One forgets, of course, the mind-crushing daily tedium of it all – the tantrums because their sandwich is too sandwichey and the crisps too crispy and the blue plate, the blue plate that they screamed for and could not consider eating off anything else. Well, the blue plate is now just too fucking blue. Those long, long days with Peppa Pig being your only hope of getting to go for a piss in peace, and where every cup of tea was a potential death trap, determined as your precious moppet was to hurl it over themselves, which basically meant you never got a hot cup of tea, ever.

  Sarah is still struggling with Baby Orla and ringing me nightly in the misguided belief that I will be able to offer wisdom. What does one say? ‘Well, Sarah, yes, this bit isn’t much fun when they scream and scream and you don’t know why they’re screaming, because despite everyone telling you that you would know what all your baby’s different cries meant, it turns out that most babies only have one cry, and that is screaming like a fucking banshee, so you have to run through the full list of potential problems – too hot/too cold/wanting a cuddle/wanting to be put down/hungry/wind/needing to be changed every bastarding time they squawk. So you think it will be better when they are a toddler and they can walk and talk a bit, but that’s when the fun really starts because now you spend your days chasing around after Conan the Destroyer of Houses, and, oh, yes, it’s amazing when they say their first words, especially when it’s “Mama” or “Dada” (and by the way, Sarah, hopefully Orla will be more communicative with her first words than Jane, whose first word was “No” and whose second word was “Bugger”, which was more than a little mortifying and I have no idea where she got it from). But the thing is, then they never fucking shut up, not ever, they babble and babble and really, although you want to be interested and fascinated and hang on their every word, the truth is that toddlers talk a load of bollocks, and very dull bollocks at that. But hey ho, you have to hang in there pretending to listen, because Important Development, and then you think, well, when they start school, that will be easier, and then you end up spending every morning screaming yourself hoarse about SHOES, TEETH, PUT YOUR COAT ON, GET IN THE CAR, and arguing about long division and losing letters from the school, and then you have to deal with them being teenagers, which will probably be a whole new bundle of laughs, but luckily sometimes they do go to sleep so you can look at them lying there, all rosy-cheeked and innocent and pure and think, “Ahhhh! They’re perfect! I wouldn’t change anything!” Until they wake up and you just want to lock yourself in a cupboard with a bottle of gin. But the bits when they are asleep are pretty good.’ Oh, Fuck My Life! I’m going to have a teenager next year! How did this happen? Never mind Sarah’s wails about Orla, I am going to be the mother of a teenager. I’m not sure whether that made Sarah feel better or worse.

  Anyway, I am not going to think about my last year before teenagerdom. I’m sure it will be fine. I was a teenager once, so I’m certain I’ll cope. Oh God, I was an awful teenager. Please don’t let Jane be a teenager like me!

  Having been denied every single thing she wanted in the world, Jane did hold me to my promise of getting her ears pierced on her birthday. So after school (I claimed another dentist’s appointment at work, after even Ed had suggested that perhaps I needed to see a specialist when I tried Women’s Problems. Alan has offered me the number of his private dentist, who apparently will fix my dodgy crown in a jiffy, so I think I am going to have to have had a miraculous cure from all ailments), off we trotted to a ruinously expensive jewellers to have holes punched in my First Born’s ears.

  Juliette had been hopeful of coming along with us for the Great Piercing, I suspect planning on adding some bits of metal to herself, and was quite sulky when I told her that she needed to pick up Peter. Also, I was quite looking forward to a bit of time just Jane and me, and was planning hot chocolate and cake extravaganzas for afterwards.

  I reminded Jane all the way there that she was getting one hole in each ear and no more, while Jane scoffed and said she would definitely be getting more when she was older, and that she fancied a lip ring like Charlotte Baxter, who babysits for me sometimes, and maybe she would get a tattoo as well. I tried to persuade her that tattoos aren’t something to be taken lightly as you have them for life and people quite often regret the stupid things they have tattooed on themselves as teenagers, and Jane scoffed more, for she is TWELVE now and thus knows EVERYTHING!

  A nice lady in the jewellers made me fill in many forms absolving them of all blame should Jane get septicaemia or her ears fall off as a result of the piercings, and finally Jane was sitting in the chair ready for the momentous event. As the ladies approached her, piercing guns in hand, bearing down on her from either side, Jane turned pale.

  ‘Mummy! I’m not sure I want to –’

  THUD! It was done. Jane had turned green. ‘Can we go home?’ she whispered. ‘I think I’m in shock!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling,’ I said brightly. ‘You can’t possibly be in shock, you’ve only had your ears pierced. Don’t you want to go for hot chocolate?’

  ‘I need to lie down,’ sniffed Jane. ‘That was horrible. They put metal through my ears and I don’t feel well.’

  ‘How did you think they were going to pierce your ears?’ I said in confusion.

  ‘I don’t know,’ sniffed Jane. ‘I thought it would be nicer. I think I’m going to be sick!’

  ‘So how do you feel about that lip ring and tattoo now?’ I asked. Jane retched.

  ‘Please can you just take me home, Mummy, and give me a cuddle?’ she whimpered.

  Before we left the shop, in addition to the eleventy billion pounds I had already paid them to poke holes in my daughter’s ears, the nice lady insisted I buy a special bottle of stuff for cleaning the piercings, as apparently TCP no longer is deemed good enough, despite it being fine when I had my ears pierced, and indeed being my preferred cure-all for most ailments. It was worth every penny, actually, to have Jane for once stop pretending that she was about twenty-seven and starring in an American soap opera, and instead go back to being the little girl that she was for a while. I made the most of her wanting to be cuddled, as I suspect it will be a long time before I get the chance again.

  Jane spent the rest of the evening doing an excellent impression of a dying swan, though she did manage to rally to eat her birthday pizza. She definitely gets her hypochondria from Simon.

  After the children went to bed, I finally managed to summon the strength to deal with the many, many emails for the PTA. I am at least spared organising a Mother’s Day Pop-Up Shop, which apparently was very successful last year, as a mother took umbrage over this and made such a fuss about wanting a homemade gift, not marked-up Poundland tat, that I announced we would simply not fucking bother. But there was the usual barrage of messages from parents who still could not comprehend the difference between the PTA (fundraisi
ng) and the Parent Council (school policy), and felt the need to bombard me with emails complaining that they were very upset that Emilia’s class had watched a DVD on Friday afternoon, and why was there not a police officer on permanent duty outside the school, patrolling for inconsiderate parkers and dog-shit offenders? It seems that it is frowned upon to reply to these messages with a simple ‘Fuck off, I don’t give a rat’s arse.’

  Friday, 3 March

  I am starting to wonder if Juliette is the angel from above that I first thought her to be. She is very good with the children, of course, but the issue of her helping out a bit in the house is still ongoing. Not only does she not actually do anything all day, but she is now actively creating mess – tonight I came home to crisp packets and yoghurt pots strewn around the sitting room, and the load of laundry that I had put in the machine this morning and politely asked her to either hang out or pop in the tumble drier, depending on whether or not it was pissing down, had been removed from the washing machine and dumped sodden in a basket, while she washed her own stuff.

  I gently attempted to raise this with her, and she gave a Gallic shrug and pretended she didn’t understand, despite her excellent English at any other time.

  She remembered her English in time to appear in an extraordinary lack of clothing and announce that she was going out ‘with friends’ tonight, and that she would be back late, and we were not to wait up for her. I assume she is allezing à la discotheque, but she just gave me a withering look when I asked that, and made vague noises when I asked how late was ‘late’.

  Should I have just let her go off into the night wearing hardly anything at all? We are responsible for her, after all, but then again, she isn’t a child – technically she’s an adult. And at what time do I decide it has gone past ‘late’ and she’s now officially missing, and call the police to admit that I let an eighteen-year-old girl with a selective grasp of English go out to an unspecified location with unknown friends and no set time to return without looking like a very callous and uncaring person? Also, if she gets herself murdered, it will really fuck up my lovely new childcare arrangements. No, no, of course I’m not even thinking that. I’m just concerned for Juliette’s welfare. The childcare is the least of it. Well, it’s not all of it, anyway, although I found a banana skin under a sofa cushion just now and am feeling slightly less concerned for her welfare.

  Saturday, 11 March

  Oh God, oh God, oh FML. There is not enough booze in the world to numb the ringing in my ears or the aching of my head or the black void where my soul used to be. Today was Jane’s birthday party. A birthday party should be a relatively simple thing to organise. Some balloons, a cake, a game of pass the parcel, a few rounds of musical chairs – jolly good, here’s a party bag with a mini Mars Bar and one of those squawker things. Now fuck off home, kid!

  Oh no. No. Firstly, Jane decreed it must be a disco party. Disco parties are the thing this term. You are no one if your party is not a disco party with Disco Dave the DJ on the decks. Despite my attempts at suggesting maybe it would be fun for Jane to do something different, nothing would do but Disco Dave in the Church Hall.

  I was a good mummy. In fact, I was a bloody excellent mummy! I booked the hall, I booked Disco Dave, I nobly refrained from asking Disco Dave if he would also be bringing Black Bess when he told me the iniquitous price he charges for his services, I toyed with baking a cake, I ordered one from Asda instead with ‘Jane Is TWELVE’ printed on it and some butterflies, I got cramp in my hand spending an entire evening writing out invitations for the whole bastarding class on the basis I might as well get my money’s worth out of Disco Dave, and then the texts started coming in in reply to my invitation:

  Hi we always go swimming on Sat afternoons, could u have party on Sun? x

  Hi Ellen, Tilly would love to come but can you pick her up and drop her off because I’m busy? Xxx

  Oscar can’t come at 2.30 he will be there at 3.30 x

  Hi, is it OK if I bring Milly’s brothers too? They love parties! Xxx

  Olivia doesn’t like disco parties, what about getting a magician instead?x

  And so on. And so on. And so on. WTAF? What is wrong with these people? Either your child can come to the party or not! When did it become acceptable to demand that the party is changed to suit you, or to bring extra kids or make conditions for your child coming? Do I not have enough to fucking do trying to juggle my own life, doing a trolley dash round Sainsbury’s after work last night envying all the bastards with their baskets of wine and artisanal bread as I hurled armloads of frozen pizzas and chicken nuggets in the trolley, before getting home in time to let Juliette go out before she had a massive French hissy fit at me? Bah fucking humbug was my view on the world by the time we actually got to the hall for the party itself.

  Disco Dave, it turned out, in my opinion should be renamed Deviant Dave. A most dubious-looking gentleman. I resolved to make sure he was not left alone with any of the children. And then the children started to arrive. There had been several rows with Jane about the amount of make-up she was allowed to wear for her party, and about the party outfit itself, as apparently my idea of a party frock was nothing short of ruining her life, whereas her idea of a party frock wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Marseilles hooker. (I assume. I have never actually seen a Marseilles hooker and I may be unfairly maligning them, but it was my own mother’s favourite accusation about some of my more daring clubbing outfits in my youth.) We eventually found a compromise (I said, ‘You can wear this or I’ll cancel the whole thing’), Jane muttering darkly that it was not fair and everyone else was allowed to wear stuff like that, while I poo-pooed her and told her not to be ridiculous.

  As it turned out, Jane was right. The boys were fairly ordinary in chinos and shirts but the girls! Oh my God, the girls! Fake tan, heels, fake eyelashes, make-up put on with a trowel, hot pants and boob tubes. One eleven-year-old had stuffed the front of her boob tube with so many tissues she looked like a tiny Dolly Parton. Part of me felt very judgemental, but part of me also felt very sad that these little girls felt the need to smother their peaches-and-cream skin with fake tan and foundation and totter around in heels while they were still getting their feet measured at Clarks. What made it even sadder was that once the party got going, they were quite obviously still little girls, as they kicked off their heels and screamed over Musical Bumps. Milly Fortescue was sick after too many chicken nuggets, Olivia Johnson cried because she lost at Pass the Parcel, and Jack Williams got locked in the lavatory and had to be broken out. The noise levels were unbelievable, and Disco Dave’s patter was distinctly dodgy. It is done for another year, though, and next year I am going to put my foot down and insist on something small and intimate.

  Thursday, 16 March

  I came home from work tonight to find Juliette had actually tidied up, including putting the hoover round, and as well as feeding the children, she had made a casserole for Simon and me. I had had a long and shit day at work, and I could have kissed her when I walked in to find a clean and tidy house, with delicious smells bubbling away in the kitchen, instead of the swamp of crisp packets that is her usual habitat.

  ‘You look tired, Ellen!’ she said. ‘Sit down and I will get you a glass of wine! Simon got in about twenty minutes ago. He looked tired too. You both work so hard!’

  ‘What an angel this girl is,’ I thought dreamily. ‘What are a few crisp packets and late nights?’ (Having failed to be murdered thus far, I have stopped fretting quite so much when she disappears on a Friday night in a skirt up to her unmentionables, trying to remind myself that after all, we were all young once.)

  We were tucking into a frankly delicious boeuf bourgignon, while Juliette hovered, asking if we wanted any more wine or bread or salad, when she suddenly announced that she would like her ‘boyfriend’ to stay over tomorrow night.

  Simon choked on a chunk of beef, and I inhaled my wine.

  ‘Err, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend, Juliette
,’ I said. ‘Is he a friend from Limoges?’

  ‘Non!’ said Juliette. ‘I met him at a bar. His name is Harry!’

  Harry. A terrible part of me thought it could be worse. Harry is quite a middle-class name.

  ‘And what does he do?’

  ‘He is at college.’

  ‘And what is he studying?’

  Juliette gave one of her shrugs. ‘So it is OK, yes, Harry can stay tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m really not sure, Juliette. I’ll need to discuss it with Simon. And also, how would your parents feel about you having a boy to stay over?’

  Juliette snarled something that sounded like a French version of ‘OMG, you are RUINING MY LIFE!’ and stomped out of the kitchen.

  ‘Fucking hell, Simon. What are we going to do?’ I wailed. ‘We are supposed to be in loco parentis. Can we just condone her shagging some random in our house?’

  ‘She’s eighteen, though. Not a child.’

  ‘I know, but even so. I’m not sure I want sweaty teenage sex going on in my spare room, those are 300-thread-count sheets.’ (I could hear my bloody mother coming out of my mouth.) ‘And who is he? What if he steals things? And if we let Juliette have this boy to stay, how are we going to refuse when Jane wants a boy to stay? Or Peter wants to bring a girl home? Or you know, vice versa!’