`Mum," said John anxiously, "when's Mother's Day?" To my very great credit, I didn't know. Sacre bleu, I thought, they can't be planning something for me, can they? "Because," John continued, "I have to do a card for Mother's Day in school and we're all supposed to think up a good idea. What do they mean by a good idea?" his voice rose in complaint. "I don't even think Mother's Day is a good idea."
"Why not?" I wondered what I'd not done to deserve this.
"It's too commercial - you probably don't want cards or perfume, you probably just want us to be gone out of the house with Dad. And I can understand that . . ." he empathised, echoing me, playing back his feelings as advocated by Good Parenting.
"And we'll do it, Mum. We'll leave you alone all day, probably. But why do I have to do a card with a good idea that neither of us wants?"
"Why not make me a cake instead?" This was always a good suggestion. Not this time. "Mum, Mum, Mum . . . it has to be made in school so you don't know about it. And it has to be a card 'coz that's what the teacher wants. What is it with teachers and cards for mothers?"
I thought back to my birthday, when John had given me a bottle of Listerine.
Then, in search of an idea, I thought about a typical mother's day.
Rise in theory at 7.30 a.m., in practice, 7.50 a.m. Wake kids, seek out school-ties from under beds, make lunches. Personally check contents of school bags, as forbidden by Good Parenting.
Doubletake on Andy as he remarks that he needs the lid of a biscuit tin, a ball of string and hollow cardboard tube for his science class if this is Tuesday. Cue John, as he suddenly remembers that he's supposed to have written a letter to his school pen-pal. Do you now, a) write it yourself with your left hand, in the few minutes before departure; b) write a note to his teacher; c) let him face the consequences. Obviously, you take the first option. Because you can't write another note this week. And the last option would take you straight into "blank refusal to go to school, handcuff self to radiator" territory with your own late-for-work consequences. Start composing and score zero on Good Parenting.
At 8.30 a.m., shove kids into car wondering why you don't get up at 7 a.m. Collect other kids on school-run that obliges you to edge out of three different side-roads into teeth of mainstream traffic. While the boys exchange news of playground fights, Orla (eight) shares her version of feminism. "We're lucky 'coz girls don't hit girls. We have to be bitchy instead."
If men think of sex 20 times an hour, do women think of kids? No. Not until the middle of the afternoon meeting when a child phones your mobile. Children do this because they know that at work you can't answer them back.
"Hello Mum, can I go to the video shop/have a bar/Coke/skip my homework/lend Owen my Christmas video game (and never see it again)? Mary says I have to ask you."
"No," you say, quietly but emphatically. "Why, why not? You never let me do anything." "No," you repeat as your colleagues check their watches. "You're mean, you're the meanest mother in the whole world." "That's right. Yes." "Yes? Thanks Mum, you're the best, bye."
On the way home, you wander the supermarket, dazed by indecision. Why didn't you deep-freeze five nutritious dinners over the weekend? You forget to buy the one thing your kid asked you to get - the bar magnet for the project.
You arrive home to a barrage of complaint. "He called me a fat b*****d." "I never. He messed up all my Chaos Space Marines."
You hit the gin running and launch your own attack. No homework done? None? What were you doing all afternoon? "I was outside in the fresh air playing football with my friends." "You were not," the fraternal insult-fest continues. "You don't even want to play football. You just do it from peer pressure." "Nerd." "Fat b*****d."
Good Parenting says you don't intervene. Lucky you. Retreat to kitchen. As you shovel clothes into the washing machine and start the dishwasher (should have turned it on before you went to work, you'd have clean dishes now - why don't you get up at 6.30 a.m.?) you work up a good excuse for no bar magnet.
Supper's on, the gin's kicking in, you're well on top of the kids' long division and the modh coinniollach, experiencing the joy that only comes of being part of the Irish language revival, when the question of the bar magnet comes up. "Well, I would have gotten it . . . that's a modh coinniollach . . .", you explain.
"What, what," splutters Andy, "you didn't get it . . . I specifically asked you this morning . . . I can't do my project now, you realise that? I'll just have to watch The Simpsons. All the other kids' mothers help them with their projects . . ."
"It's not Mum's responsibility," the other child seizes the opportunity to be Good Boy. "It's your project so it's your own the problem." "Shut up," rages Andy, "no one asked you . . ."
"What's going on here?" dad walks in, deus ex machina and all kids present look reproachfully at you - the Mother, source of all conflict.
You wonder, not for the first time, why you have two Barts and no Lisa.
Dad is now on the case. He has restored quiet with a stern look and is applying superior male logic to the situation. He requests an explanation of the requirements of the science project from the relevant son and almost immediately grasps the nub of the problem. "Where's the bar magnet? Well, of course, we can do nothing without the bar magnet." You feel like shouting: "Can't you bloody improvise - it is supposed to be a physics experiment," but that would push you further along the silly, disorganised, irrational, hysterical Mum route.
"Dad, maybe we can improvise, " says Andy. "Of course we can." Dad looks compassionately at you. "Poor Mum's had a tough day in the office." (His smile says, "But I'm a man, watch me cope with coming in from my own even tougher day and sorting out all these minor domestic problems.") And off they go to play "finding bar magnets in broken remote control cars".
Multi-tasking in a fever of resentment, you decant the dishwasher while segmenting the supper into the various sub-groupings. Meat with peas, no gravy. No meat, peas, potatoes. Meat, gravy, cream crackers. Finally you call them and eat.
One glass of wine and you're trying not to fall asleep during quality dinner-time chat (bonus points from Good Parenting). It's already 8.30 p.m. and you're wondering how to get everyone to bed before 10 p.m..
So far today you've had maybe eight minutes of civilising influence on the kids - dialogue which is not a harangue about clothes on floor, schoolwork or notes from teacher.
Now they are fighting over who takes the first bath, while Dad, duty with bar magnet done, takes his New Scientist into the living room. Bath-time chat with Mother is a throwback to early childhood and still part of the night ritual. (Good Parenting is divided on this one. Ritual/lines of communication open good. Dependency/Oedipal tendencies bad.)
Kids in bed, you scavenge in their schoolbags for the daily memos - cake sales, the school photograph, computer tokens, teacher training half-days, teacher's note to Andy c.c. Mum - "Andy must concentrate more, it's his own responsibility to ensure he gets to the choir practice for Holy Communion". (Oh cripes, the choir practice!) "John must participate more in group activities," (even though the group gets most fun out of not passing him the ball and telling him he's crap).
Later, much later, you survey the next day's battle plan. On your Olympic size wall planner, you enter the impending events of the week, and creep out into the garden to feed the hamsters because everyone else has forgotten.
You notice it's going to rain and there's washing out so you haul it down and bring it in and remember there's more in the machine, so you empty it and hang things up and oh, bloody hell, it's gym day tomorrow and the tracksuits are wet. And the label forbids you to put them in a tumble dryer.
You could put them on the radiator, but it's unseasonably warm and you've just paid a huge heating bill and you can't wake Dad to turn on just one radiator for you with his special spanner, because then he'll want sex and it's midnight and you're so, so tired. And you stand by the cold radiator for a long time thinking, just thinking.
Mother's Day is on a Sunday. A good idea would be to declare a national holiday on Monday. Even the teacher would like that.