Honey, I Can’t Stand The Kids…

This summer, I have been a victim of blackmail or maybe it’s extortion, I can never remember the difference. I think one is a subtype of the other but regardless, I’ve been manipulated, coerced, and well and truly played. I am somewhat ashamed. I’ve also had my credit card stolen. My Amazon account has been hijacked and items such as 2 in 1 wand eyebrow gel (72-hour hold, no white residue or stickiness), facial rollers and self-tanning mitts have been procured. It seems the perpetrator has a beauty product habit. I’ve been repeatedly gaslighted. I’ve suffered various forms of verbal abuse and covert bullying. I’ve felt like a prisoner in my own home, been treated like a slave, given my services away for free every single day. This summer, I’ve thought a lot about Rachel in Fleishman Is In Trouble, how she tries scream therapy and once she starts screaming, she just can’t stop…

Thank goodness, it’s almost time for these criminals to go back into the education system where they belong. They don’t look like they could commit such crimes, do they?

Their grandparents certainly don’t think so. “They’re great girls,” they say ad nauseam. They give them envelopes stuffed with cash to treat themselves because their qualities range from sociable to capable to clever to pleasant to downright amazing. They send them cards and congratulate them on absolutely everything. They never send me cards, congratulate me, give me any kudos or a high five for raising them. It’s as if they designed themselves, are self-made angels.  

“Honey, I can’t stand the kids,” I said to my husband as he unloaded the dishwasher for the 400^th time during the third week of August and I put lids back on a toppling stack of Tupperware whilst waving to the Amazon delivery driver. It was lunchtime. We were the only ones up. To be honest, I didn’t actually call him honey. That would be weird. I’m just trying to get better with these titles.  

We’re eight weeks into the school holidays and I can’t cope with their persistent demands. “Can you pick me up at 1am?”. “What?” I say, “I need to sleep so I can be energised enough to do your washing”. I can’t cope with the noise either. There is nowhere I can go where I can’t hear them. “Can you please not bang doors,” I ask politely before I lie down yet again, close my eyes and rest my head on the pillow. There is the sound of running. Three doors bang in quick succession. Somewhere, a fight is breaking out. Someone screams. I wonder if it’s me. The first (quiet) hour of my day is always devoted to managing their laundry. There is always a black hoodie. A child lying under a duvet gives me a thumbs-up. She is wearing headphones. She may or may not have heard me. I have asked her politely not to leave damp towels on the floor. “There are no towels,” someone yells later. I find another child standing on a chair in the bathroom. There are locks of dark hair falling to the ground, landing in the sink as a taller co-conspirator gives her a quick tidy-up. The front door opens. Someone enters. “Who’s that?” I shout. It isn’t one of my children.

This summer, I’ve told a lot of lies. I’ve nodded sagely to (at least) four parents with three-year-olds and told them that in ten years, it will be so much easier. I have promised them it will all get better, and they’ll get their lives back. It won’t. There will be no such thing as bedtime. You’ll only discover in the morning that they were out at midnight watching fireworks in Venice. Those toddler tantrums. Well, they were short-lived. Soon you’ll have to deal with big words like actually and literally, sentences that last forever and expertly-formed arguments. You’ll have to learn how to debate. You’ll have to turn detective to sniff out what they are up to, always being careful never ever to say “my child doesn’t do that” when every other parent knows that they do. There will be no nice bits to compensate for the traumas – hugs, cuddles, running across playgrounds to greet you. They’ll look at you but pretend they don’t see you.

Recently, one of those statements based on no factual information whatsoever popped up in the media again. It was one designed to guilt mothers who make use of summer camps. Apparently “75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12”. This summer, my youngest became a teenager. This is good news.

Part of me is quite looking forward to this empty nest thing that everyone talks about. I am currently looking at options as to how I can move out first.

I’ve become obsessed with how I can get one step ahead of them, ensure I don’t unwittingly give one more attention than another so they can’t trip me up or take me to court. I am constantly balancing on an equality tightrope. “Just reminding you that I get my results on Thursday,” says daughter number three. “No one seems to care so I’m going to charge you to find out my grades”. “I do care,” I say. “You didn’t care about mine,” replies daughter number two. “You weren’t even here”.  

There was a scene in The Bear – Season 1, Episode 7. There is chaos in the kitchen, a backlog of orders, Sydney and Richie are throwing insults. He tells her there is something broken in her. “Everyone knows you’re a loser,” she says to him. It reminded me of our Sunday dinners where we do roast potatoes and grudges. It will usually end like this, “and that’s why you have no friends and by the way, you smell”.  

There are scenes, lots of messy scenes in my drama.

There is a scene set in a car…

The child who is selling her family’s clothes on Vinted and taking 25% commission needs to post her packages. Her sister drives her to Tesco. They don’t leave the car. We watch their bickering on WhatsApp. “**** is driving home just because I called her thick once after she called me it three times in a row”.

There is a scene set on some stairs…

A child is having a breakdown. “Are you hungry?” she is asked repeatedly. She confirms she is not. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?” pleads her mother. Eventually she answers. “There’s never any snacks in this house”.

There are many more scenes. “Has anyone walked the dog bar me ever?” says the put-upon man. There are screeches. Someone has put something on somewhere without someone’s consent. “Tell her to delete it”. Someone is wearing someone else’s black hoodie. I wonder about this self-care thing, putting on my own oxygen mask first. But where do I go? There’s hair on my bathroom floor and there are no towels.  

“You wanted them to be individuals,” says my husband, “not insipid”. “You said it was hard for girls in this world. They needed to be feisty, determined, stand up for themselves”. “Yes,” I say but I didn’t want them to practise on me.  

I guess I just want them to be more grateful. “When I was your age, I was an Avon lady,” I tell them. “I cleaned brass,” says their father. “You act like you have three jobs,” is the retort, “but you don’t do anything”. “Looking after you ruined my career,” I say. I stop there. I know they will never recognise that what I do for them is a job. There is no point in making a scene.