Skip to main content

Competitive parenting

We've seen and heard it all before at the school gate, but there appears to be a phenomenon where lots of my friends congratulate their children on Facebook.  Nothing wrong with that.  It's nice to be proud of your little sprogs, but it's beginning to make me feel that my little and large sproglets are on a hiding to nothing.  Really, it makes me feel a bit sick in my mouth when I open up my FB page of a morning and has found that my frenemy, Giselle has posted on her wall

"Well done, Sproglet!  Winning the overall champion of Mensa!"

  I mean, really?  Isn't that boasting and not congratualting? Your child is 5!! He doesn't  even have a Facebook account!  I know, I've looked.   Now I can understand being proud. I can understand writing on your childs wall, but I can't understand why you don't realise that I know, that you know that I know it's just plain competitive and it makes me feel inadequate. But that's what you want, isn't it?

Pre kids, I was one of those people who'd turn off when at dinner parties, parents would tell the gathered group how clever, beautiful, amazing Morticia was.   I swore that I'd never bore those who didn't know my kid. I still don't.  Now it's all gathering around the school gates, comparing reading books, class tests. There's one mum who has a notebook. I'm pretty sure she's jotting down everyone's scores so that she can accurately place her child in the class. I've seen her whip it out and jot stuff down as she walks back to her car. Or maybe she's noting down what I was wearing that morning? Eek!

My kids are clever (not mensa level) my kids are sporty (not international level), my kids are very, very funny; but I don't tell them that.   I don't want them thinking they'll be able to take on James Cordon a comedy battle! My kids are quick witted and astute. They know how many beans make five!
"A bean, a bean, a bean and a half, a half a bean and a bean!" They shout when I test them. See...clever!

I remember a teacher discussing Bart at a Parents Evening many moons ago.

"He won't be a high flier" she said "He's very immature"
He was four!!  Of course, her experience proved her wrong.  He is a high flyer. His  head's way up in those clouds...and that's the way I like it.


I'm not knocking you if you like to boast..but be honest.  We should all pre tag our comments with #boastalert. In that way we're being open and transparent about our emotions..and I won't get all worried that I didn't spend enough time with them on Algebra or algorithms.

When the 11+ results came out last month, Mimi sat in the car with me while we opened her results letter. I looked at her sadly and she punched the air with a "YES!!!"  We high fived, then did our victory seat wiggle.

You see, I know what my daughter wanted.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Cyber bullying? Where do we go?

I watched something quite awful unfold on Twitter last week, and I began to wonder whether we are being a little bit too open about our personal lives?  I have nothing to hide about my personal life (except my identity!), and  my personal details are there for all to see. There are "crazies" out there, that we can be sure of, but I never expected to see such vitriolic abuse targeted at one individual. To cut a long story short, an individual, for reasons of their own decided to target a particular lady who had been campaigning and raising awareness for different charitable groups.  This lady had been open and honest and had suffered her own personal tragedy, but for some reason " the crazy" had decided that she was a charlatan.  Over a period of a week her "friends" had become the subject of a barrage mad tweets and saw the lady being reduced to a  quivering wreck and trying to explain to friends what had happened in a very moving audio boo .  Subsequent

My au-pair's a dustman...well she's not really... she's a ho!

My au pair Miriam , is a beautiful sultry girl from the Slovak Republic or Slovakia as it is most commonly known. Most of the girls that have lived with us either come from Slovakia or the Czech Republic.  I've chosen them in particular because they have the "family values" that I want for my family.  I know that I can't tar everyone with the same brush, it's just that it has worked for me. However...Miriam is the exception to the rule.  Miriam is sensual; Miriam languishes; she loves burning candles and incense sticks. She loves long, bubbly baths with big fluffy towels.  Miriam walks the dogs in stilettos (how?), and loves my red lipstick (on her!) Miriam loves MTV.  Miriam loves raiding my wardrobe, and Miriam loves men...all men! As was usual for a Sunday early evening we had all settled down to watch a movie. Mimi was in bed and the boys were snuggled up on the sofa with BH.  Ben , (22 and stunning!), was on the other sofa, with his laptop researching with