POKÉMON NO!
Kate’s son is shocked to read about himself
When I see mummy bloggers, I think, yep, I too was once in that blissful bubble – believing that everything your child does is fascinating, that everything you dress them in is uber-cute and everything they do is hilarious.
As a parent, you never outgrow that feeling – you’re constantly bemused and entertained by your kids. Sometimes it’s in good ways, sometimes bad, but nonetheless you’re on the rollercoaster with them and every stage is a shareable one, or so you think.
But then they become teenagers. Suddenly everything they do and say is off limits. They don’t want you mentioning them, they don’t even want you looking at them, far less putting a picture of them anywhere.
No-one is more acutely aware of this than me. Because one of my jobs is of course this column – a column about kids and parenting and family life – do you know how much harder that is to write when you have teenagers?
There is so much I’d like to be able to say, so many teenage moments I’d like to share with other mums, but the brakes are on. You can’t. Life would not be worth living. Nor would I want to do that to them – being a teenager is hard enough.
Hence I find myself writing about my youngest daughter a lot, but I’m running out of time on that front too. She is getting to that age where she’s becoming super-sensitive about anything said about her and that’s fair enough.
Kids can be mean and I never want to give other kids (via their mums) any ammo to come at my kids with. My daughter often mentions who at school said what regarding something in my column their mum told them, and I’m mindful of that. But what I often forget is how long mags sit around in doctor and dentist waiting rooms.
One of my sons came home from the dentist the other day absolutely horrified.
“OMG Mum!” he called out to me. “Why are you writing about us playing Pokémon Go? That’s so ancient!”
I stopped for a minute because I couldn’t remember writing anything about Pokémon Go. I recalled the kids being into it, but it was so long ago. Then it hit me.
“Did you check the date of the mag?” I asked him. “Where did you see this?”
“In the waiting room at the dentist,” he replied.
“That will be years old. I’m so sorry – it was a time and place that’s long gone.”
“It’s not though,” he replied. “The mag’s still sitting there.”
“Yep, but the number of people reading magazines that old must be few and far between. Please don’t worry,” I tried to reassure him.
So to any waiting room staff reading this, help a mama out – I’d be forever grateful (and I’m sure your patients will be) if you could keep your mags current!