Mothers behaving badly
We have come a long way in our quest for gender equality – modern mothers are just as capable of intoxication and misbehaviour as fathers are.
This was evident over the weekend, when the lovely Snapdragon’s son, Snapdraglet, celebrated his 12th birthday with a party.
Most of the parents dropped their children off, made a bit of polite small-talk and returned later to pick up their offspring at the time indicated on the invite. But not all of them. One mother came to fetch her son a bit earlier, because she had a braai that evening.
She was dressed for the occasion (the words “mutton” and “lamb” did pop up when Snapdragon and some other mothers discussed her appearance later.).
“Look at my nails,” she said and showed us her hands. “My daughter and I had our nails done this morning.”
It was only then that I noticed the young girl next to her – a perfect imitation of her mother, including the outstretched, colourful fingernails.
“We do things together,” the mom told us.
“Last month, when she turned 18, I took her to a club. I was so proud of her. She only had three drinks the entire night.
“And, of course, a bunch of shooters... tequila, Jagermeister, name it. But those don’t count. Only three little bottles until we left the club at three in the morning. Apart from all the shooters. But it was her birthday, after all,” she told us.
“At some stage she said ‘Mommy, I don’t feel so good.’ I realised it must have been low blood pressure and I gave her a few neat Cokes and something to eat. And after a while, she was ready to party on.” Yeah, sure ... There was another mom who managed to hog the spotlight for the wrong reasons. She doesn’t have an 18-year-old daughter, so she had to do all her drinking herself.
She arrived, had a few glasses of wine and then left for a quick, discreet rendezvous. And only came back hours after pick-up time in a different outfit, wearing fresh make-up and almost falling down twice on her arrival.
To me, the irony is that both are well-maintained, attractive forty-something women.