Lessons in life can be hard – mostly on parents who have to clear up afterwards
TEACHING your child basic life skills is one of the main roles of a parent, along with prising them off the X Box and complaining about the dirty T-shirts on their bedroom floor.
I read a survey this week that detailed all the skills that girls and boys are supposed to have acquired by the age of fourteen.
These included making a meal, doing laundry, ordering at restaurants and shopping for groceries.
Given that most of these tasks currently fall to me, I thought it time that the kids in my household learnt a little self-sufficiency.
I’m not one to wish away their childhood, but surely most mums look forward with relish to the day when their kids can fulfil their own endless snack requests. Not least because they bombard you with these at times of vital importance, like when you’re up against a work deadline or in the first ten minutes of Broadchurch.
As my eldest turned 12 this week, I’ve got a bit of time to play with. But I decided to start tentatively, with something they might find vaguely appealing and didn’t risk the kitchen being set on fire.
I wondered whether washing the car would be a good thing to do – and suggested this to them, entirely unprepared for their levels enthusiasm.
If I’d known all it would take to entertain three energetic boys was a couple of sponges and some dirty wheel trims, I’d have done it years ago.
They didn’t even ask for a pocket money bonus – which, budding entrepreneurs that most kids seem to be – they demand for just breathing sometimes.
With hindsight, I should’ve guessed what was about to transpire.
Only a fool would give three boys a big bucket of soapy water and assume that most of it would go anywhere near the actual car.
In fact, the scenes on our driveway resembled a hysterical game of Total Wipeout, with water and soap everywhere, as the eight-year-old attempted to scramble over the bonnet to get away from a sponge-wielding four-year-old.
We then moved onto grocery shopping, which was a modest success by comparison, even if I had to stay close at hand to limit the number of Cheese Strings, Nobbly Bobbly ice lollies and bottles of chocolate milk shake.
Then there was the sandwich making, which the eight-year-old did manage, though his compost heap of bread and cheese might not win any awards for presentation.
Still, we are well on our way to independence. But I’m not holding my breath for the laundry basket to start shrinking any time soon.
SUMMER Nights at the Moonlight Hotel by Jane Costello is out now, priced £7.99.