We’re a few days in... but already ‘one-up-mum-ship’ is getting to me
Laminated timetables and smiling children. Maria Lally asks parents to think twice before hitting send
‘Katie has really taken to this home education lark! She packed her school bag last night, insisted on getting dressed in her school uniform this morning, and we’ve already done maths and English. This afternoon we’re going to bake cakes!”
As I read this post on social media this morning, along with others showing pictures of brightly coloured laminated timetables and beaming children eager to get to work, my heart sank. Not just for myself – I have two daughters aged six and nine – but for all the mothers (and fathers, but more on this later) for whom home schooling won’t be an Instagram-worthy affair.
I’m talking about the working mothers who are going to be splitting themselves in two, taking calls from their boss while trying to stop their children from fighting over the blue pen. The ones who will be shushing their young child, who is struggling to understand something, while they reply to a work email.
The mothers of children who have autistic spectrum disorder. Perhaps not severely enough for them to have an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan), which entitles them to be risk-assessed to see whether they should remain in school. But enough that they find change – like being plucked out of classes, away from the daily routines that are so comforting to them – unsettling and terrifying.
The NHS and key worker mothers, who will be facing challenges I can’t even imagine.
And the single mothers (who may also fall into any one of these categories) who will be doing all of this alone.
The mothers who will be fearful over not giving their all to their jobs in this increasingly fragile economy, while even more fearful of not getting this “home schooling lark!” right and setting their children’s education back by months, if not years.
I say “mothers” because in my (admittedly) limited experience, it does seem to be the mothers who are carrying the home schooling load. The dads – again, in my limited experience – seem to be cocooned in their studies on important calls, while the mums are breaking up arguments and trying to log on to Twinkl, and countless other learning sites that have been doing the rounds of Whatsapp groups this week.
The best headline I’ve read in the past few days comes courtesy of an American website that said simply: “Now Is the Perfect Time to Lower the Parenting Bar.” And the most comforting Whatsapp messages I’m receiving are from friends who suggest we all do our best over the coming weeks and months, but don’t feel too bad if we drop the ball occasionally.
The messages I find least comforting are the laminated timetable ones, and the “Look what we’ve done!” ones that are accompanied by pictures of smiling children building spaceships out of cereal boxes.
I’m not suggesting these parents lower their own parenting bar, of course. But please think twice before you tell the world that home schooling is going really well. Because for some families, it might not be going so well. And your laminated timetable, or homemade spaceship, might just be the thing that tips them over the edge.
Names have been changed