Season not so jolly for poor mums

JIT’S that time of year again, and all over the hollysprigged homes of Britain mothers are feeling sensitive. Christmas is the Waterloo that looms every 12 months and even those of us whose kids have grown up feel the pressure.

Expectations of joyous perfection sizzle through our frazzled brains. The house has to glitter gorgeously, the tree must be big and blingy, the turkey moist and succulent. And this year how many of us are tearing our hair out at the prospect of providing a vegan option for the latest

Raddition to the offspring’s girlfriend/boyfriend list.

Then there’s the grandchildren. Will their favourite festive day be at yours? Or at the other granny’s? Perish the thought but let’s admit there’s a nasty little feverish frisson in most of us about this; a most unseasonal and un-Christian desire to be the best.

And so mums are feeling fragile, which is why there’s been such a big hoo-hah about the BBC’s contribution to the season of goodwill. It’s a fraught little film called Wonderland, about a harassed working mother too busy at the office to join her son as the Christmas lights are switched on in the seaside town where they live.

So she sits in the office feeling guilty as hell while her angeliclooking teenage boy sulks moodily around town, tensely playing arcade games (danger alert! Teenage lad hanging around slot machines alone. Bad, bad mum!)

Then mum has an epiphany. Time freezes (as do all her co-workers) and she throws down her phone, skipping off to join sad son. They cuddle lovingly on a bench, eating candyfloss. Stuff the job – mum has seen the light and knows her rightful place is with her child.

Mumsnetters are furious with this film because, they say, working mothers already feel guilty enough without the BBC ramming it down their throats. “Where’s his dad?” they rightly ask. Well, one assumes he’s at work too, only the thought of his son mooching around the arcades on his own doesn’t trouble his paternal soul one jot.

It’s too early yet to wish you all a merry Christmas – that’s for next week – but to mothers and grannies everywhere, I do wish you peace as you slog around town to make this a golden time for your family. Don’t feel guilty. You should feel like Super Woman, and as virtuous as the angel on top of the tree.

THE awful fate of 22-year-old backpacker Grace Millane, found dead in New Zealand’s rainforest (the man she was last seen with has been charged with her murder) has traumatised her host country. The detective leading the investigation was near to tears when announcing the body had been found; the NZ prime minister apologised profoundly to Grace’s grieving family. The prevailing view is, ‘These things just don’t happen here’. Grace was, of course, travelling alone and some have questioned this on social media. In fact, Grace WAS with friends earlier in the trip when she visited Cambodia, only going solo in NZ. I asked my own daughter, an experienced backpacker, what she thought.

“Some places you don’t go on your own,” she told me. “But New Zealand is incredibly safe. I wouldn’t lose sleep if someone I loved went there alone. It’s probably riskier Christmas shopping in London.” Grace’s family should be left to grieve in peace. Internet trolls – control yourselves.