Let’s do this together
There are two types of parents in this life. Those with adoring, obedient children, who happily stand by their front door on the first day of the new term and have their photo taken by their proud mums.
And then there’s my tribe. The downtrodden ones begging their degenerate offspring for just one teeny weeny smile so they too can join the back-to-school frenzy online.
“Please let me take a picture of you in your nice, clean uniform,” I stood by the inside of the front door as The Dark Lord got ready to leave on Monday morning, surprisingly on time.
“No way,” she said firmly. “I am NOT a performing monkey, mother.”
“Pleeeeease, for the love of God, I’d just like – for ONCE – to look like a normal family!”
But she stuck her headphones back on her ears and opened the front door, and sloped off up the steps. I’d even got the brush out the day before and cleaned the porch and door of a year’s-worth of dirt and cobwebs. All for nothing.
Then she turned and really stuck the knife in. “You really should spend less of your time on social media, you know. It’s not good for your mental health.”
She’s lucky that I am a rubbish thrower, otherwise I’d have launched my slipper at her head at that point.
Having spent years warning The Dark Lord of the perils of social media, I’m now having it patronisingly repeated back to me.
“The bloody cheek of it,” I told our pug Boris, and went back inside to check my Instagram feed to see if I could get away with posting a photo of TDL from three years ago, which was the last time she ever did as she was told.
It’s particularly galling not to get a photo for Year 9 because TDL had even asked for a nice new tie this term, to replace the mangled one she’d hole-punched.
She’d taken out all of her metal skull and crossbones earrings – three holes on both sides – without being threatened with a magnet.
And she’s had a professional haircut, rather than cutting chunks out of it with nail clippers.
“Maybe I could take a leaf out of the paparazzi handbook and hide in the bushes outside to get a snatched photo?” I thought. Then again, maybe I should do as TDL says, and get a life.
■ Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.
Please note, if you send us photos of your grandchildren, we’ll also need permission of one of their parents to print them... Thanks!
Yours, Siobhan