I love it when my children talk to me about their school day.
I understand that it is quite a rarity. Having canvassed lots of my friends I think I am in a fairly privileged position. Most children, when asked what their school day went like tend to respond like so:
”S’alrightIs’posedin’tdoanyfingreallygorranycrisps?’
Mine eventually get to the ‘gorranycrisps?’ stage, but not before something interesting, enraging or delightful has fallen from their lips.
Tallulah is an excellently naughty child, and has been known to unleash some shockers onto an unsuspecting public, so it was very interesting to hear her take on the shockingness of her peers yesterday.
She came out of school looking very Aunt Spikerish and rather tight lipped. This usually, upon questioning turns out to be because:
‘Well Lollapalooza said she was going to be my best friend forever, and she gave me this treasure (shows me chewed piece of plastic crud, pulled dramatically from her pocket), but then Ginalollabrigida said that she had a pony, fourteen racing cars and the entire set of Moshi Monsters in Swarovski crystal and she would let Ginalollabrigida touch them, and so Lollapalooza is now her best friend. EVEN THOUGH. EVEN THOUGH she said the day before yesterday that Ginalollabrigida smelled like the bottom of a hamster’s cage and she wouldn’t be her best friend ever. Ever. EVER. I HATE HER. But now I have no friends. And I really wanted to sit next to her on the bus at swimming today even though I HATE HER, but I had to sit next to Scratchy Jo instead, and I HATE him too, because he’s got eczema and he eats the scabs. SO THERE.’
Yesterday it wasn’t like that.
I asked her how her day went.
She forged ahead, stamping down the pavement with purpose, as if she planned on smashing her way into the centre of the earth via the power of a firmly placed Clarkes’ shoe.
When she is very exercised about something she talks through pursed lips.
Her lips pursed, she tossed her curls and said over her shoulder to me:
‘WELL….!
It was a VERY stressful afternoon, frankly.’
I enquired why this might be.
The lips pursed again:
‘WELL…!
Jacintafancypants called someone a LESBIAN. And she got a yellow card.’
She looked at me in a ‘whaddayathinkofthat?’ type way.
I refrained from laughing hysterically (not because I think it’s funny that people use the word lesbian as a term of abuse by the way, but because I suspect that this child doesn’t even know what it means, and is just parroting someone else. I suspect that she thought she had actually said something like ‘fucketybollocks’) and said: ‘Well, that’s very silly isn’t it?’
Tallulah said: ‘YES!’ most emphatically.
There was a pause, and then she said: ‘Anyway. What is a lesbian exactly?’
I told her.
She looked puzzled and said: ‘But that’s so stupid. It’s like calling a carrot a carrot. It just is what someone is. There’s nothing wrong with that.’
I said: ‘Yes. That’s right. There isn’t.’
She might be excellently naughty, but sometimes she is also excellently wise.
I have just rung my daughter (who will be 21 in a few short months) as we are making plans for her ‘home from Uni., Easter’ visit … I miss her terribly sometimes. Over the years we have had exactly the same sort of conversations that you describe….. sigh…….I am very proud of my bright beautiful child and I KNOW that you will have two very lovely woman in your life in later years that you will look at and think ‘my my …. how wonderful my girls are’. I think that about my daughter and do you know what? It’s OK…just this once I don’t care about being thought smug…..I am happy to allow myself to think that sometimes we are allowed to be proud….From years of wanting a child through early years and primary school and teen years I always tried (and still do) to be the very best parent that I could be…alongside being me and being human…so I put the work in and think that the relationship we have now is wonderful…….and up to this point so does she. Your children are not your friends necessarily but wonderful human beings in your life, that if you are lucky you share love and laughter with.
Libby, that is a lovely, lovely comment. Thank you.x
Ahhh, yellow cards. Millie is always shifty when asked if she had had one. One memorable week, she got a special mention because she had been good for THREE WHOLE DAYS. I feel sorry for her teachers.
Talking of Lesbians, Tony has decided that 8/9 year old boys talk utter drivel. He was taking Ell and two of his friends out- the conversation went thus-
Friend 1- ‘you know ladies that kiss ladies?’
Ell and Friend 2 – ‘Yes’?
Friend 1- ‘My aunty calls them LIBRARIANS!’
(cue falling about in hysterical laughter on the back seat of the car. Even though they hadn’t a clue why).
Barking.Mad.
Jo
Librarians! Brilliant.
How lovely … wise indeed. xx
Tallulah is excellently wonderful xx
As the mother of a gay son who was intermittently tormented during his school days, I salute you Tallulah. If only more people could grasp that concept the world would be a must happier place!
Kim
She is. Sometimes.
Em
As above!
Sharon
My thoughts exactly.x
i send hugs to tallulah from across the ocean for just being… tallulah — and you for being such a matter-of-fact mum. wonderful. i remember when i went from a mixed junior high school to an all girls high school (i was 13 or so). i had vague notions about gay sex because i was an omnivorous reader and often snuck into my parents’ room to read their racy books — in any event, a day or so before my first day, my mother said, very casually, “oh, when you’re at this school there may be girls who want you to kiss them and act like a girlfriend, like boys do. if you don’t want to just be nice and say “no thank you.” and if you do want to, be nice to them.” and that was the end of that discussion, but it certainly colored my attitude (and that of my siblings, i assume when they got whatever talk they got) for the rest of my life. they are what they are. so lovely.
Bronxbee
I will hug her when she has removed her face paint! x