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Neglectful Mother

February 12, 2011 By Clare Mackintosh

I am a terrible mother.  I have always suspected it, but tonight it has been unequivocally confirmed.

I had to work today (that’s not the bit that makes me a terrible mother, although I accept it may be a contributory factor) and as the nanny doesn’t come at weekends my mother came over to look after the children.

I work a lot – every week day in fact – so the children and I are very used to our routine.  Each morning at around seven o’clock I inhale a cup of tea, drop a kiss on three foreheads and head off to work.  The nanny spends the day providing the children with stimulating and educational entertainment, and I return at five or six o’clock once they’ve had their supper.  It’s a system.  It works.

My mother is not used to the system, and indeed there is no reason why she should be.  So when I arrived home from work I should perhaps have listened to her outline the day’s activities, instead of immediately bundling her in the car with a clutch of freshly laid hen’s eggs and a headache.  I should perhaps not have so readily shooed the children away from the biscuit tin as I munched my way through a tea-time Garibaldi.

Because now that the children are in bed, this is what I have remembered.  The children haven’t had any supper.  None.

I am consumed with guilt and considering waking them up to force-feed them beans on toast.    I have yet to admit my heinous crime to my husband, who is blissfully unaware he married a neglectful slattern.

But you know what makes me even more of a terrible mother?  After I realised my shocking omission, my next thought was not “oh goodness, they’ll be so hungry”.  Oh no.  My primary concern was, “what if the hunger pangs wake them – and therefore me – in the middle of the night?” 

I’m going on the run before my licence for motherhood is revoked.  But first I’m going to lay the table for breakfast.

Filed Under: Parenting

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