When I realised I'd failed as a mother

It took a single school gate comment...

In normal life, a parent can rattle along doing the stuff they need to do, and (just about) scramble through. As long as your kids are fed, and have clothes and matching footwear on, all is generally okay. When they’re little you can usually rest assured that all of those other school gate parents are as frazzled as you are.

You think they’ve noticed that you inadvertently used a green eyeliner to colour in your brows that morning - but they haven’t. I once went to school with some white plastic velcro fastener thing (bought by Jimmy to re-affix our kitchen kickboard) stuck to my jumper sleeve. No one noticed. Parents of young children are too knackered to see anything in sharp focus.

But then a special occasion comes along and EVERYTHING you do as a parent is out there on public display.

Take Easter - an occasion I never really get it together to celebrate. It moves, for one thing - sneaking up on you and suddenly you have kids at home and expectations of attractive twigs painted silver and hung with hundreds of tiny eggs. I managed it once, dragging home a branch from the park and infesting our porch with tiny flying bugs.

One day, just before the kids broke up for the holiday, a school gate mum bounded up to me. The type who’s always knee-deep in the PTA and badgering you for donations for something or other. If she’s not thrusting a sponsorship form at you, it’s a petition. I’d run away from her on several occasions, hiding in the Co-Op.

‘So,’ she boomed, ‘what are you doing for Easter?’

I stared at her, not understanding the question. She might as well have said, ‘So, what are you doing for Michaelmas?’

‘Oh, you know, we’ll probably play it by ear!’ I babbled.

‘No big Easter lunch?’

‘Of course we’ll have that,’ I fibbed. She turned away and I heard her boasting to someone else that she was making ‘a special Easter mousse cake.’ Was it cake? Or mousse? I had no idea. And of course, the Easter bunny was coming to their house, and there’d be an egg hunt!

Shamed, I took the kids home and announced that we would go egg rolling. I’m not sure if this is a Scottish thing, or UK-wide - and maybe there’s a technique to it. I forced my kids out of the house, and we took our hard boiled eggs to a hillside (I really hoped Mousse Cake Mum would see this!). And we rolled our first egg directly into a deposit clearly left by one of the larger breeds of dog.

Poor children given pebbles instead of Easter eggs. Excuse squintiness of picture. See, Easter makes me unbalanced!

Another Easter, the school had a decorated hat competition. I vaguely remember finding a battered old straw hat for my daughter to wear, unadorned. One of her classmates arrived sporting a hat with a wide, flat brim, and on the brim was a tiny train track, and a model train, and the train went round and round.

The sight of it encircling the kid’s head, its tiny motor whirring, haunts me to this day.

‘Oh darn,’ I wanted to shout. ‘We left your battery operated elephant herd hat on the kitchen table!’

When the kids were asked to bring in a castle they’d made at home, that same kid walked in with a scale model of a fort with a tiny portcullis and a drawbridge that raised, at the click of a button.

What was with all the motorised shit??!

‘His mother made it,’ someone muttered.

At least he had a mother who could make stuff to pass off as her child’s own work. I’d baked my very first loaf at around that time. My children had laughingly likened it to Ailsa Craig - a volcanic plug jutting out of the Firth of Clyde, visible from space. And they’d thrown it into a builders’ skip.

Sometimes I’m nostalgic for my kids’ younger years. I miss it all so much, it can trigger an actual ache. But there are many advantages to one’s children being all grown up. No one judges your parenting anymore. If things go a bit wonky, it’s at least a private family matter and not displayed to all at the school gate.

And if anyone says I have cocked up this mothering business?

Well, it’s too bloody late!

It’d be like my first boss tracking me down and complaining about the horrifically messy desk I had in 1983.

I met up with two friends last weekend. Forty years ago, Anna, Ellie and I shared a crumbly little house in Dundee. Then Anna went off to get married at 21. Here we are, at Anna’s ruby wedding anniversary. It was a brilliant day and wonderful to be together again.

My friends reminded me that I once ate the entire soft interior of a loaf they’d bought, leaving just the hollowed out crust.

Isn’t it great when old crimes are raked up, and you can just laugh about them? Shabby parenting, loaf hollowing - no one can take me down for that now!

Have a cracking Easter break,

With love,

Fiona xx

The one time I went Eastery (circa 1994) and it wasn’t even Easter!

Feel like running away from it all? Bathroom window looking suddenly tempting? In my new novel, Kate’s had enough - and makes a spontaneous escape without even packing a clean pair of pants. You can order it here