This piece was first published in Utopia, the second of Five Leaves’s sadly short-lived series of annual ‘journals’. I’d been working for Ross for over a year by the time we started putting this together, and I was inordinately chuffed that he accepted my submission to be printed in the book. I’ve updated it slightly (explained in notes) but otherwise it’s as it appeared in 2012, when my children and I were somehow more than a decade younger than we are now (in January 2023).
One other note about this piece – there are obvious signs of my autism here once you know to look for them! I’m discovering that a lot as I’m going back through my writing over the last 12 years or so.
Me, seven years old, standing in the hall, crying. Dad on all fours, rummaging in the under-stairs cupboard. A heart-wrenched scream from me. “But that’s not fair!”
A deep sigh from under the stairs. “Life’s not fair.”
“It should be fair… I hate you! I never asked to be born!”
Thumps of my heavy-as-possible feet on the stairs, as if I could trample on Dad’s head on the way to fling myself on my bed and cry for ever.
I can’t recall what I was so upset about, but I distinctly remember the utter certainty that my dad was wrong. Life should be fair. When it wasn’t, my parents should make it fair rather than simply accepting it. And they certainly shouldn’t expect me to accept “life’s not fair” as an excuse for injustice. I didn’t think things through so clearly back then. All I knew was that it was wrong.
Why was I so certain? It’s obvious if you think about it. All the fairy stories end up with the ‘bad’ characters getting their comeuppance and the ‘good’ characters living happily ever after. Children’s books have similar unequivocal moral messages. One of my favourite books at that time was The Naughtiest Girl in the School by Enid Blyton – the naughtiest girl sees the error of her ways and becomes a model student, and has so much more fun. Movies and TV programmes are the same. Even history is sanitised for children. Richard the Lionheart went off to the Crusades to fight heroically for God, Bad King John was nasty to everyone but Richard came back, sorted him out and everyone was happy.
It’s disappointing to realise that the fictional basis for morality and justice is exactly that – fiction. There are so many counter-examples. Children as young as nine are kidnapped and forced to fight in brutal wars in Africa, Asia, South America, Europe and the Middle East. One-third of British children live in poverty. Their basic needs, such as adequate clothing and three meals a day, are not met. In Britain, black Caribbean and Pakistani babies are twice as likely to die in their first year as white British babies. How on earth is anyone supposed to remain optimistic about the future of the human race in the face of such inhumanity? More to the point, is there anything we, as individuals, can do to improve conditions?
Early in my own childhood I realised I didn’t understand other people. They were inconsistent, unreasonable, stupid, and often downright illogical. Effective social interaction was beyond me, perhaps because not having a TV put me so far outside popular culture I had no frame of reference within which to talk to other children. Adults weren’t much better, they were rarely interested in what was going on in my head, and the stuff in their heads was just dull.
In my childish analysis, it seemed that if you worked hard and were kind to other people, or at the very least didn’t harm anyone else, you’d have a good life… that’s (arguably) how it should be. I soon realised it is not how it is. I raged against the machine throughout my teenage years. I joined the Communist Party, the Anti-Nazi League and CND. I tried to join Exit – the society for voluntary euthanasia – but they wouldn’t have me, as I wasn’t eighteen at the time. I went on marches and wrote letters and petitioned my MP. Nothing seemed to make any difference.
My parents were right, life isn’t fair. And by the time I left school I was convinced there was no point trying to make it fair. My slogan (which I wrote on numerous walls in the Reading suburb where I grew up) was: “Life is futile”.
In my mid-twenties I became a parent myself. I hadn’t planned to, in fact, I’d always been adamant that I was never going to have children. Then my treacherous hormones let me down, and whatever it is inside the human brain which suddenly says, “Quick, squeeze out a couple of sprogs before it’s too late!” kicked in. It really wasn’t a good idea, as I had no conception (haha!) of what being a mother involved.
So, I produced two children. I was determined not to make the same ‘mistakes’ as my own parents, although I wasn’t quite sure what those had been. I wanted my children to grow up with a sense of security, self-belief and optimism, rather than the boredom, disenchantment and depression I’d somehow acquired. I read all the books. And I mean all the books. I joined a Usenet group – misc.kids – and argued with right-wing Americans about whether returning to work after having children would be the worst fate I could visit on my offspring. I discussed potential parenting problems with my (now ex-) husband, my friends (none of whom were the least bit interested in having children) and my parents (who wisely declined to comment).
All the advice I did manage to glean seemed to go along the lines of:
- Patience is the most important quality you will need. Your children will drive you to distraction, and you must be endlessly patient and loving.
- Consistency is also the most important quality you will need. Even a minor slip in behavioural patterns will result in major problems later on.
- Reward good behaviour, ignore bad behaviour. Always praise the behaviour, never label the child.
- Sleep when the baby sleeps. You will want to devote all your waking hours to your new role as a mother, and you won’t mind that time for yourself will be a thing of the past. If you do not experience this, you are a Bad Parent.
- It may be tough at times, but you will enjoy every moment you spend with your offspring. Being a parent is the most rewarding activity possible. If you do not experience this, you are a Bad Parent.
- … ad nauseam, literally.
I guess it’s no wonder I ended up with post-natal depression. Which was lucky in one way, because it led to my health visitor giving me the most important piece of advice on being a parent I ever received: “You will never be a perfect mother. The best you can achieve is to be a ‘good enough’ mother.”
It’s probably best to draw a veil over the baby/toddler years. Some people like tiny human beings. I don’t. They’re boring and messy. I couldn’t wait for them to learn to talk properly, to have a real conversation rather than repeating “Why?” until it was impossible to restrain myself from screaming “Just because!” at the top of my voice, then breaking down into guilty sobs.
Despite my intolerance of the little buggers, I did have a fierce need to protect them from the worst the world might throw at them. They weren’t going to go through the state school system, that was for sure. My ex-husband didn’t have a problem with sending them to an independent school – he is an unrepentant Tory voter. I thought I would struggle with it, but the truism that “it’s different when it’s your own children” proved accurate. What difference would it make to state education if the boys weren’t part of it? Not much, I reasoned. Principles be damned – life isn’t fair, so I was going to make sure my kids were on the “right” side of the balance.
Of course, I couldn’t protect them from everything. My youngest, Harrow , was skinny and weird, so was intermittently bullied at school from an early age. There was one time in particular, when a lad in their class had been quite vicious towards them and some of the kids in the year below. They told me about it, then we told their teacher, and the school immediately put a stop to it. From then on, the younger kids worshipped Harrow as a hero. I made sure Harrow was explicitly aware of what they’d done and how brave they’d been, and how proud I was of the stand they’d taken. I don’t think it was as clear in my mind then, but what I was obviously doing was teaching them they can make a difference, at least some of the time.
A couple of years after that incident I had a text message from Harrow, they were away at summer camp at the time. They’d made friends with a girl who was being remorselessly bullied by another group of kids, to the extent that the bullies had framed her for stealing. Harrow was distraught that they couldn’t do anything to help her. My advice was to stand by her, make sure she knew they didn’t doubt her, maybe talk to the camp staff if she was willing… their response was, “Yes, I know all that, but how can I fix it so this isn’t happening?” Difficult question. How could I tell my child that life’s not fair and people can be vile, without instilling my own sense of life’s futility in them? After thinking about it for a while, I realised I was learning from them, rather than the other way round. It isn’t possible for one person to fix the world, or even a significant part of it. But it is possible to make a difference in individual lives, and for Harrow’s friend, the fact that they believed in her has, I hope, made a significant difference to her world.
Harrow has been lucky to find a group of friends who are as geeky as they are, which has helped them develop into an adult with a strong sense of self who is happy and proud to stand up for what they believe in. They haven’t had a particularly easy life, but they’ve resolutely maintained their right to be as they are and not conform to societal expectations. They regularly comment on current affairs, showing the same level of outrage I still have about the apparent idiocy of most of the human race. However, rather than trying to fix everything all at once, they tackle issues that are within their capability to resolve. They don’t think it’s unusual that they will always stand up for their friends against bullies – they don’t understand how anyone would consider behaving otherwise. I think this quiet caring attitude towards humanity is just as necessary to making a better world as the need to tear down the structures that are destroying the world.
Simon, my older son, is also bright and ever-so-slightly geeky, but he has always been charming and popular, surrounded by friends and admired by just about everyone he meets. Because of this he’s been able to get away with coasting through life. He’s somehow got in the habit of telling convenient lies to stave off the consequences of his laziness or thoughtlessness, which is extremely frustrating to deal with. If he wasn’t such a lovely person, or if he was inherently more lazy and thoughtless than any other teenage boy, I’d probably have throttled him by now . As it is, he’s always been mature for his age despite his faults, and it’s been possible to have long and interesting conversations with him since he was seven or eight.
One incident which happened when he was around that age demonstrates his maturity. I had quit smoking for the umpteenth time, and was rapidly losing the plot. Harrow, then aged five, was being particularly slow getting ready for school, and I flipped. I started to scream at them, the poor child became distraught, and the situation was getting out of hand. Simon calmly said, “Go into the kitchen, Mum.” I was so surprised I did as I was told. Simon spent a couple of minutes comforting Harrow, then came into the kitchen and said, “I’m really proud of you for stopping smoking, Mum, but you can’t shout at Harrow like that. Have you settled down a bit now?” This from a seven-year-old.
Simon has always used his status among other kids to be helpful. He’s one of the few lads I know who will actively step in to stop unfair behaviour or speak out against prejudice or idiocy. Like Harrow, he has a clear idea of right and wrong, of how to behave towards other people, but unlike the younger Harrow, he has always had the confidence to stand up for his beliefs. He’s lacking direction at the moment, but I think once he works out what he wants to do there will be no stopping him. And whatever that is, it will involve helping and supporting other people, and making a big difference in his own part of the world.
When I became a parent, everything was raised to a new level of significance. A thoughtless remark that might upset a friend or send a partner into a huff for a couple of days could turn my child into a permanently dysfunctional human being. I overthink small issues to the point of obsession (does it make me a bad mother to buy crisps for them to snack on?) and the big issues feed on me in the dark hours of the night. Should I be taking them on protest marches and encouraging them to get involved in practical ways to change the world? Perhaps we should have joined the Occupy Nottingham protest camp, or at least gone along to their meetings? But, when I stop and think about it, the most important lesson I’ve taught them is to be accepting of others’ differences and to take a stand against injustice. The moment I knew I’d done a good job was when I sat them down and told them that I’m gay. Simon said, “Is that all? Can I go out now?” and Harrow said, “You looked so serious, I was expecting something bad.” They both gave me a hug and went about their business.
I’m inordinately proud of both my children. They’re so different from each other, but in their own ways they’re mature, self-assured, considerate and optimistic young adults. Neither of them sees the world through rose-tinted glasses, but rather than focusing on the doom and gloom (as I did at their age) they see the possibilities. They accept their limitations – neither is destined for a stellar career in cancer research, international diplomacy or saving the environment, but both quietly go about changing the world around them in whatever way they can. It strikes me that if everyone on the planet was more like them, humanity would be in a much better state.
And, as a parent, I can’t ask for more than that.