It has recently been drawn to my attention that I have become a competitive mum. I'm not proud of it, slightly embarrassed really, and I will try my hardest to shake this tendency that has recently come to the fore.
It all started with a small note pinned to the door at nursery school a couple of Monday's ago. It announced that there would be an Easter bonnet competition on Thursday. As I work Tuesdays so that left Wednesday to create something - as from the moment I read that note I WANTED MY CHILD TO WIN.
Now I am no great artist but I thought we did a pretty good job. I measured my son's head and decided we didn't have time to trail round charity shops for an old hat to decorate, so we made A TOP HAT. I patiently let my son stick on glitter and tissue flowers and pour 5 tubes of glitter glue over the paper - with a few stylistic tweaks from mum it looked perfectly like the work of a 3 year old.
There was a slight catastrophe - despite my measuring it didn't fit and he refused to wear it but after a major tantrum (mine) and a chocolate egg (for him) we were both proud and happy with the result and he wore it to nursery the next day.
Unfortunately when I collected him the judging hadn't been done and we had to leave it there. Because of the bank holiday it would be more than a week before we saw it again. I collected it this week to discover that it had been crushed and half of the decorations had been pulled off. Worse still he hadn't won 'there were all good but there could only be one winner' (rubbish they are 3 year olds and could all win). Then came my realization of my competitive mum status - I almost demanded photographic evidence that the winner's was better than my son's!
I think it has rubbed off though - my son got his 5m swimming badge today while screaming 'I want to win, I want to win!'
About Me
- dougalfish
- The naughty step, bottom of the stairs, United Kingdom
- I have been a freelance editor and proofreader since 2005 - before that I spent 10 years in the publishing industry working on both journals and books. I have 2 boys - aged 6 years and 6 months - and 2 cats as well as a long suffering husband.
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The Naughty Step blog by dougalfish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
1 comment:
haha oh dear, no you certainly don't want to become a competitive parent. And swimming mothers are the worst I have come across - so perhaps he should stop at 5m. There is this guy at swim training who sits there with his laptop, putting his daughter's times for each training length into a spread sheet so he can see how she is improving (he smiles encouraginly as she leaves the pool) or not improving (he hurries after her giving advice).
So beware!!!
But congrats to the wee lad for his swimming success - and commiserations re the bonnet.
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