The Day I Was A Good Mum.
The Day I Was A Good Mum.
I will never forget that moment.
I often joke that I am the world’s worst mother. There are a million reasons why.
I don’t share my sweets and hide the biscuits in places nobody else will find them.
I steal their shower gel and perfumes.
I got caught skiving THEM off school, by the headmistress. I called in sick for them and then we all got caught at the bus stop! (I was taking them on a day out, as it was one of their birthdays, so sod it.)
I was reliant on alcohol for a long time. Though I have been sober for 13 years.
I still don’t let them play on my Switch.
I let them swear.
I told them the ice-cream man played his music to let you know he had run out of ice-cream.
I taught them songs about diarrhoea.
I let them stay up way later than their friends.
We’d have sweets for breakfast.
I made my Dad be the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Father Christmas, at the end of the phone. I’d ring any of them at the drop of a hat to threaten a toothless, presentless merry hell if they were misbehaving too much. (I could also ring them to get nice things promised if I knew that they had done something good, too. Grandads are useful like that.)
Truth be told, I was a very young mum, having spawned my first oik at 20, and my second at 22. My first marriage ended when I was 24, and I was a bit messed up after my second marriage ended when I was just 26.
He was violent and horrible, and had left me an alcoholic PTSD ridden mess.
I was never neglectful - my kids were clean, well fed, had all the best stuff and were very much loved. Even when I was very ill with addiction. But guilt followed me for a long time after I had sorted myself out. It still does.
But I was a naughty mum who got into trouble WITH the kids, rather than disciplining them for it. We were the three amigos, always up to mischievous behaviour. Always giggling and getting into no good. Not nasty, or mean, but very cheeky.
I thought we were nailing it as a team. But something changed. I can never pinpoint the exact moment, but it happened during my eldest's time in middle school. She became moody and sullen. As she got older and went into high school, things got bad.
She stopped eating.
She refused to leave the house.
Her temper became terrible, and my son and I were constantly walking on eggshells.
She began begging me not to send her to school.
She had friends round for a birthday. They all went home early - having stolen her £40 birthday money, leaving her alone and heartbroken.
It emerged she was being bullied. So I took her to buy nice new clothes, cool new stuff, encouraged her to hang around nicer kids, began picking her up from school in the car so there was nowhere that was unsafe on the way home. I informed the school, who naturally held a fucking assembly and made everything ten times worse.
One day, they were meant to be going on a school trip to the beach. My poor daughter spent the entire day alone. They didn’t want to sit with her on the coach. She was mortified.
Again I complained to the school. Nothing. It didn’t help that she wouldn’t give their names to anyone. She begged me not to leave her there, “please mum, please,” grabbing my arm as I was made to leave her there in the school office like a lamb to the slaughter. I cried so hard.
If only I knew why they were bullying my daughter - who was a lovely kid. Kind, funny, sweet, and thoughtful. She didn’t deserve it at all.
I wanted to get in touch with the parents of some of these horrid little shits, but my daughter would not tell me who it was, that was being mean.
I had presumed it was verbal abuse. It was much more intense. They began getting serious stomach pains, some from IBS caused by stress, and some from not eating. One day I caught sight of just how thin she was and I broke down in front of her.
“But WHY? Why are you doing this? Why are they bullying you and why won’t you let me go see their parents?”
My daughter then shattered my heart into a million pieces.
“Because if I tell you, you won’t love me either, and then I will lose you and I don’t want to do that.”
How could my precious, beautiful baby feel so dreadful about something that she thought she would lose me over it? What could it possibly be that was so terrible?
I promised I’d be there no matter what, and I begged and begged for answers until she finally blurted through big shaking sobs,
“Mum, I’m Bi-sexual. I’m disgusting. They hate me because I’m gay and now you will hate me, too. It’s all my fault …”
My 13-year-old baby had never looked so tiny. I wrapped my arms around her frail little body, held her tightly, kissed her forehead and said quietly, “oh, is that all?”
Apparently, it was the right response.
I made no big gestures, no fuss, no shock or surprise. I just sighed with relief. Now we could start building up my daughter and helping her step into her new identity. “Their” identity now, as my daughter, who is now 24 years old, identifies as “she/they” interchangeably.
She told me how she had confided in her “friend,” who had spread it around the school.
How only two people still spoke to her and everyone else called her names.
How she had her food thrown over her, so she no longer ate at school.
How she had been pushed down flights of stairs and had her head flushed down used toilets.
How she had believed that I would reject her, too.
My baby must have been so sad. So alone and scared. But with me on her side, there was no way the situation would carry on.
An enquiry was carried out throughout the school. 12 “gangs” of kids, involving over 42 individuals, were all involved in the terror that had been brought on my child. Forty-two little arseholes, making her life hell every day.
The school was utterly useless, and decided that she should now be taught lessons in a room by herself, and then be turfed out at break times to face the onslaught. They called in a charity to visit her, who turned up twice, promised the earth, got her hopes up and then started skipping their sessions with her.
A better charity is Child. Call them if you need some help with bullies.
I eventually took her out of school, as both our nerves were shot, and homeschooled her for a while.
The school tried to threaten us with social services if I stopped sending her to school.
They pulled rank, and made me feel like I had no way of standing up to them. After all, I was just a recovering alcoholic, PTSD ridden waste of space, and they were the authority. So, being as brave as I could be, terrified I might even be deemed “unfit,” I got in touch with the social services myself and even enlisted their help to design a program of lessons and social groups for my daughter.
They, as it turned out, were my biggest supporters and helped me with everything. A man came out with a chonking great folder of leaflets, resources, information, and a promise to check in every three months to see if we needed anything.
Marching into the school reception with a letter in my hand announcing her rights and how we would fulfil them according to Section 7 of the Education Act 1996, was the best thing I ever did.
We followed the social’s advice to the letter and made sure she had a range of schooling. We also concentrated on some of her interests, like filmmaking, and went to museums and parks. It was a wonderful time. They went to counselling and eventually, a place came up in a better, supportive, school meaning they could sit their GCSEs.
Her old school was that useless that over a year after she had last set foot in their door, she got a letter and a certificate for “100% Attendance” and asking her to join them for a film and a biscuit. Bunch of complete nobs.
They eventually went to Sixth Form College to do A-levels, which they passed, and I am so very proud. Going there meant risking seeing the old bullies again, as they would all age up together. But luckily, most of the bullies went to a different place and my eldest was relatively happy there, even making a few friends.
She still struggles intensely with social anxiety disorder, as well as ARFID (an eating disorder) and we have recently discovered she is likely to be autistic, like her brother. She’s been through so much hurtful crap.
But that day, when she finally trusted me enough to tell me what was happening, I stopped being the worst mother in the world, and became a pissed off lioness of a mother instead.
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02/08/2024
