The Magic of Mothering

This week's 100-word challenge at Julia's Place requires us to use the word ruby. It just so happens that...


It strikes me, as I try transmuting a pair of Doodles into Dorothy’s ruby slippers: parenting classes omit crucial aspects of child-rearing. They are eloquent about weaning and potty-training, but they don’t touch on how to conjure a flock of sheep from Whiskas boxes or improvise a Victorian maid’s cap from a wedding garter.

Primary education is less about times-tables and more about encapsulating historical and literary landmarks from household flotsam.

My advice to new parents is to relax about the intuitive routines of feeding and hygiene. They’ll need all their energies for mastering conjuring tricks when their children start school. 












Comments

  1. A true philosopher indeed. Wise words for impending parents. They may not believe you but time will pass and they will come to understand the truth as spoken by the prophet known as matron ! ;-)

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  2. Haha so true, so sad. I may boycott all that craft stuff and just send a cake instead.

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    1. You don't have the choice. Maybe, though, they don't have World Book Day in Jerusalem which will spare you some of the pain.

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    2. OK, so home schooling it is then.

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  3. I could identify with this. My stepdaughter had to create a costume for her kids for some special day at school. She sent Joshua off in a fabulous concoction (Transformer - one of those toys that is a car, but when you unbend it - for ages - it turns into a robot, like the advert). It was so good, the other Mum's have asked her to take order for costumes for the future...

    Good advice in this piece, from one who knows I suspect.

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    1. Surprisingly, after witnessing my children's costumes, noone has ever asked the same favour of me! And boy, yes, I am one who knows. All of the above is true and I didn't even mention the 17th century fireman's costume mentioned five minutes before the school run, the emergency Dumbledore last term, the 1940s outfit last week and the last-minute Alice in Wonderland trauma.

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  4. Fabulous! My husband spent a week creating a castle from toilet rolls & I feel inadequate when asked in the Sunday email for empty lemonade bottles for Tuesday, when we don't buy lemonade at all! And easter 'bonnets' for boys? Impossible!

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    1. Ditto ditto. Ours ask for shoe boxes as though we buy new pairs monthly. And cereal boxes - as if those haven't already been converted into 'televisions' so that the kids can tell their peers they have one in their rooms!

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  5. This is so true, they dont come with a module on how to improve your imagination. Yesterday my daughter and I were swimming in a river in the middle of my bedroom at her behest. I felt a bit wooden in the in the lets pretend department!

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    1. Your swimming game sounds very like one my sis and I used to play on the carpet of my parents' bedroom. It was chocolate brown (this was the 1970s). The game was called Poo Poo Sea. We have both turned out to be quite well adjusted, all things considered.

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    2. I am with you there. I'm happy to play board/ball games but dread the moment I'm asked to be Miss Trunchball in class (although she and I share many characteristics).

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    1. Thank you, that was my question too. The power of transmutation sounds like a necessary skill for Mums - do they have classes for that? ;) Fantastic response to the prompt.

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  7. An unsung skill indeed, I had - at short order - to create a costume for the Ghost of Christmas Past a couple of months ago. A Dickens of a job.

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    1. Ha! I coud almost run to a ghost but that assumes you have spare sheets knocking around, whereas all mine are fully employed.

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  8. I was never good at that. I managed to make a Pied Piper costume once. It's too small for them now. Rats!

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    1. Pied Piper requires enormous feats of ingenuity. You must be better than you suppose!

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  9. As a primary head teacher I was in awe of the things that parents could produce seemingly from thin air. You are so right - it should be part of anti-natal!

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