Motherload

Radio 4 Woman's Hour was getting all steamed up this morning about the social rights and wrongs of tutoring children during the school holidays. "Socially divisive", "giving the posh kids an extra leg up they don't need", "impossible demands placed on young shoulders", etc etc. According to some amongst us, children turn into vegetables during those precious few weeks of summer, and need to be kept nose to grindstone lest they forget how to spell, punctuate, do times tables and stand still in the lunch queue. I've been tutoring children and young people from 11 to 18 years old for the past few years, and it's completely changed my views on what tutoring actually is . In the summer holidays, most of my tutees stop, unless they are preparing for a selective entrance exam that's going to come up early in the next academic year. These poor souls have to keep going, yes. I find it next to impossible to force my own poor children to d...

This morning on the BBC — modesty bags for lads' mags!  Brilliant. The Co op is asking the people who publish Loaded , Nuts and the other boys' peep show titles to put bags over their product, to protect the innocence of children coming into the shops. Feminista  wants to go further, campaigning for an outright ban on these magazines. Their argument is that the Co op is still aiming to make money out of lads' mag culture — the fig leaf of a plastic bag is just a way to get around the profit hit it would otherwise take. What's the real problem, of which lads' mags are the pathetic symptom? Girls are sent the message, "sex is dirty and you are dirty if you do it — aren't you?", while boys are sent the message, "sex is dirty and girls are dirty if they do it — here, have a little look". Queen Victoria would have been proud. Seems to me that putting a doggy bag over a soft porn mag is a bit like men telling women they have to wear burkhas ...

The other day, my daughter and I were standing in line at a supermarket, idly waiting for the man in front to get an assistant to check the price of his pâté, have an argument about it, and then decide not to buy it. Our eyes, as we idled, fell upon the obligatory magazine stand. It was crammed with celebrity gossip mags screeching about the forthcoming Royal Birth. My daughter read out, "Kate: My Worries About Whether I'll Be a Perfect Mum! Royal Pair: Will and Kate Already Planning Number Two! Duchess: Too Posh to Push? Kate Says She's Worried About Losing Her Figure!" Actually, I can't quite recall the wording, but you get the idea. Royal Babymania, to crown the summer of British Sporting success. Murray! Tour de France! Ashes! Rugby! Parturition! My daughter, bless her, and no doubt because she is being brought up by the world's most argumentative mother, was horrified and incredulous. "She hasn't even had the baby yet!" she shrieked, ...

And now this. Mumsnot . This is a very clever title for a very upsetting debate. The way it's framed is particularly saddening: if a woman doesn't have children, what value does she have, and indeed, does she have any? HELLO? EXCUSE ME? Of COURSE a woman, like any other person, or animal, or flower, has value, simply by existing. OK, evil people, flowers and animals have perhaps less value, and usually do more damage. Value — now there's a word. What on earth does it mean to "have value"? In economic terms, it means "be tradeable". I'm not sure that that's what the Mumsnot debate means. After all, women have been traded for centuries, and it's usually the idea that they're not virginal that prompts the idea of their loss of value. When did tradability shift to the post-partum female? And who is assigning that value? It used to be men, on the basis of dowry or chattels. What is it now? An index of male fertility, or capacit...

Well lookie here, this is turning into a sign from the universe. Apparently home schooling IS the way forward. After our son's raucous 7th birthday party on Sunday (007 spy party, held on 07/07, d'you see?), at his school, we headed home, sweaty, laden with parcels almost certainly containing Lego, and thought no Moore of spy parties. Come Monday morning, lo, a burst water main had closed the school ! Out of the blue, on a glorious summer day, the children had NO SCHOOL. Coupled with the planned teacher training day the Friday before, this amounted to an unexpected long weekend, at least from the children's point of view. What luck! Hmmm. What was Mother to do. Options options: 1. Complain to the Council. No point, it's Haringey. 2. Go home and complain to the husband. No point, he's trying to earn our mortgage. 3. Shout at the kids. Tempting, but not really fair. 4. Turn on the television. The weather's too nice. 5. Go to Hampstead Lido. ARE YOU KIDD...

What am I learning about modern parenting? Two things. 1. Legoland — a metaphor for alienation. 2. Race for Life — a metaphor for frustrated ambition. Let me explain. Marx (and I paraphrase) felt that people were being alienated from the means of production of things like food and clothing. Instead they went to work in mines, cities and factories, were paid money and then had to commute home to give this money to their families, to pay for things. They seemed to be gaining autonomy, but were actually losing control over their lives. This was in the sense of the overall arc of those lives, their destinies (getting work started to depend on your education rather than, say, farming your own bit of land). It was also at the level of day-to-day human pleasure (growing your own tomatoes; making your own shirts). He thought this as England's green and pleasant land was overrun by factories during the 19th century. The rest of us called it the Industrial Revolution. You can un...

Well, your wish is my command. Do you remember my little daydream about teaching my children at home, with my phd, and my years of teaching experience, and my love of literature, culture and the young? Yesterday, as if by magic, the teachers had a TADS. This is a new educational acronym on me. Apparently it means something like Teacher Absence Day, S'there . Or possibly Training and Detention Summit . Something along those lines. Anyway, what it means is that several times a year, (a) working women have to scrabble about for yet more expensive childcare on a random day; (b) "stay-at-home mums" (those with phds who don't fit into mainstream society) have to Find Something To Do with Their Loved Ones, Instead of Their Writing. Because apparently teachers need to have training days, IN THE MIDDLE OF TERM. EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE TEN WEEKS' HOLIDAY A YEAR. Having mentioned to my daughter the notion of home education, she decided to run with it, reminding me that...

Yesterday I was preparing a class for a tutee, and came across a Home Education website. I found myself conducting a thought experiment. Why not educate my children at home? I have a doctorate, speak several languages, have years of teaching experience at university level, tutor others already in my own home, could find ways to develop curricula for all the subjects I'd love my children to learn, like Mandarin. I could join a network of home schoolers, all equally enlightened, and focused on the fascinating multiplicity of subjects children might like to study. We could take GCSEs early, and perhaps go for iGCSEs, and then the International Baccalaureat. My children would not need to spend hours of each day locked in a classroom, we would go to museums and art galleries, circus skills and dance classes. They would become independent learners, and follow their dreams into adulthood, instead of being constantly deflected from their goals by pointless tasks, testing and disc...

I have been doing a mindfulness course in the last few weeks. It has changed my life. I no longer do any writing at all (agonized or otherwise). Instead I have painted our front door. Life has become extraordinarily easy. I float through each day, doing only the task that is right in front of me, planning only the amount I need to get the next thing done. I am kind, open and generous, even to my husband. I am able to control my temper, impatience and feelings of inadequacy. I walk the children to school and back at their pace rather than my own. I smile and ask questions. I ensure the house is harmonious. I no longer listen to the news — Egypt may or may not be on the brink of a military dictatorship, or a civil war, and that is terrifying, fascinating, worrying, but ultimately there is so little I can do except be nice to people here (since no one has invited me to become a diplomat), that I might as well try to grow peas, bake chocolate cake and sit doing maths problems with ...