Motherload

Picture the scene: I was just getting a roast chicken and trimmings out of a hot oven, when my daughter sidled up behind me and told me she'd had a bad test score. My mother was hovering in the background, my son was creating merry hell somewhere nearby. I had five minutes between dropping him back from an activity, before I headed off to his school for a parents' evening.  Dear Reader, what do you think my reaction was?  Sadly, no, it wasn't the measured, calm, 'Oh dear, darling, never mind, I'm sure you'll do better next time – what do you think went wrong?' No. I looked down, and all I could see was that the trimmings were overcooked – blackened, actually – and I lost my temper. I stormed off out of the house, and my husband found me, fuming as I looked through son's books, predicting dire reports and spitting tacks about the National Curriculum. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.  I emerged from son's class with a renewed respect for teachers, ...

Jacqueline Rose's review of a recent glut of publishing on motherhood makes, as ever, brilliant and thought-provoking reading. But, oh dear, I struggled to read it — not remotely because what she says is somehow inaccessible or highfaluting, or jargon-filled (the usual accusations made against 'academic' writing, mostly without bothering to read it). What she says is limpid and multi-layered, suggestive, provocative, and I agree with it. I struggled because there is just no bridge today between academia and other areas of life, and it causes me pain every day. She opens on Tim Minchin's Matilda , noting the wry critique he offers of vicious perfectionism in childrearing. Music to my ears. Try, however, actually saying anything like this about Matilda in Muswell Hill. What it means here is the summer workshop at the local performing arts centre, populated by little girls, whose parents are assuring them constantly that they are (and must remain) miracles while pus...