The Music Man

HNC (Has No Clue) in Parenthood, Module 232: Just when you think you’re getting the hang of this parenthood lark, the Gods of Reality Checks will throw a ruddy big spanner in the maternal works.

I knew it was all going too well.

I managed to survive those nine months of pregnancy, when I sweated like a seal in a sauna and grew to the size of the average portaloo.

I gave birth after a thirty-two-hour labour to a nine-pound son (and I’ll remind him of both those facts on a monthly basis until the end of time).

Then I did it all over again a year later.

I survived the nappy years, then the potty years, then those endless afternoons fishing toddlers out of ball crawls and pondering whether I could cope with another episode of the Teletubbies without suffering a break in the psyche that leads to me shouting ‘Eh-oh’ at the postman (if you don’t understand that last bit, ask any mother who had a preschooler between 1997 and 2001, but go armed with a large glass of vino and expect snot and hysteria).

I coped with 1,453 imaginary disaster situations as I sent them off for their first days at school.

I did the supportive mother/chauffeur thing at football, tennis and karate-type stuff and I didn’t complain. Okay, I did. Loudly and regularly. But I still maintain that if women were in charge of football then it would be played in the summer instead of the winter, there’d be Danish pastries at half-time and all parks would have heated shelters at the side of the pitch, fully kitted out with co-ordinated soft furnishings, foot spas and tea-making facilities.

After much training and conditioning, I eventually educated them in the complicated rituals of the seat-up/seat-down lavatorial procedures – a skill that still hasn’t been mastered by many fully mature members of their species.

And I’ve managed to get to this stage of my offspring’s development without them succumbing to bad career choices, dysfunctional relationships or dubious personal habits. Which is just as well because they’re only six and seven.

But just when I thought I had a ticket to sail on calm waters from here to Puberty Central, it’s all – sob – gone horribly, unexpectedly wrong.

Low the Elder has done the unthinkable. He embarked on that chain of actions that strikes fear into the heart of every mother and father in the country. He – I can hardly bear to say it – saved up his pocket money and bought a recorder.

That whooshing noise you can hear is my will to live smothering itself in soundproof bubble wrap before diving into the nearest underground bunker.

A recorder! Apologies to anyone who has made devotion to that instrument of torture their life’s work, but it’s up there with nails scraping down a blackboard or an out-of-tune soprano singing opera. Backwards. With bulldog clips on her extremities.

Where, oh where, did I go wrong? Why couldn’t he just have settled for a drum kit or bagpipes like any normal kid?

Parents, help me out here – there must be some kind of trauma-prevention system that will get us through this without loss of sanity, neighbours or eardrums. Please forward any advice to: S. Low, Parenthood Nightmare, c/o The Nearest Soundproof Bunker.

In the meantime, I’ll plough on with my HNC (Has No Clue) in Parenthood. Hopefully, the next lesson will include practical steps to help preserve the bond between parent and child – Module 233: ‘Musical Instruments and How To Lose Them’.