SOCIAL STANDING

At last. I’ve been trying to think of a single aspect of growing older I don’t resent and I’ve finally come up with a corker. I realize I’m old enough to dodge the linguistic tangle where nouns become verbs. I’ve never had “to parent” my three children. I’ve mercifully escaped belonging to the generation that earnestly drones on and on about “parenting” as though it were an exam that required extensive after school tutoring. I got lucky. I was a simple noun. A mother. A parent. Times have changed.

When my three kids – now all in their twenties - were young, being a mother left precious little time to worry whether or not one passed as yummy. We were aspirational - but only for our children. We didn’t need, nor seek constant reassurance from one’s peers that today’s young parents yearn for. School run fashion supplements didn’t exist.  We fumbled through the fog, car-pooling in our pajamas, armed with nothing more than a dog-eared copy of Penelope Leach, gut-instinct and optimism. We weren’t bullied by endless theories, manuals and child-care experts. I didn’t fret or feel inferior if I was lousy at breastfeeding nor was I a pioneer of today’s current brag-book culture of public parenting that thrives off constant status updates, posted Facebook photographs and tweets.

I just loved my kids with a passion, gave them boundaries that selfishly worked for me and lived in an era that accorded parents the freedom to wing it without guilt.

In the last three decades being a parent has insidiously morphed into a veritable industry. It’s stopped being organic and become a litmus test of social standing. Being the “best” parent is now the new class system. You’re either in or you’re out. You either cut the mustard or you’re looked down on. It’s a mini-me, competitive, corrosive monster that feeds off insecurities. If Allison Pearson paused to wonder today just how she did it back then, I guarantee she’d be stumped. It’s all become so complicated.  As the recently departed  Nora Ephron astutely reflected, “suddenly, one day there was this thing called parenting. Parenting was not simply about raising a child, parenting was about transforming a child, it was about force-feeding it like a foie gras goose, altering, modifying, modulating, manipulating, smoothing out, improving.” She’s right.

I’m none the wiser as to which method works best; the most one can ever hope for is that your chickens willingly come back to roost. Mine do. But then they have no choice. They belong to the boomerang generation. The recession, house prices, career choices, lack of regular employment (both theirs and sometimes ours) means that we are literally all in this together.

Modern families often have no option but to rub alongside one another in close, often cramped quarters. It’s not ideal. I reckon the only way it works is to find a middle ground and to dance to the beat of a new drum. And if that means Frank Sinatra has to play alongside Jay-Z then so be it.   

Personally, I love it. I love the fact that my nest is still feathered and not yet empty. Both (our) parenthood and (their) childhood may have officially ended yet the adventure continues. We’re neither fish nor fowl; we’re Kidults. We’ve all had to learn to adapt to multi-generational, communal living. If pomposity is allowed to collide with petulance it just doesn’t work. Ageism is over in this house. Johnnie (aged 77) has had to learn to Google with the best of them.

Sunday night has become an extended Family Night. Big supper, everyone can bring friends. It was my idea. I thought by reinstating a bygone lunch-time tradition at night, not only would it be more practical, it might also impose a semblance of normality and order upon the backdrop of natural chaos that exists when trying to co-ordinate lots of busy lives.

The first time I did it the guest list comprised of the five of us, my new son-in-law, a girlfriend of mine, an ex-lodger, a visiting American and a couple of the kids friends.

Dinner was interrupted by a neighbor banging on the front door to inform me he’d just seen a white van  (why is it always a white van?) speeding down our street, with my parked car attached to its wheel. My car was apparently now doing a solo spin in the oncoming traffic.

Whilst my son and his friend pushed the car out of harm’s way, my eldest daughter ran to Victoria Coach station to ask if their CCTV cameras were operating, hoping they might have caught the white van’s escape. They weren’t. I rang the police who insisted I go to the station and file a report. Family Night was over before it began. I cremated the crumble, the lodger had a mini-relapse and found some very strong painkillers in the bathroom cupboard and the visiting American taught my girlfriend how to work Chatroulette.

However I’ve persevered. Last Sunday was real quality time. Full house, good food, no dramas. My married daughter pitched up with two bags of dirty laundry as her washing machine had broken. After dinner, new son-in-law and I played poker. We’re both competitive and decided to up the ante and play not only for money but also for the loser to do vodka shots. I have a worrying suspicion that if this becomes a weekly event I may shortly be financing a new washing machine.

When Married Daughter eventually finished doing her laundry and came upstairs to complain about the lack of Comfort fabric softener she was not amused.

“ I don’t believe this,” she huffed, furiously folding her sheets. “ What are you doing Mum? Get a grip. You’ve got work tomorrow. You’re behaving like a teenager.”

I’m choosing to take that as a compliment. Ageism is dead. And as Frank would undoubtedly say, were someone to switch off The Vaccines, that’s life.