Mother's Day

The genuine way to mark the day is to stop doing the thing your mum hates. But watching my children attempt to be polite to each other was exhausting, ...

We’re only people.” And I said: “That is the single dumbest thing you’ve ever said,” while thinking adulthood, praise be, is still some way away. When they sat down to eat, they passed things to each other rather than pelting each other with bread rolls like a pair of chimps, and nobody said anything about vegetarianism being stupid, or accused anyone of eating like a squirrel, and after about half a day of this, I was sort of broken-hearted. My sister and I say “Mummy”, and, because we know how shameful that is, when we’re in public we call her “the old trout”. Once a year, on Mother’s Day, we stop doing that out of respect, which makes no difference to her because she doesn’t know we do it in the first place. This is a perfectly normal age to call your mum ‘Mummy’, and I am just a normal person, in the shops, having a normal day” and the woman on the till was trying so hard to remain composed that her eyes filled with real tears. I’ve listened to podcasts in which the exact reason that it’s all the parents’ fault is detailed so sensitively, so perceptively, that you don’t even mind. If you missed the window during adolescence to shift from “Mummy” to “Mum”, because you were busy sniffing glue and whatnot, the wind changes and you’re stuck like that.