Poor Kids

I agree, janea, I loved being a SAHM when we lived in the West Country and all but one of my neighbours and friends with small children were SAHMs too. However, after we moved to London the reverse seemed to be true and it was very lonely at first.

I know kids who are at boarding school all week- and they have to stay on every Friday night because the parents go out for a meal

Rubbish. The mobile phone is simply there for connecting with other people, for whatever reason.

It isn't rubbish at all. Of course the mobile phone exists for connecting one person to another but it doesn't follow you always have to answer it simply because it rings.

Would a mother really have to make her kids the be all and end all of her existence. A dodgy path to follow, for various reasons.

It isn't about making children the be all and end all but it is acknowledging that the time I spent with them was exactly that: their time. Same if family or friends called at the house at the children's bedtime - I carried on reading the bedtime story to them (family and friends knew this routine happened so if they chose to call round at that time then they'd have to wait). The same courtesy was paid when friends came to the house for socialising in the evening, the children knew that was time for the adults.

What if you were in the house when you were phoned. Would you have to refuse to talk just because your kids were on the room with you?

Yes, if we were making things (baking, craft or in the middle of playing a game). If they and I were just doing our own thing then I would answer the phone (if it was convenient - if I was doing painting and decorating or preparing dinner, for example, I still wouldn't answer it).

I still wish you'd use names, HollyDaze

If I'm addressing the person, Ana, I do use their names - apart from those who don't pay me the courtesy of using mine.

If I'm only addressing the comment, I don't use the name as people tend to think my comment is being directed at them which isn't always the case.

Fair enough. I'll follow jingl's example from now on.

Bit of a red herring, this, but did you hear about the family who buried the mobile phone with their grandmother, texted her regularly, and then were very startled to receive a reply two years after her death?

I always thought that those who had passed on could hear the messages I sent from inside my head, didn't realise that I was supposed to send them by text.

Crikey!

(to HollyDaze)

Would you never have said, "Hang on a moment, I've just got to talk to Aunty Flo"?

Yes, rosequartz, I read about that.

The phone company had eventually given the deceased woman's number to someone else, who on receiving strange text messages, replied!

Ana I wondered if the after-life had caught up with modern technology when in fact telepathy would be much simpler.

I overheard a woman shout at her daughter, who was about 9 "stop that, stop touching, or you'll be taken by someone, put in the boot of their car and murdered". Child stopped touching the rows of makeup, and went silent.

I was at the other side of Boots when this happened. My own (28 yr old) daughter, grabbed my arm, and asked me not to intervene. The mother was very well dressed, had an equally well dressed toddler in a posh push chair, and the 9 year old was well turned out, but looked so unhappy and miserable. I was too stunned to intervene, but if that mum could shout that comment in a busy store, heaven only knows what happens at home.

That is truly terrible, Iam64.

It is bad enough to threaten children with the bogeyman or sometimes a policeman!
It worries me somewhat when little children are told that 'Santa is watching you, if you're naughty he won't come to bring you presents'.

The thing is about intervening, you don't know how the child may be made to suffer when they get home.

I used to work at a family centre and the women who attended just hadn't had the experience of good mothering themselves. We had to work hard with them to make them feel worthwhile and to love themselves, that way they learned how to mother their own children. It didn't always work out and some never recovered from their own childhood experiences. It so sad that so many mums (and dads) have not had good role models.

I was in 'Smiths' with my 7 year old DS and he was constantly pulling books off the shelf and looking through them, this I didn't mind in the least but when I saw him pulling a massive book on Psychology from the bottom shelf I tapped him on the head and said 'Come on now, you don't need that and besides it's too heavy for you to lift' He looked up at me and to my horror it was a young man of about 18 who was kneeling (same curly dark hair). OOps.

Flowerofthewest, I love it!

I don't think this sort of behaviour is specific to any class although I do agree with previous posters who have said its a case of "not knowing how to parent".

My DGC attend school in the middle of a large council estate and I pick the children up several times a week. Sometimes I could cry when I see/hear a small child running out of school excited to see their mum or dad after a long day..... paintings in hand they are so proud only to be shouted at, or even worse ignored. Last year the headteacher had to send letters out asking parents to "refrain from using bad language in and around the school premises" How shocking is that?

Me too so all I will say is: whatever makes you happy.

Very sad, Gilly. I wonder if those parents who use bad language to their children were spoken to like that by their own parents? Somehow I doubt it.
'Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me' - just not true.

I doubt it too janeainsworth. Some people seem to use foul language so often it means nothing anymore. Crikey knows what they say when they are really angry.

Just re-read Stephen Fry's biography in which he says something like;
"sticks and stones might break your bones, but broken bones can be healed" "nasty words do hurt you and that hurt can stay with you for life".

Yes. An adult can choose to not be offended by an insult, whether it is a racial or sexist slur. But a child recognises only that he or she is being called something nasty, and just as importantly, the tone of voice and the anger with which it is being spoken.

I heard a radio show today where a man was recalling how he heard a Vikki Pollard type yelling at her child " I wish f******* I had you aborted! . (This was a man who was infertile). Reminded me of this thread.

When we lived on a council estate in Cornwall there was a woman who used the most appalling language. She was a registered child minder and it was F this and F that in front of the children she was minding. We were told that when there was any sort of dispute with the Council the officials were too scared of her to confront her. Heaven knows how scared the children were.