Of Shouting and Punishment...

I am so ready for Boy #1 to go back to school tomorrow - and frankly, I suspect he is too. Don't get me wrong, we've had a wonderful 8 week summer break that's gone by far more quickly than I ever thought it would (one of the paradoxes of private-school education in the UK is that the more you pay for your child's schooling, the more you see of them...), but I think we're both feeling that now it's time to move on.

He has become rather more demanding and teenage-like over the last week or so than I would actually like, and I - well, I have become rather more shouty. It's as if, after 7 weeks of keeping a lid on any frustrations, I have reached the tipping point, and am raising my voice far too easily. This does happen in our usual routine, but not as often as recently (honest, m'lud), and is not the mummy I want to be. I've worked out why it happens, though.

It's because I can't swear.

I don't know about you, but in my pre-children life there was little that was more satisfying, more expressive, than to throw a good expletive in every now and again when the occassion demanded it. Not in the gratuitous swearing style of 'Yes, I would just love a fxxx'in' cup of tea', or the 'Bxxxer me, I'm tired' way of things, but more in the 'For fxxk'x sake, how much more of this xhxt do I have to take!' way of things.

But of course, when you have children, all that is supposed to stop. So whilst I might mutter under my breath every now and again, or once in a blue moon text Husband to ask 'Would it be out of the question to tell our children to eff off?' (a text that he doesn't bother to answer, by the way, since he knows that just sending it in the first place is release enough for me), I never actually use any of the 'Forbidden Words'.

Potty Mummy expletives nowadays consist of 'Bother!' 'Blast!' and 'For Goodness' Sake!', which make me sound like an Angela Brazil or Enid Blyton novel, and which just don't afford the same level of comfort in moments of crisis. And since there's nothing intrinsically different in there to the sort of language I normally use, it has as much impact on my sons as water does on a duck's back. Hence the shouting, which kicks in on my fourth or fifth time of requesting that they put their shoes on / start tidying up / just stop whining about the rain and get out of the car I've been standing in the middle of the street in heavy traffic holding the door open for you for 5 minutes now whilst you whitter on about getting your hair wet...

I don't know why I bother raising my voice though. I mean, yes, more often than not whatever perfectly reasonable request I'm making does finally sink in once I raise the decibel level, but even that's amazing as both my sons know perfectly well that they have nothing to fear from me other than - ooooooh, the naughty chair. Whilst they are not that keen on it, that's not - whatever Super Nanny says - very much of a deterrent in the punishment stakes.

I suspect that whatever remorse they show whilst seated on it is simply for form's sake and to shut me up. In fact, they are probably thinking 'best give the poor old dear a break. At least let her think she's won this one...' before, time up, they pootle off and promptly do what boys do best - just getting on with it and forgetting whatever unpleasantness happened 5 minutes ago - leaving me to feel guilty and small for having tried to impose some kind of order on their 5 or 3 year old lives...

Parenting in the Noughties. It's a mugs game. Is it any wonder I shout from time to time?