Confessions of a Single (Irish!) Mother Page 8

  TIME TO DE-CLUTTER

  It’s time to de-clutter. That’s not such an easy thing when you have a two-year old. Minimalism and chic colour-coordination goes out the window once kids come along with their crayons and their Ribena. Parents must get used to sharing their beds with little metal cars, half-eaten biscuits, soothers, and toy giraffes. No matter how many times I check my bed before going to sleep, my toe usually collides with a strange, sharp object in the middle of the night. The worst thing is, of course, if the said object plays music. When somebody gave Gary a singing wheelbarrow for Christmas – don’t ask – it ended up in my bed and it started playing music at 4.00 am. By the time I’d fumbled around in the dark for the ‘off’ button, I was wide awake and cursing the buyer of the wheelbarrow who no doubt was having a nice, peaceful sleep somewhere far away in jingle-free land.

  Anyway, as I said, it’s time to de-clutter. I don’t particularly like the word. I hate the thought of firing things into skips. In fact I hate the thought of getting rid of anything ever. Suppose I need it someday?

  I started my de-cluttering with the tree. It came down on the 6th which was sad. It was a bitterly cold day which made it even sadder. Incidentally why does the tree have to come down at all? Why can’t it stay up until at least Valentine’s Day? Or until the evenings get brighter?

  Once the tree was off my premises, I decided to do what the bubbly de-cluttering guru on the telly had advised. She said you had to be strict and throw out anything that you hadn’t worn in over a year. She said not to let emotions get in the way. So I got three large plastic sacks. I was to divide my stuff into three categories: ‘rubbish’, ‘charity’ and ‘maybe later’. The ‘maybe later’ bag filled up quickly. Alarmingly so.

  My friend popped around to give me support. ‘Learn to let go,’ she advised sternly. Now, this friend is the type of lady who opens her birthday cards, glances at the signatures and puts them straight in the bin. Being entertained in her house is an interesting experience. As soon as you raise your glass, she’s out with a cloth wiping the surface of the table in front in case you dropped a bit. She is the anti-clutter queen. Childless, naturally. ‘If in doubt throw it out,’ she continued, holding up a lovely Moschino shirt. ‘Now when did you last wear this?’

  ‘It’s been a while,’ I admitted. ‘But I do like that. I’m not giving it away.’

  ‘Be truthful. When did you wear it last?’

  I was honest. I said I hadn’t worn it for fifteen years but that I was reluctant to discard it as it held so many fond memories for me.

  She threw it in the charity bag claiming that a shirt should not hold any sentimentality whatsoever. A photo? Maybe. A piece of jewellery? Perhaps. But a shirt? Never.

  I was still lamenting the shirt’s loss when she picked up a faded hand-written letter. ‘You don’t need this, do you?’

  ‘Well, it means a lot. It was my first ever love letter. It makes me smile sometimes.’

  ‘It shouldn’t.’ My friend ruthlessly scrunched it up and put it in the sack called ‘rubbish’. ‘You don’t need to keep letters from somebody who has a wife and five kids. I doubt he ever remembers you. How about these hideous things?’

  ‘You’re not getting rid of those,’ I said snatching back the gold hot pants.

  ‘Nonsense. You’ll never wear them again. They’re XS.’

  ‘Yeah but one day I can show them to Gary and tell him how his mummy was once able to fit into them.’

  ‘Right okay,’ my friend relented. ‘Just make sure he’s not in company when you do that. You don’t want to be him embarrassing him now, do you?’

  ANOTHER AU-PAIR BITES THE DUST

  Good-byes are always difficult. But saying good-bye to an au-pair is particularly hard. Our Dutch girl leaves today to go back to Holland. She has been with us since the summer and we adore her. When I say to baby Gary, ‘give Mummy a kiss,’ he kisses me first and then Mathilda. She brings him to the park every day, buys him treats and makes him laugh. I’m going to miss her.

  We’ve had two au-pairs now and both girls have been wonderful. I hope we’re third time lucky when we go looking for somebody new. A lady asked me recently how I get my girls to stay so long and I told her it’s because I treat them very well. When you’ve been an au-pair like I was, you know that if you treat somebody well, then they want to stay. I know what it’s like to be young and to be living away from home. I know what it’s like to be lonely and missing your family. My au-pairs are part of the family. If they’re happy then they will be happy around my son. I can’t abide families who treat foreign girls badly and think they’re getting cheap labour. I never give my girls housework to do. How can somebody possibly look after your children properly if they’re cleaning the house too? No wonder some people find it very difficult to keep an au-pair. Expecting an au-pair to be working around the clock for you is downright abusive.

  Today is a sad day. Saying good-bye to an au-pair isn’t like saying good-bye to an employee. This is somebody who has lived in your house, ate with you, watched romantic comedies with you over take-aways, hugged your baby and comforted him after he’s fallen and hurt his knee. Saying good-bye to somebody like that is almost like ending a relationship. It’s for forever. She won’t be coming back. I will definitely shed a quiet tear.

  A weekly wage for an au-pair is approximately one hundred euros a week plus meals. So she is hardly with you to earn her fortune. Most au-pairs come to this country to learn English so that one day it will help them get a good job back in their own country. As Gary isn’t even two yet and doesn’t make any sense with his gibberish, I knew my au-pair wouldn’t learn a thing from him. So I made sure to sit down a couple of nights a week with her to read from a book. I corrected her pronunciation and explained the meaning of words. I was a language teacher in a previous life so I have great patience with people. Buy even if you aren’t a language teacher, if you’re a mummy, this is a nice thing to do for your au-pair and it will be greatly appreciated.

  As readers of this column will know, I was an au-pair in several homes myself as a teen. Some were happy experiences and some were not. I only stayed with one particular family for a week. I didn’t really have a good feeling about them from the start. The mother was slightly hysterical and the father made inappropriate comments about my legs and other parts of my body. But it was when he decided to produce some heavy duty carpet cleaning equipment for me one day that I decided to pack my bags and flee. Sure he would have had me polishing his car, and mowing the lawn while he was at it!

  If you want a cleaner, pay for one. Cleaners charge ten to twelve euro an hour so they don’t come cheap. But whatever you do, don’t expect an au-pair to clean all day and be a happy camper. If you want a happy relationship with your children’s minder, be kind to her. Treat her the way you would like to be treated yourself. What you put into the relationship you will get out of it. A bit like all relationships really.

  CHRISTMAS AGAIN

  Is it just me or does Christmas feel like it’s being cancelled this year? Nobody has any money, and the few people with a few bob left in their pockets are afraid to spend it. Christmas parties are being called off because of the snow, drivers are being advised not to venture out because of the ice, and we are all being encouraged to stay indoors. So we stay indoors and turn on the radio or the TV which tells us that we are broke and will be broke for the rest of our lives. The hangover from hell seems to have no cure.

  I had planned a mini break away to Scotland. That was cancelled. The turkey tournament in my tennis club has also been cancelled. All Christmas parties seem to have been cancelled. The only thing that doesn’t look like it will be cancelled is the impending budget.

  I’ve been very organised this year. The artificial tree is up and decorated and the cake is made. All my presents have been bought and wrapped. But now I’m twiddling my thumbs. I’ve never had this much time on my hands. I mean I could start writing out my Christmas cards but even that isn’t
as much fun as it used to be. Last year I sent about fifty cards and all I got back was about twenty cards and a load of emails and text messages in return. Now, listen here, cheapskates, I am not remotely grateful for your group Christmas email! Get out and buy a stamp, will you. Surely my friendship is worth a fifty-five cent stamp?

  There’s a terrible pressure coming up to Christmas to be cheerful and lively and look like you’re having a great time. But the reality is that it’s quite stressful. People worry about where they’re going to have their Christmas dinner and they fret about other people being happy.

  A couple of years ago I went to the Canaries. Yes, I decided to skip Christmas altogether. The only problem was that the rest of the people staying in my hotel were distinctly non-fun people who had also decided to skip Christmas, and the atmosphere around the pool on Christmas morning was gloomy to stay the least. I said I would never do it again. I said this year I would have a ball. So why do I feel that my plans are crumbling all around me?

  The other night I had problems sleeping. I sat in my sitting room by the fire looking at the Christmas tree and all the presents sitting underneath it and I wondered why I wasn’t deliriously happy. Then I decided it was cabin fever. There is only so much anyone can take of not exercising outdoors. So, at 3.00am I took a walk outside with my camera. I live beside the Stillorgan dual carriageway and decided to walk along the motorway which was covered in snow and quite magical without a single car on it. I felt like I was the only person in the world and completely at peace. The air was fresh and the place was eerily still. I climbed up onto the pedestrian bridge and looked up at the RTE mast which resembled the Eiffel tower, all lit up against the falling snow. I took out my mobile phone to take a picture. Then I took some more pictures. I was lost in the winter wonderland of it all. Then I heard a car screech to a halt beneath the bridge. And I jumped. A young cop jumped out of the squad car. ‘Are you alright there, Miss?’ I have to say it was a bit mortifying. I mean I know I was on top of a bridge. And I was all by myself at 3.00 am. And Christmas has more or less been cancelled this year. Even so, I wasn’t thinking of jumping. Honestly, it’s never that bad!

  UNWANTED ADVICE

  Is there anything more annoying than getting unwanted advice? If I don’t ask for it I don’t want it thanks very much. If I were to have done everything everybody in life had advised me to God knows where I’d be now. I remember my career advisor in school telling me I should be a secretary because I was a very fast typist. I did a secretarial course and got a temping job which lasted all of four weeks. Yes, I was very fast at typing but not so good at running errands. My then boss once asked me to get him a sandwich and actually wrote ‘ham and cheese’ on a scrap of paper for me in case I forgot the order. I quit that afternoon.

  People are always ready to give advice. It costs them nothing and makes them feel superior. Married girlfriends are quick to give advice on matters of the heart. Because they have one man already in the bag it somehow qualifies them to let other women know where they are going wrong. It’s patronising to say the least.

  Grannies know everything about raising children because, sure, they did such a wonderful job raising you and they know how it’s done. But you don’t have to take advice just because it’s offered to you. First-time mothers are besieged with advice from everybody to in-laws to friends to complete strangers. Everyone who has a kid seems to know better than you. The public health nurses are the worst. They have a list of things you should and shouldn’t be doing. It all started out with the breastfeeding. They wanted to know why you weren’t doing it considering ninety-nine per cent of woman in Norway do it. I’ll never forget the drama of the first week of Gary ’s life when they were calling all the time and phoning when all I wanted to do was sleep.

  When the public health nurse came to give him his one year assessment, she was shocked to see him in a baby walker. ‘Where did you get that?’ she shrieked. ‘I didn’t think they even sold them anymore.’

  What nonsense! I bought it in Smyths and the baby loved him. The nurse told me he might start walking like a ballerina on his tip toes. Well, he’s fine Miss Public Nursey, thank you very much. He’s walking just how a toddler should walk.

  Then another public health nurse called when Gary was eighteen months old. ‘Is he not talking?’ she asked.

  ‘Well he says a few words like ‘car’, ‘bye’, and ‘cheese’.’

  As public health nurses seem to have an answer for everything, she informed me that one of the reasons why my baby wasn’t talking was because he had a soother in his mouth all the time. ‘He shouldn’t have a soother in his mouth at this stage,’ she advised. Hmm. It’s alright for her but she doesn’t have to listen to my son cry at night for his soother. The soother stays no matter what.

  The other night at tennis I asked one of the other mothers about her dealings with the public health nurses.

  ‘Oh gosh,’ she laughed. ‘This is funny. I don’t know if I should even tell you about the time the public health nurse came to do the thirty-six month check up with my son.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well I had been delaying the appointment for ages so he was nearly four when the nurse came along. She did a little test on him. She pointed to her nose and said “what’s this”?’ He answered “nose”. Then she proceeded to point to other body parts such as eyes and ears. When she had finished he turned around and pointed to his behind and said “what’s this?”.’

  I couldn’t wait to hear what happened next.

  ‘He said “that’s my ass, why don’t you kiss it?’

  I know I shouldn’t have, but I laughed out loud. Well said, little man. Well said, indeed!

  BIATCH!

  Irish girls can be extraordinarily bitchy. Luckily most Irish blokes find this out at an early age. Probably around the same age that sees them at Irish college for the first time, asking a pretty girl to dance, and then her sister, and then her friend. When they all say no one after another and he does the long lonely walk of shame back to his pals, it probably hits him that not every female in life is going to think he’s quite as great as his mother does. But he may as well be prepared. Because if he’s not, life will teach him that Irish women are far too fussy and self-entitled to be wasting their time flattering him.

  There is only one Brad Pitt in the world, and he’s already spoken for. End of. Now we have to make do with the rest of the men out there. The only problem is that our list of requirements is so long that most mere mortals won’t even tick a third of the boxes. My friends are firmly divided into two groups: those who always have partners and those who don’t. The friends who don’t cannot understand what’s going wrong. They sit in every weekend moaning that there are no men out there. But there are plenty. They are out there, talking to the women who have gone to the trouble of dressing up, braving the cold going into town, and making the effort to chat to them. Men often tend to end up talking to whoever is standing next to them so bars are a very good idea if you’re on the prowl. But if you’re sitting in watching X-Factor wearing an old tracksuit and your hair in a greasy bun, then your chances of meeting anyone are nil. Anyway you don’t deserve to meet somebody great if you’re a lazy slob yourself.

  It makes me laugh when I hear women saying they want to meet someone rich, gorgeous, fit, funny, successful and generous when they are none of those things themselves. People usually like somebody who is like them. Therefore Angelina Jolie is a good match for Brad Pitt. It’s rare to see couples who are unevenly matched, and when we do we are mildly outraged. We automatically presume that an ugly man dating a stunning woman must be rich. Deep down we don’t really believe it’s because he has a good sense of humour.

  Maybe it’s because I’ve travelled extensively, but it never fails to astound me just how nasty Irish women can be to men who take a vague interest in them. I have now joined the ranks of Irish mammies who think the world of our boys, and God help any woman who sets their sights on my Gary one day.
Already I’m dreading his first disco when some little bitch will look him up and down and say ‘no thanks’ as her friends titter in delight. It pains me to know I won’t be there to tell him ‘you’re too good for her anyway’. Have you seen that dreadful TV3 show ‘Take Me Out’ where thirty women decide every week whether they want to date one helpless chat? The insults come hard and fast. ‘I don’t like gingers,’ said one girl cockily.

  Insulting men seems to be a national sport among some Irish women. ‘State of him’ is what you would hear on most nights out among girls who are presumably on the pull. On ‘Take Me Out’ men are openly dismissed for not dressing well, being bald, and too old. It’s mortifying car crash television but it reflects real life. There are so many self-righteous girls out there unable to comprehend why they are still single. They are baffled as to why they are not swept off their feet by some dashing, wealthy young hunk. Come on, girls, get real!

  CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY

  The Christmas tree is up. Yes, it went up at the weekend. I simply ignored the neighbours’ startled glances as they spotted me up a step ladder sticking the silver fairy at the top. Hello? Is there a rule against celebrating Christmas early? I think they’re just jealous because their front window now looks drab and bare in comparison.