Mothers, Undone. Part I.

Have you got a little one starting big school? Gosh, I’ve had this ache this last week, my first born starts big school tomorrow. It’s an emotion I wasn’t quite prepared for but I know it will come with balling tears (I hope mine not hers).

I stood at the school gates, looking more put together than I have all summer (ironically), dropping my first-born off in her bowler hat and oversized backpack, it was about as back-to-school as it gets. All the feels. We’ve been talking about this all week in the nursery group What’s App chat, which uniform?? Summer? Oh the shoes, and what do they pack in this enormous back pack? Pick up is at.. huh? 2.55pm??? Which brings me to the next one, an all too familiar discussion, the internet losing its mind over Oreogate — a saga so perfectly, painfully familiar that half of London’s mums groaned in recognition.

So, allow me to share (cathartically) our weekly “Mothers, Undone” for the practical and the emotional.  What led to this? Sending your first-born into “big school” is a masterclass in contradiction. You are, simultaneously, so ready for this, for the routine, the independence, the little shoes that they can (mostly) do up themselves, and yet be completely undone by it. I enjoyed a cup of hot tea this morning as I saw my 3 littles contentedly playing amongst themselves (of course the first time it was so peaceful at the end of the summer holidays), and read the previously unnoticed coffee cup comment, ‘the days are slow but the years are fast’. How opportune for me to finally read this on September 2nd, before the return to school.

 So here goes another WhatsApp to join (cautiously), the class rep to avoid becoming, the first cake sale rota, the reading log you will, at some point, definitely forget to sign. There’s the joy of it too, and it is joy, watching them build a whole world of their own, a best friend by Wednesday, an opinion about who sits where at lunch. The playdates that will start arriving in your inbox any day now, half of them from parents you’ve never actually met, all of you sizing each other up over a shared love of your children’s tiny, chaotic social lives.

And yes, because we are still human, still women, still slightly vain even in the throes of an emotional week, there is the small, ridiculous, entirely valid question of what on earth you wear to the school gate. Not because anyone’s really looking. But because some mornings, when everything else feels out of your hands, getting dressed with a bit of intention is the one thing you can control before 9am.

So that’s what we’re doing here, every week: the practical, the emotional, the slightly vain, and the very real. What’s on with the kids, what’s on our minds, and what’s going on in the group chat. Welcome, glad you’re here. Let’s do this together.

Sheena

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