That day when I forgot I’d invited Mary Poppins over for coffee.
Yesterday morning, I was feeling pretty stressed out.
The house was a mess, there was juice all over the 5-year old’s homework, and by 8.30 there had already been a few tantrums. To put the icing on the cake, I’d totally forgotten that I’d invited Mary Poppins over for coffee after the school run.
I rushed the kids to school, rushed back, and I was just plugging the hoover in when I heard the wind change. Resigned to the fact that Mary was going to see me in all my failing-parenting glory, I opened the door in time to see her flying in on a north-north westerly.
She landed in her usual chipper fashion. I looked at her from behind my margarine smeared glasses. Her peachy complexion and sparkly eyes served only to heighten my general feeling of down-and-dowdiness.
I sighed and popped the kettle on. Mary, after finding a chair not covered in porridge, sat down and looked at me in a pointed way. Without her saying a word, I could tell she knew something was wrong, so I advised her that with her having no children of her own, living on a cloud, and being a made-up fictional character, she couldn’t possibly understand.
“Try me.”, said Mary.
It took me a couple of seconds to decide that even Perfect Poppins couldn’t make me feel much worse, so what the hell. With that, I regaled to Mary my woes that no matter how hard I tried, I never felt I was doing anything well enough. I could always do better and, given that my kids deserve the best, that left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“Go on then”, challenged Mary, “what does this practically perfect parent look like?”
Some images of the perfect parent floated around my mind. These women (and they did always seem to be women) tended to be dressed in Boden, while picnicking in the sunshine on home-cooked goodies.
I reeled off what I felt the perfect parent probably does: has an enjoyable birth; has kids once they are old enough to be financially independent; looks young enough to have had the kids when they were 15; enjoys crafts, baking and growing their own; lives in a house that looks like no craft materials, baking ingredients or gardening implements ever cross the threshold; and never ever feeds the children anything containing refined sugar.
“Not even a spoonful?”
“Don’t even go there,” I said.
“Where are the kids in all of this perfection?”, Mary inquired.
“I am not sure. But I am pretty confident that they are not covered in jam, sat on the sofa, watching Toy Story for the 500th time.”
Mary pulled a bit of paper out of her pocket. It looked to have been torn up, thrown on the fire, and then carefully stuck together again. It had been written on, and the writing was clearly that of a child.
“This”, said Mary, “Is what kids want”.
I stared at her, incredulously.
“I know, I know”, she said, ” ‘never be cross’, ‘don’t have warts’. But keep in mind they are talking about the paid staff. The rest of it, though, pretty good, eh?”
“Mary, being cross and having warts are the least of my worries. Seriously, my having rosy cheeks and playing games might be good enough in the fantasy land you seem to constantly inhabit, but it wouldn’t even get the kids through their phonics screening in my version of reality. I am afraid we have to give them more than that. We have to give them the best. Of everything. Including of ourselves.”
“Bolleaux!” she said, and with that came a rather tenuous twist to this rather unexpected blog post – she drew an Ancient Greek temple on our Ikea blackboard, grabbed my hand and in we jumped.
“God Mary, I hate it when you do this.”, I said, picking bits of chalk out of my hair. But before I could get properly grumpy, a man in a toga, who looked suspiciously like a young Dick Van Dyke in a stick on beard, came over.
“Alwight Mary”, he said, in a gloriously appalling Mockney accent, “who is your mate?”
“This is Abby”, said Mary, “And Abby, this is Aristotle.”
“Of course it is.”, I said, no longer phased by these quite frankly incredulous jaunts.
Mary retold the story I have told here to Aristotle. Once she had finished, Aristotle stroked his beard, frowned, and then shouted, excitedly.
“Eudaimonia!”
“Bless you!”, said Mary.
“No, you muppet.”, Aristotle explained, “I said ‘Eudaimonia'”. It roughly translates to mean ‘human flourishing’. If you don’t mind my saying so, Abby, if you carry on as you have been, then flourishing your children certainly won’t be: Stressed out, working in a bank at all hours – yes. Feeding the birds – not so much.”
He had a point.
“And as for all this, ‘being the best’, you can be too good, you know.”
“Try telling that to Ofsted.”, I said. “Or my ex-boss.”
Aristotle looked bemused, “Regardless of that, don’t you think this so called perfect parent might be a bit frightening, what with the constant perfection and all that?”
“Well yes”, I conceded, “It could perhaps be rather hard to flourish, happily in that environment I suppose.”
“There you go, your image is actually too good, too perfect, and therefore, in what I have termed my ‘golden mean’ view of the virtuous life, so good she is actually not perfect at all. Try and find a middle ground. Even Mary lets her hair down, slides down the banisters and dances on the rooftops now and again.”
“Up the banisters Aristotle”, said Mary, “And I never let my hair down. But regardless, yes, agreed.”
There was then a contemplative pause.
“Hmmmm. Human flourishing…..”, I mused.
“Hmmmm. Eudaimonia…….”, pondered Aristotle.
“Hmmmm. Supercalerfragilisticexpialidocious……”, murmured Mary.
“Whatever you call, it, you get the gist.”, said Aristotle.
“Yes”, agreed Mary, “just stop trying so hard, Abby, and you could find that you are practically imperfect in every way, and it is that, in fact, that paradoxically makes you pretty marvelous when it comes to parenting.”
It started to rain, which was a surprise, it being Greece and all that, and we found ourselves back at my place.
I looked around and instead of seeing a mess, I chose to see a lived in home, instead of seeing a pile of dirty nappies waiting for the bin, I chose to see a house blessed with lovely children, instead of seeing phonics homework, I chose to accidentally not see it at all and I chucked it in the bin.
“Now”, said Mary, “do you feel a bit better?”
“You know what Mary, I think I do. Thanks for that.”
With that, the winds changed once more, she picked up her brolly and off she flew.
Later that afternoon, when the kids were running around screaming and shouting just being kids, I called my husband.
“Husband”, I said, “why not come home from work on time today. And on your way back, could you pick up some birdseed?
“Why is that?”, said he.
“Eudaimonia” I replied.
“Eudai-whatia?” He inquired, perplexed.
“Bless you.” came my response. Then I hung up, sat down and wrote the most random blog post of my life, while the kids played around me, happy in the company of their imperfect mother.
Cogito Ergo Mum 
An utterly brilliant post! Love it!
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Thank you very much indeed Sonya. Glad you liked it, and thank you for sharing it around the twittersphere.
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Absolutely brilliant. Love it.
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Thank you. Oh, and ‘Mothering Frights’ – brilliant name!
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This is a fantastic post Abby – I hope to see this flagged up by Mumsnet, TOTS and the other platforms as an example of a life-enhancing post. It left me a bit weepy xx
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Did you put a good word in for me with Mumsnet HQ?!?!?
Thank you for your very lovely comment. Although hope I didn’t make you feel too weepy. If you are still feeling a little melancholy, may I recommend popping off to fly a kite?
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Genius, and so true, there’s nothing worse than pretending to be the perfect parent.
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Amen to that. Thank you for commenting.
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A post of shimmering brilliance, so glad I’m not the only that knows the script of toy story backwards and has imaginary conversations with (in my case) supernanny and Wittgenstein, not even joking although admittedly not at the same time or with nearly as much clarity.
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Thank you so much. I have often thought about doing a post on the philosophical learnings within Toy Story – I have watched them so many times, I can now read almost anything into them.
Must gem up on my Wittgenstein. Him and super nanny – now that would be a conversation worth listening in to!
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This is the best parenting advice I have ever read.
‘Ευδαιμονία’, thanks, Ari & Mary, good demons of parenting 😉
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That is very kind of you to say so (and impressive of you to write!!).
Perhaps we should get Ari and Mary their own TV show?
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Brilliant post, Abby! I think any parent could relate (I certainly can!). Well done for being featured on Mumsnet again, you deserve it! x Mel
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Thanks so much Mel. It was fun to write but as it was not my usual style, I was not sure how it would go down. Really pleased it has had some lovely comments, yours included.
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Thank you for writing more sense than I often think. Back to feeling rough lying around on the sofa, watching q pootle and my children telling me ‘don’t worry mummy we’ll look after you’ with less guilt and more joy.
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I often find it a lot easier to write sense that to think it while I am going about the normal day to day ‘stuff’.
Your kids sound like sweet hearts.
Thanks for commenting.
PS I love a bit of q pootle 😉
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This is quite amazing! 🙂
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Thank you. Thanks for popping by, and for your great advice over at the community pool. Looking forward to having a nosey at your blog.
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Thanks!! Same here!
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You clever thing! Love it. But Darn, now you’ve made us late for swimming lessons! I like how you’re taking all us all down with you! 😉
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That’s my plan – glad people are falling for it 😉 . Happy swimming!
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*Cheers.* Thank goodness for some common sense. Now I just have to take your advice and I’ll be fine! (Love that you chucked the homework in the bin, by the way) 😉
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And cheers to you too. I need to take my own advice more often. But every now and then, a bit of homework finding itself in the bin should cause us no anguish 🙂
Thank you for commenting.
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Well, I’ve graduated from that phase of parenting, but my recollection is that it was pretty much a mess. A happy, interesting, funny, and always engaging mess, from which both children emerged not only alive, but happy and productive. I think you and Mary and Ari might be onto something here….
~K.
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Now that is good to hear – thank you. And thank you for the excellent advice you have just given me on your most excellent of blogs.
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Ha brilliant love it! Although (don’t judge me), I’m writing this while wearing a Boden dress – they are one of only 4 places that do them long enough for me, can I just say that that makes me a perfect parent and slack off on the rest?
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You sound perfectly perfect to me. And I bet you look gorgeous, too. Hurrah for Boden!
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I went to school in Ardrishaig (accent on the second syllable) to which the only response is “bless you”.
I remember my sister on Christmas day tidying all the toys away so that the living room had no sign of them, and her husband saying this was silly when they would all come out again tomorrow. It was nice, sipping wine then. You get perfection occasionally.
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You do get perfection occasionally. I think sometimes I need to take a step out of my own head to appreciate it more.
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Life is a lot easier when we focus on what we have than on the apparent perfection of others. My house growing up was always ‘lived in’, with piles of laundry and dishes… actually, I think it looks like that right now, but I think my siblings and I’ve turned out reasonably okay.
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That was fantastic! Your children must have the most vivid imaginations if that is what you can create. The ‘perfect vaginal delivery’ made me laugh so hard. Love it 😉
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Glad it made you giggle Olivia. I really enjoyed writing this post. I’ll be totally honest, I don’t have anything better than that in me so I may just quit while I am ahead 😉
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