LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER
Monica Yell
Brighton Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College
The children were not happy about Mum’s new job, so they did what any good, fun-loving children would do, and called a meeting.
They congregated seriously on the carpet like a little flock of birds–parliament of owls, as they say–and commenced proceedings.
First on the agenda: brainstorming the reasons why they didn’t like Mum’s new job:
- Mums shouldn’t have to wear sillier uniforms than their children wear to school, especially not with shoulder pads, which make others feel like they’re hugging a mattress instead of a Mum.
- Dads shouldn’t go part-time and make everyone terrible pancakes on Wednesdays which they have to coo praise over to humour him.
(It should be noted that the youngest, Erin, had been dragged away from her doll’s house to attend, and rebelled against that outrage by including suggestions which no one agreed with, and had to be scratched from the record as a result. Or at least wiped from the chalkboard anyway. For instance: - Mums should not force their children to call meetings which interrupt a new baby arriving in the doll’s house.)
Next up: how should the reasons be presented to the parents?
Multiple options were discussed and rejected. After all, it’s all very well proposing a PowerPoint except none of them were very good at ICT. And baking a cake with ‘Happy New-Job-Quitting’ written in icing might backfire when they asked Mum to help them make it.
It was at this point Erin had a brainwave.
‘How about we just talk to Mum and Dad?’
There were concerns that such an unaggressive strategy would make the case vulnerable to ‘compromise’. Erin, however, argued its merits excellently. Honesty and maturity increase credibility, she reasoned, and big words are always convincing.
Having reached a solution, the meeting was disbanded, but Erin lingered on alone, surprisingly disheartened by the dissolution. Much as she loved playing with the doll’s house, meetings were pretty exciting too.
Maybe Mum got to attend meetings now.
In fact, Erin was tempted to call another meeting in support of Mum’s new job, because maybe she found meetings more interesting too.