The One Where I'm a Mum

I think we've all got our own views on school uniform. When I was at primary/junior school I didn't have to wear a uniform at all. As I was there during the 70s, unfortunately this meant purple trousers, pink tops, hand me downs from neighbours, tank tops and hand knitted jumpers and cardigans courtesy of my mum. If it hadn't been for the late years consisting of gypsy tops and skirts I'd have begged for a school uniform. Just so I didn't look like a complete twit who was always slightly out of step with what the other girls wore, and sometimes adrift by five years or more.

Which is a lot when you're only eight.

When I went to comprehensive school there was a compulsory school uniform which, during my first year, consisted of a dark brown skirt, gold blouse, dark brown v-necked jumper, brown and gold striped tie and a dark brown blazer.

I looked not unlike a Werthers Original.

I've had my colours analysed subsequently - I'm a Winter. Do you know what colours are good for a Winter? Red - crimson and scarlet. Purple. Dark green - emerald and jade. Do you know what colours are bad for a Winter? My entire school uniform.

Still I knew my son wouldn't have this problem when he went to senior school last year. Firstly he doesn't have my colouring, and secondly because his uniform was a very simple black, white and grey. How can anyone possibly go wrong with that I thought? And it seems as though I was partly right - he doesn't have any trouble at all. When I see his friends they all seem to look reasonably OK. Well as OK as boys look - a bit rumpled, with a bit of mud on them, slightly untucked and with the tie all askew or hanging out of their pockets. Fairly standard.

So what is it with girls and school uniforms? When I read in the paper this week about all the kerfuffle at a school in Bristol I was shocked. Apparently this school has found it necessary to ban a certain make of trousers as they're too revealing, too distracting and too figure-hugging. Also the school have found it appropriate to comment that they don't suit all body shapes.

Well no sh*t Sherlock.

I've had a look at these trousers, and I can sort of see what they mean. They're incredibly nice to look at and I can see how girls of a certain age will be all over them. They'll be able to look really fashionable, they'll feel cool and they won't feel like they're wearing a uniform at all which is I suppose the ultimate aim. But the school has decided that these trousers are banned and are giving the children spare trousers when they arrive in them.

Beg pardon?

In my day, if you rocked up to school in trainers instead of shoes, you were sent home and no messing. Nobody stood at the school doors with spare pairs of shoes to hand out. How on earth can they possibly manage to do this? Do they buy the trousers in 8 different sizes? 3 different lengths? 20 pairs in each of those categories? Because unless they do, I can't see how they're improving on what they had before and the whole issue starts to take on the air of the forgotten PE kit debacle when you have mismatched socks, shorts that don't fit you, and a dirty boy's top.

So I really can't get my head round this at all. I've always thought a school uniform would level the playing field, that you ruled out the mickey taking of blouses that looked like they were made out of sofa covers. Instead it just seems to create a whole new load of problems - or is that only for girls?

So where do you stand on school uniform? Prefer the standard issue, or long for the striped trousers and flowery top freedom?

The One Where I'm a Mum

I can understand why you're wondering, really I can. You find me linked up to the British Mummy Bloggers website (yes I know, I keep forgetting to get the badge - I'll get the badge) and you come along here expecting my words of wisdom or alternatively some carnage of a family that makes you feel better about your own, and what do you get? Some grumpy old woman moaning on about all sorts, and barely some mention of a child who's probably imaginary.

Well you're going to have to trust me, he's not imaginary, he's here, he's 12 and he's the reason I'm an expert on Wizards of Waverley Place and anything relating to a Wii. It's a long time since he was a gorgeous little baby, so I can't help you with recent tales of nappy changing, pureed vegetables or In The Night Garden. If however you want to discuss boys who are nearly as tall as you, with bigger feet than you and a pained, long suffering look every time you sing, then you're in the right place.

He also gives me ample blog fodder, because I get to share my views with you on a whole range of stuff that would be unknown to me but for his existence. Take text speak for instance. I've got a mobile phone, I'm not a dinosaur, but it's not one of those fandangly ones where you can update your Facebook, tweet and get an app to cut your toenails. When I first had a mobile phone, as far as I was concerned, it was like writing a very short note to a friend, but with a phone. How great is that? There were no funny abbreviations, no words with numbers in them, no smiley little icons bouncing up and down. And by and large, very little has changed.

Mainly because, even though I use it a tiny little bit, (much to my shame,) I can't stand text speak.

As far as I'm concerned we have a very well functioning language, it has more words than we need, many more we barely use, and even more we can't spell. So why did we need to start inventing words like "gr8", "lol" "rofl" and "eva"? When my son sends me a text message I virtually need some sort of Urban Dictionary on standby to understand what he means, and how the hell am I meant to know if he can spell properly if he uses his own words? You see, as far as I'm concerned that's the whole problem. How are you meant to be able to tell if your children are learning the basics at school if they don't even use them when they're on their own time? And it's no use assuring me that of course he knows the proper words, because I've seen grown ups who think it's perfectly fine to write a business e-mail like they're putting on a Facebook status update. I understand that our language has evolved massively since Shakespeare invented a whole batch of new words, and we hardly walk round the streets muttering zounds and forsooth (although to be fair we do use gloomy and laughable, according to our mood).

But that isn't the point, you see. I told you I want my son to be clever and if his sentences look like a long line of Wingdings and equations, then I don't see how this is going to work.

So what do you think? Luv it or h8 it?

Academic Schmacademic

I've always believed you should try your hardest at school, work for your exams, go to college, work hard again, go to university and be as academic as you possibly can be. (I'm a bit more "do as I say, not as I do" than I care to face up to, but no matter). Of course, I want my son to be happy, well rounded and popular, but it would really please me no end if he was clever as well. I know that by the time he gets to university age, it will be compulsory for him to be in full time education until he's 43, and it will cost me £65,000 per year for the privilege but needs must when the competitive mummy drives.

Similarly, I've held a disregard for what I consider to be "soft" subjects at universities, not quite proper subjects - English, yes, History, yes, The Beatles, no, and a similar no to anything relating to Coronation Street. I see more and more schools offering vocational subjects, media studies and apprenticeships and I applaud them, I really do, but also part of me thinks "where are the proper subjects?" Why don't children have to remember things any more? Why don't they have to learn stuff by rote? Why don't they just do exams? Why don't they write on slates any more? (I jest, but not too much.)

And yet this week my entire belief system was turned on its head. When I couldn't turn the tap off, when I couldn't turn the water off, when I fetched one neighbour after another, when a neigbour turned the water off, when the same neighbour tried to fit a new tap, when the same neighbour smashed my wash basin in half, and when I viewed the wreckage of what had previously been a well functioning downstairs toilet, I caught myself thinking "I hope my son grows up to be a plumber".

Of course, he'll have done a degree first, and he'll be incredibly clever. And when he can explain to you why he's just smashed your wash basin very politely and possibly in 3 different languages while he gives you a brief history of plumbing through the ages, you'll know I was right all along.