So I am a week in and things don’t seem very different so far. We are still on mornings only so it’s just like playgroup but with a uniform and a greater feeling of significance.
So whilst that ticks on I am yet again guilt riden. Guilt is the default setting of the modern woman. I don’t know anyone who isn’t feeling guilt about something most days. Did my grandmother’s generation, who were brought up to give up their careers on marriage and then spent their lives making a home for their family, feel guilt like we do. I don’t feel guilty about not working. I work hard enough making everything run smoothly. However,what they have eaten, whether they watched too much television today, whether I have done enough to encourage their friendships and other nightmares trouble me regularly. Perhaps I have too much time to think.

Anyway, todays’ guilt was focused on my eldest who started at high school last week. She came home with a written comment in her planner. Two more and she gets a detention. And her offence? Not having white socks for netball. She didn’t have white socks because I misread the uniform list. It was all my fault. Mea culpa and yet it was her planner that was blotted. I am not so naive to think that there won’t be others and we may well end up with a detention before the end of term for a whole variety of misdeameanors. But this was not her fault.
Husband was outraged. How dare they punish her on the very first netball lesson? I understand the need to come down hard on failings . We all know about starting as we mean to go on. But this was all down to me.

But what to do? Do we ignore it and chalk it up to experience? Resign ourselves to the thought that our eldest is not perfect and is bound to get some written comments. No. My sense of justice was challenged. At the risk of looking like a pushy parent, a role I have not stepped in to before, I wrote a message in the parents’ comment section taking the blame and asking for forgiveness. We shall have to see what happens next..