‘Did you get my email about the school fair? And if you’ve got time to make a cake too, that would be brilliant,’ the PTA mum trills at me while she hands out leaflets about the next fundraising event.
‘And don’t forget about the special assembly on Friday!’
I smile through gritted teeth and mutter something along the lines of ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ as I climb back into the car.
With back-to-back work deadlines, three children at three different schools and an often absent husband, I haven’t got time to make a freaking cake – and, I have a meeting on Friday so I know I won’t be able to attend the assembly.
Resting my hands on the steering wheel and sighing loudly, I feel that familiar pull of mum guilt (you never hear anything about ‘dad guilt’, do you?) and annoyance that I so often end up feeling in these sorts of situations.
That’s why, after 12 years of having kids at primary school, I certainly won’t be shedding any tears when my third and final baby finishes Year Six this month.
It’s the end of an era but after over a decade of standing around at the school gates making painful small talk, helping out at school fairs and being as involved as I can politely be while having a precarious freelance career, I’m so ready for it.
Of course, before my daughter’s last day, there’s a leaver’s assembly, sports day, a drama showcase, Break the Rules Day and thank-the-teacher gifts to fit in.
They tell you not to wish your children’s early years away but I’ve found secondary school to be so much more civilised.
My older kids – 13 and 16 – are expected to do their own homework and oversee their own schedules while the parents take a back seat. This frees up my time to focus on other things, like work and, you know, having a life.
I get emails from my older two boys’ secondaries about upcoming school trips and so on, but nothing like the number of emails I get from my daughter’s primary school.
In the last week alone I’ve had multiple messages about upcoming events, mobile phones, school reports and end of term activities. I’m expected to respond to every single one and I can’t keep up.
I sometimes feel as though I need a PA to help me remember everything.
And then there’s the parents. The ones at my daughter’s current school, which we moved her to a few years ago, are mostly lovely but I’ve been stung in the past.
There were a few at our previous school, whom I silently nicknamed the ‘school gate mafia’.
Most of them didn’t work and channelled all their time and energy into their little darlings. God knows what they had to chat about day after day but they spent their time going for coffee, arranging fundraisers and sending reminders to hopeless mothers like me to remind them what homework we had to do that week.
I remember one awful incident when my middle son, Eddie, was still at primary school.
He was diagnosed with autism, sensory processing disorder and pathological demand avoidance (which basically means it’s really hard to get him to do something he doesn’t want to do) in 2019 and put on a reduced timetable at his mainstream primary because they couldn’t meet his needs.
After a long battle with the local authority, we eventually got him moved to a specialist secondary school in 2023.
But before his move, he was having regular meltdowns and had become so anxious about going to school, his language and behaviour deteriorated.
Being called ‘brain damaged’ and ‘an autistic idiot’ by his peers didn’t help, but then one of the other mothers in his class complained that she didn’t want her son being taught with mine.
Eddie didn’t understand this and still wanted to invite this boy over for playdates. I spent the rest of the term trying to avoid her.
In contrast, I barely even interact with any parents at my sons’ secondary schools. It’s left up to them to organise hanging out with friends without any parental interference.
I’ve spent the last five years taking my oldest son to the school bus stop but I don’t even have to get out of the car – I can do it in flipflops and no make-up.
He has just finished his GCSEs and other than a very helpful WhatsApp group of mums sending past exam papers and volunteering to arrange lifts and the limo for the upcoming school prom, I have blissfully minimal engagement.
My middle one gets a taxi with another boy to his school so I wave him off at the door.
Having said all this, I have bonded with a couple of mums from my daughter’s school and hope our friendships will continue. One has two older boys like me and works full-time and she just seems to ‘get it.’
And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t shed a few tears when I saw the end of term video of all the children in my daughter’s class looking back at their time at the school.
Maybe I will miss it one day when I’m old and grey. Seeing my daughter’s face light up when she spots me in the crowd during school assemblies is always a magical moment.
But right now, I am relishing the prospect of having a bit of my life back at long last. And not having to worry about making cakes or what else I might have forgotten this week.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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