… would be the one in which their child catches head lice. Nits. Those little parasites that plague our playgrounds and our nurseries, tormenting us all with itchy scalps and whining children when we, their doting parents, regress evolutionarily until we resemble lowland gorillas as we search frantically through the hair of our young.
Until yesterday, it was a niggling fear that I'd allowed to be pushed into the back of my mind. Something that I've not had to deal with for 8 years – not since The Boy was a baby and his older sister came home with them. A not so nice gift of furtive scratching and woeful blue eyes turned on me as she confided that one of her friends at school had nits and kept running around placing her head by all of the other children in their class that day. Deliberately. Mm. But yesterday? It returned into my sphere of life with full vengeance.
See... The Boy knows a boy whom I not-so-fondly refer to as Demon Child.
They've known each other since they were 3, been in the same class as one another up until last year (when I asked if they could be separated due to Demon Child being a vile little hoodlum who thought it was great fun to assault not only The Boy but several other children so badly that they'd rather lock themselves in the school toilet and miss their lessons than have to deal with him), and consequently, his mother is an acquaintance of mine.Please note. I said “acquaintance”, and most definitely *not* “friend”.
Mater Demon is... I'm sure she's a lovely woman. I'm sure she has people who like spending time in her company – but I don't. She's older than I am, came late to child rearing, and falls into pretty much every cliché concerning Mums At The School Gates there possibly is. She complains endlessly about how her two sons interrupt her daily routine of gym classes, coffee mornings “with the NCT girls” (her youngest child is going to be 8 years old very soon...), shopping for new clothes that cost her an arm and a leg (although as she only ever wears skin-tight lycra and grotty trainers to the school, I can only take her word for this) and whatever else she manages to fit into her oh-so-busy schedule. But slightly more worryingly, she complains about them interrupting her oh-so-busy life *when they're actually pretty ill*.
It's *that* which I cannot stand about her.
By my reckoning, she was about the age I am now when she had her first child. She'd had years to ponder having a child and decide whether or not she truly wanted one. Whether she'd be selfless enough to put aside her own life/needs/gym schedule/coffee mornings “with the girls!” for long enough to nurture a child from birth into adulthood... Having children, you see, in my opinion, is always a choice. There are paths which we, as women, can take to prevent a child from being born – viable contraception being the first step along said path. My own opinion is that if you have a child, it's because you actually wanted to have a child. We live in the 21st century, after all. Mater Demon, therefore – and here, I confess, I am speculating in a “I have gleaned this from being blathered at by her since our youngest children were 3 years old” kind of way – had her two sons because she felt it was expected of her to do so. She had the husband, who had the career, the house in The Village which needed filling, she's allergic to cats...
Children.
Obviously the next step.
Unfortunately for Demon Child and his older brother (who is the antithesis of his younger brother and obviously the reason Demon Child came into being, because all children are like their older siblings, don't you know...), Mater Demon neglected to pay attention to the fact that you have to actually pay attention *to* your children once they're here. You have to teach them how to behave in polite society, for one thing, how to interact with other people in a successful way. You cannot lock them in their playroom where they have full access to porn on “their” computer and allow them to play Call Of Duty at the age of 4 years old, for example... both of which she has freely admitted to having done.
And yes, I did say “lock”.
She wanted to have coffee with her NCT friends.
Due to this parental neglect, Demon Child is actually on the Banned From My Home list (also on this list are two friends of The Girl's – one of whom completely trashed The Girl's bedroom, and the other of whom set about my cat with a pretend fishing rod because he'd happened to walk in front of her). Demon Child is on it for calling The Girl a name that, frankly, no woman or girl should ever be referred to as thus. When confronted about this, Mater Demon blamed his older brother. And that's probably what I find so unbelievable about her, actually. The fact that she doesn't grasp the fact that he's *her* son, therefore his behaviour, the language which he uses? *Her* responsibility. The buck? Stops with her and her frequently absent husband. Now, I grew up with parents who were in the Army. My father? Spent more time away on exercise or actually doing what he was trained to do when I was under the age of ten, than he actually did at home. My children's father was very rarely in the same country as us when they were both very small (when The Girl was three, he went travelling “to find (him)self” for two years). Thousands of other children all over the world have absent fathers and *don't behave in the same way as Demon Child does.
Is allowed to.
Because *their* mothers accept full responsibility for their offspring.
But anyway. I've digressed. On a normal day, I go out of my way to avoid Mater Demon and her sons because it's easier for my stress levels if I have nothing to do with them. Yesterday, however, whilst I was walking to The Boy's school to collect him, I was contemplating Other Things and my mind was drifting to the point where I didn't notice that she'd seen me *and was waiting for me on the main path*, until it was too late. Short of running into the road, screaming like a banshee, I'm not entirely sure how I could have avoided her at that point (although that did, actually, cross my mind). We both had to walk along the same path, in the same direction, to the same place...
I was stuck.
In one way, I'm actually glad that she did wait for me, however. In another? I wish she hadn't, because my already low opinion of her went down another twelve notches. But there was polite small talk, I listened to her blather on about how she'd spent the afternoon gardening until some random woman I've never even heard of (a random woman she *named*, as though I was *supposed* to know who she was/is!) “almost gave (her) a heart attack by popping her head over the hedge!”, she seemed not to notice that I wasn't actually saying anything, I managed to get the speed up slightly so that I wouldn't be late for The Boy, and then...
“Oh, I found more nits in (Demon Child)'s hair last night.”
Instantly, my brain was careening between “how can I extract myself without pushing her under a car?!” to “wait... she found *what in Demon Child's hair?!” And then it stuttered even more when I turned to actually look at her and found her smiling and shaking her head in a “oh, what can you do?!” way. I think I may actually have squeaked in surprise at that point, because she shrugged her shoulders, chuckled and said;
“It was such a pain – I had to try to find a comb and then he wouldn't sit still, and... urgh! It was just *awful*!”
Now at this point, I was thinking “perhaps I've been wrong about her inability to be a responsible mid-40s year old mother! Perhaps I've gotten her all wrong... she's obviously done the right thing by Demon Child and... wait. Did she say 'more nits' before...?!”
“Oh, I know,” I said, still willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and able to believe that he'd had them a few days earlier and she'd been trying to get him clear of them since... hence her 'more nits' statement, “It's *unbelievably* time consuming getting rid of them – all that washing of bed linen, and soft furnishings they've had their heads near, not to mention having to treat every single member of the family...”
But rather than nod her head and agree with me, acknowledge perhaps that it's part of being a responsible parent, she just looked at me incredulously, and right at that moment, I felt my heart sink and my stomach lurch with dread because I just knew... just knew... I was going to be informed of something I didn't want to hear. At all. Because it would prove to me, once and for all, how right I have been in the past about her. And, actually, as bizarre as this will probably seem, I didn't actually *want* to be right about parental neglect of a child who was – and let's be honest about this – not born as a little demon at all. Demon Child is as he is, because his parents have allowed him to become a demon child.
So, rather than launch into a diatribe about the amount of washing she's had to do, the hours she's spent doing her utmost to get rid of a potentially quite large lice infestation in her family's hair and home, still looking at me as though I'd suddenly sprouted a second head alongside my now psychosomatic-ally itching first, and said:
“Oh, I never bother with any of that rubbish,”
Turns out that Mater Demon doesn't believe that there's an actual, physical need to eliminate any further eggs or hatched lice in her household. She “cannot see the point” in applying the lotions and/or potions to her own head, to her husband's head, to her older son's head... nor to the younger child who actually has the lice running freely through his hair. Perhaps she leans towards Buddhism... I don't know. What I *do* know is that as I was standing there in absolute horror at what was coming out of her mouth, trying to think of a way to say to The Boy “please don't put your head anywhere near Demon Child's head, at all, *ever*!!!” without unduly alarming him and causing him to become paranoid about lice, she was bleating on about how much Demon Child's infestation had interrupted her plans for the previous evening.
Okay, I thought. Let's be sensible. Does she know where he's likely to have caught them from? After all, Demon Child has a full week of after-school activities – perhaps it's not spread out of his class and into The Boy's yet... perhaps there is still some semblance of hope!
“No,” she said, again looking at me incredulously (I may have been squeaking again, I'm not sure). “But I know it's someone in his year! He's had them since January!”
January.
*Two whole months*.
At that point, my brain not-so-helpfully provided me with an image of The Boy and Demon Child running around the school playground together, their heads close as they – like any 7 year old boys tend to – plot how to annoy the little girls they like (not entirely likely, as The Boy and his friends rarely allow Demon Child to play with them, but still possible, children and their fluid friendships being what they are..). Now, The Boy has longer than normal hair (it's not even chin-length, but it keeps his ears warm and he likes it). But the little girls in his year tend to have incredibly long hair and I know how much more awkward and indeed time consuming and downright awful it is trying to get a nit-comb through incredibly long, wet, tangled hair. So. Has Mater Demon informed Demon Child's teacher? Because, frankly, you're supposed to, if only so that the other parents can be given a head's up as to a potential infestation in their own homes.
“No,” she said. “I don't want him being picked on by the other children...”
Uh-huh.
Quite how I managed to bite my tongue and not ask her if she's actually considered the very real possibility that the other children already know he's got lice (since *January*!!!), I don't know. I walked off at that point in sheer disgust. I don't care if she realised why I turned and strode off into the distance, or not.
In my opinion, morally, she has an obligation to the other children, the teacher, the teaching assistants and, frankly, anyone else who comes into close contact with her son. Actually, probably both of her sons. I don't know. But she is obligated to tell the school that they have lice! Surely, she is also morally obliged to do something to get rid of them.
Without mentioning names (although I was bitchily tempted to do so), I had a few quiet words with a couple of my actual friends who have children in the same class as Demon Child. I wanted to know whether I'd stepped off the plane of reality for a while, or if *I* should now fulfil *my* moral obligation to tell the school (Mater Demon told me, therefore neatly absolving herself of her own responsibility by handing it to *me*... she's crafty. And not in a good way).
“So *that's* why I can't keep K clear of the little buggers!” was one of the responses. Turns out, V's daughter has been coming home with them on and off for the last three weeks. V's pretty much worn out her washing machine, bed linen, towels etc, trying to eliminate any possibility of them remaining in their home (I had wondered why her washing line was constantly full of the same things...). And V?
Had informed the teacher every single time.
This is why V's my friend and Mater Demon isn't even an acquaintance any more.
- The Boy doesn't have any, he was – to his disgust – thoroughly checked out as soon as we got home from school last night. As was The Girl. And then checked again this morning just to be doubly sure. He'll also be checked again tonight. And tomorrow. And the day after. And... yeah, you see where this is going.
- Yes. I informed the school first thing this morning. As I said before, Mater Demon neatly absolved herself of the responsibility to do so by passing the buck to yours truly. Trying to explain that no, *my* son really doesn't have head lice, but that I knew they were in that year group was *not* a pleasant conversation at all. I may also have told them where the infestation came from, but I doubt it'll do any good. Why? Mater Demon's husband is Chair of the school's Board of Governors. On which she also sits. I've done all I can (for now), though.
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