What Mothers Do

Thunderthighs has been emailed forms to apply for apprenticeships.

As I have mentioned before (Form Filling Blues) I hate filling in forms.  They put me in a cold sweat and churn my stomach.  But they must be done.

I’ve just persuaded him to email his college tutor for permission to use her as a referee, and reminded him to ask the newsagent he delivers papers for the same, and suggested he compile all his various certificates.

Fester has taken himself off to the Mining Institute for a second day with 

“I’ll get out of your way while you mess about with Thunderthighs.”

“’Mess about’!  Is that what you call trying to sort out our son’s future?”

Sheepish silence, then a penny began to drop in the back of my mind.

“Was it your mother that did that sort of thing?  Did she do all the pushing?”

More sheepish silence, then “Well …”

 

Different families, different cultures.

 

Then, of course, Fester’s career has been spent in academia combined with self-employment as a consultant.  The first giving qualifications for the second (BSc MSc PhD Visiting Scientist), and the second providing data useful for preparing papers supporting the first.  The last time he had to present himself as himself was probably when he first applied to University in the early 1970s.   

And things were very different then.  Anything since was based on research he’d done and papers he’d written; so preparing CVs and application forms are a foreign country to him.

 

To be fair, since giving up paid work to concentrate on the boys I’ve not much recent experience.  The last time I prepared a CV for a job was in 1992, and then I went freelance.

Unless, of course, you count all those Disability Living Allowance, Statements of Special Educational Needs, Education Care and Health Plans, Personal Independence Payment, Employment Support Allowance, Capability For Work Questionnaire, college and day centre information and other forms which were somehow my role to fill.

 

“Oh but you’re so much better at that sort of thing than me luv.”

I wonder why that is?