THE GOOD ENOUGH Parent

with EMILY THOMPSON OUTWIT,

Happy school holidays! The children are home! Enjoy not making school lunches every day and instead become a snack-making slave to the tiny army you created.

I am being unfairly bullied by a 14-year-old neat freak who has decided to spend these two weeks “decluttering and reorganising the kitchen and house” in an intense power grab that I blame on TikTok. Stupid, stupid pantry hacks “reels”. Now I’ve somehow spent $95 on bamboo containers from Kmart and I get yelled at every time I use the cumin powder.

This scenario wasn’t in any of the baby books. In fact, while they all seem to cover a lot about first steps, there’s very little about teenage wannabe influencers, nor anything about the mind games Miss Nine played this morning to get me to the supermarket wearing a pipe cleaner tiara. Now, I have spent almost 15 years wearing handmade jewellery with pride. But having worn a fluorescent yellow wonky pipe cleaner wrapped around my forehead in public, I’m 100 per cent convinced Miss Nine is now just trolling me and laughing at me behind my back.

I now believe I owe it to the parents of the world to write a proper parenting book addressing all this. But when I announce my plans to the kids, Miss 14 says, “Oh god, this won’t end well.” Miss Nine then immediately says lovely, supportive things because she never misses an opportunity to argue with her sister. As their disagreement gets louder and with an increasing number of delusional and irrelevant statements, (“But I AM THE LEGO CITY QUEEN”) I start to realise just how much content will need to be covered in this essential guide.

Having lost this battle, Miss 14 retreats to the safety of her room and lets me know she’ll email through a great new spice rack hack she’s found. Not for the first time, I wonder how I created a person who alphabetises herbs.

I sit down to start my book but I am immediately met with Miss Nine fishing for an argument.

Now, let me explain. Apparently, the worst thing to ever happen to her occurred at school a week ago when she was informed she couldn’t join the debate team because she’s not old enough. Having won 98 per cent of the debates she’s had in her life, she’s taken being omitted from the team personally and is planning a “backchat until you let me join” campaign on her poor teacher once term three starts. To prepare, she’s decided to spend these two weeks at home really honing her skills. Lucky us.

“…and that’s why you need to make Miss 14 take dance lessons from me,” the debate champion concludes. I point out that Miss 14 is in charge of her own body and the only power I have is making her roll her eyes every time I speak.

Miss Nine laments the abolition of slavery (again) but is easily distracted by my offer to not only learn her dance, but also to play in “Lego City” (the space formerly known as our dining table that is now covered in a Lego hospital, five houses, a noodle shop, a swimming pool, three parks, a torso tank, a taco truck, a high school and a police station with cells. It’s attached to my Lego house for “reasons”).

My Lego character immediately steals the taco truck and goes for a joyride to Miss Nine’s delight and I’m reminded (again) how much fun school holidays can be. As I get sentenced to “300 years of yard labour” by the Lego City Queen, I take a moment to appreciate the mess, the noise and the happiness that’s found in the privilege of a little downtime with the kids.