The closest I’ve ever got to being a pushy parent is making my children drink fresh orange juice. OK, so I did once storm into the school to demand an answer to why Lola had been dropped as school eco ambassador after being told she had won the position – I got her reinstated. Yet I’m often too busy as a single working mum even to keep on top of all the homework. Somehow, I’ve raised a bookworm in Lola, who often walks into a lamppost while reading a book. But I’ve never dragged my child over the finishing line at sports day – like some mums.
But when I saw a mum at a children’s birthday last weekend yawning and dropping off to sleep while cradling a paper plate of cheese sandwiches, the absolute reality of pushy parenting hit home. “Ready for bed?” I said jokingly over the loud noise of Mr Lolly entertaining a class of screaming six-year-olds in a church hall. “Or are you just bored out of your mind?”
“No,” was the answer she gave while half-opening her eyes for a chat. It turns out that the mum, Miriam, gets up at the crack of dawn – 4am to be exact – to take her eldest daughter, Annie, 13, swimming. Her child swims for a London squad at county and regional level and is working towards gaining a place on the junior England squad.
Miriam’s own mum warns her that she’s pushing her daughter too hard, Miriam tells me, and she admits she struggles with Annie “rolling her eyes” whenever she gives her constructive feedback about her swimming technique. “But, when I look at my childhood,” she says, “and what I could have achieved if I had been given the same opportunities at that age, I know in my heart that I’m doing the right thing.”
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