Why I’ll never be a parent who makes it look easy

It was my daughter’s first day of school, and despite getting up at 4:30am to make sure I was prepared for the day ahead, I felt hopelessly out of my depth.

We’ve been here before. In the early days after my daughter’s birth, I realised with sickening clarity that I’d spent far more time researching and preparing for labour than I had for the day-to-day logistics of child-rearing.

And so, to the first day of school, and I found myself wishing I’d revised harder for this test that I’d known was coming for five years.

A helpful soul on Twitter told me her friend had forgotten to give her child an apple for playtime on her first day. This was something I hadn’t considered, and so I quickly packed a snack – relieved that disaster and certain starvation had been avoided.

It was five minutes before we were due to leave that I realised the plimsols I’d bought her for PE – one of the few items of uniform I’d ordered in good time – didn’t fit.

I slipped the cleanest pair of trainers I could find into her backpack and prayed that she wouldn’t be needing them.

We arrived at school a full 40 minutes early. I’d got the start time wrong. As we hung around outside, waiting to be let in, I watched the parents of older children arrive.

How cool they were, how positively effortless in the organisation of their broods. Not to mention the hairstyles. Everywhere I looked there were twirls and curls, ribbons and intricately braided showstopper hairstyles.

I looked down at my daughter and her two hairclips that were already coming loose and made a mental note to watch some YouTube tutorials to expand my repertoire.

Pick-up time was no more successful. I arrived on time – at the wrong door. Racing around the building I asked other parents, classroom assistants and teachers “Do you know where the P.1’s are?” with the frenzied manner of a woman who clearly doesn’t have her shit together. Round and round I went, until finally – six whole minutes late – I found her.

As we walked home, I began to relax. I might be an organisational catastrophe, but my daughter is eminently cool and confident. She’d had a great day. An “AMAZING” day. She told me tales of a boy getting locked in the toilet (“I just couldn’t BELIEVE IT!”) and a book the teacher read with the “funniest name EVER” (Chicken Licken).

Talk turned to lunchtime and the “really GREAT” pizza she’d had.

Then she dropped the bombshell. “I was a bit thirsty, mummy.”

She’d forgotten to take her water-bottle to the lunch hall with her.

“I asked the lady if I could have a drink and she said I could have milk if I had some money, but you didn’t give me ANY money, so I just had to be thirsty.”

Leaving aside the Thatcherite cruelty of denying a tiny wee person a carton of milk on their first day of school, and not even offering her a cup of water instead – it was yet another detail I’d overlooked.

I spent the evening sharing war stories with friends. “It was a SO STRESSFUL,” I told them. “I’m not cut out for this!”

They gently reminded me of all the times I’d said this before and was found to have been worrying about nothing.

When I thought my daughter’s, speech was delayed. (It wasn’t).

When she bit her nursery teacher (only the once).

When she told her teacher (for my Mother’s Day card, no less) that the thing I was best at was “working” and the thing I was worst at was “playing”.

I suppose I’ve just been waiting for that moment when I feel like I’ve got this parenting business under control and it hasn’t arrived yet.

When I dropped her off on her second day, I looked again at the other parents. A quick glance showed the competent, enviable parenting of the day before. But on closer inspection, I saw tense words being changed. Somebody had forgotten their PE kit. One mum was pleading with her little one to go inside because she was going to be late for work. Another child was having a tantrum, as his dad tried to stop him jumping in a puddle.

“It’ll get better,” my wise friends assured me. “School is a big adjustment, but you’ll soon get into a routine.”

Hopefully, they are right. But I’m sure there will be other things I’ll forget and times I’ll worry that I’ve let her down by not being organised enough.

In the corridor that leads to my daughter’s classroom, there is a motivational quote on the wall. It is about making sure that everybody is supported and encouraged to fulfil their potential.

When I first saw it, I assumed it was for the children’s benefit.

But perhaps it’s a nod to those of us who are very new to the administrative burden of primary school and are trying – with varying degrees of success – to do our best.