I was having a really nice day. Until I looked at my e-mails. Brace yourselves this is classified as 'ranting blog of the week'!There was one from heir commandant the girl guide leader. Oh I hate that woman. She e-mails at 6pm today to say that all Tall Girls kit for camp (not for another 2 weeks yet) needs to go to Guides tomorrow night so they can practice their bed roll and label everything. I know I've had the list for ages but I was working towards the date on the form not tomorrow night! I don't even know if I have everything she needs yet.
However this is not my only reason for not liking the woman. Hate perhaps, is too strong a word to use. I had a 'run in' with her about this time last year over camp. Tall girl is a little neurotic at times. Mostly when it's dark! (and then there's the locks in public loos, and people she doesn't know and..... you get the picture) but I know my child. Even when we camp together as a family in the same tent she gets a bit scared for the first night (and, if it's really bad, more than the first night). So when she said she wanted to go on camp we braced ourselves and I thought I should talk to the guide leader just to let her know what to expect.
The day to take her to camp arrived and she was a little nervous at breakfast but we managed to get her there without too much angst! However no sooner had she arrived and she was in floods of tears. It was almost as if she hadn't thought about being under canvas until that moment. She has been away from home before, several times, and she gets a little edgy but enjoys it in the end. Well, when she cried sooo much I told her that camp should be fun and it wasn't like school, so if you didn't want to do it then you didn't have to. Perhaps I should have made her stay but to cut a very long story short she came home again with us.
The next time she went to guides I was summoned buy the commandant and expected to apologise for taking her home! She accused me of being an over anxious mother (because I had told her of Tall Girls sleeping worries in the dark) and that I had projected my fears onto my daughter making her unable to take part in the camp. (She is at university practicing to become a doctor, probably a psychologist to boot!) I can't write about it all here but I was very upset. She said some terrible things to me. She had completely misinterpreted my intentions both about telling her Tall Girls worries about the dark and taking her home rather than making her stay. What's more (wind me up and watch me go!!) she has no children of her own, so no idea what it's like to be a parent and didn't once give me any eye contact. The eye contact was the final straw.
It has been difficult for me to let Tall girl carry on at guides. She is blissfully unaware of the 'run in' with her leader. She likes going because all her friends go too. Husband is taking her to camp this time. I just hope she can keep it together. She says she is really looking forward to it but that's what she said last time! Now I'm just off to find the ground sheet and the ROPE...............
21 comments:
Respect to you! What a complex business it must be to be a mother but I suspect you are pretty good at it! Guide woman sounds like a bit of a lonely fish; maybe it is she who is projecting that elsewhere.
Wow. Girl Guides leader or SS commandant? Seems as though she'd be a bit more sensitive to the kids needs. No wonder she has no kids, no man would ever want to get the close to her...
Sub', I just got a comment from you. You are up and blogging before 7, having told me I was up too early at the said same caper yesterday! :)
Have a good Monday and post about girl guides, kit and the mean lady later tonight, won't you?
BS5
Wow. Just wow. Isn't the leader just a big ol' ray of sunshine? I hope she gets stuck in a tent.
Hi. Firstly, thanks for visiting my blog. I've had a lovely time reading yours.
Secondly, I can relate to this - BIG TIME. My eldest is also borderline neurotic, and all you were doing was voicing her needs to the responsible adult before something about which your daughter was anxious. I wouldn't like the no eye-contact thing either, and think it betrays much more than what she might have said to you. How are you expected to feel comfortable leaving your daughter in the care of someone who so plainly doesn't understand? What a very stupid woman - and one who seems less than equipped for the role she has assumed. I can quite understand that you found it difficult to let Tall girl carry on there.
Oooh sorry - I've started taking over your comments box - you can tell you struck a chord!
Hope all goes well (No.1 is due to go on a school residential soon - and is getting very wound up) and that it works out in the end.
Take care :-) x
No eye contact? What a coward!
x
You'd have to feel some sympathy for the Girl Guide Oberführer, who no doubt has to mollycoddle legions of "over anxious" mothers and their "little neurotic" daughters.
There she is trying to make Women out of Girls (notice how that sounds less weird with "Men out of Boys" - which is sad). And you can't even be bothered to traumatise Tall Girl for her own good. High achieving Oberführer clearly didn't get where she is today without having her fears and distress ignored.
Really, what sort of mother are you? A clearly loving one?
BS 5 yes lonely fish is a good discription, but I feel sorry for her now you've said that.
Not sure if I'll manage a post tonight....husband has come home with a wireless router!
P Kid thanks for your support!
Tootsie... yes I can visualise that one!
Welcome Kitty. Thanks so much for your comments I feel much better now.
Tall Girl did residential last autumn. She threw -up with anxiety just before they borded the bus!! However she survived (with the help and support of some brilliant adults) and has some great memories!
Thanks Bobo I value your 'therapists' thoughts!
You would think that some one who does that sort of work would be more, well for want of a better word, motherly
Dear Suburbia
I remember all this well.........
Claudia in floods of tears. Not knowing what to do.......
isn't parenthood fun?
I'd be a bit wary of the no-eye-contact bit.
The teacher in me would blurt out
"Please look at me when you speak to me!"
Gruppenfuhrer probably has many more problems than Tall Girl ever will!!!
Daughter is now 27 and has grown bolder....just got back from riding elephants in thailand......
Yes, blogging is utterly addictive.
Bobo, you're a risk taker sir, but I secretly agree!
Suburbia, you can't just throw in a fact that you have a new wireless router. That's very cool. How many flashing lights does it have? Flashing lights that you don't quite see the purpose of are a good thing. Post a pic! You can blog in the garden now if you have a laptop!
What's the commandant's name Herr Flick? :(
BS5, I did wonder if I'd over egged the irony, but I was confident, well fairly confident ... and I'm quite good at apologising, strangely.
This woman does sound like a sergeant major & I'm not surprised she got you annoyed.
Hope this time tall girl will stay and enjoy the camp, but obviously it has to be on her terms. After all it has to be a happy experience.
Hi Brett welcome back.
Elizabeth Thank you. It's great when someone else has suffered!! There is hope then, perhaps Tall Girl will, one day, ride on elephants too.
Boys... are you ganging up on me or just using my place as a general drop in? ;)
Hi Akelamalu and Maggie, I have all my fingers crossed it will go better this time.
What a hideous woman! And she's left in charge of vulnerable little girls?! Not that I want you to get neurotic about leaving TG in her care ...
Seriously she sounds like a nightmare and quite typical of some Guiders.
Bobo, I think you and I just got a 'See me!' in our homework books from Suburbia! Hey Suburbia, no ganging up on our part, I am pretty sure!
Every child is different and has different needs and reactions. Some need a little more patience and understanding than others. That's the way it is. As adults, it is up to us to provide whatever patience and understanding is necessary to help them overcome their fears, or anxieties. If guide person is not mature enough to take on that responsibility, she is not 'up to the job' and she should go off and do something else! I have had 3 children. It is a fallacy that children are born 'blank' and that parents 'make them what they are'. If that were true, all of my children would be little clones, wouldn't they? I think a parent would have to behave in a very extreme way, indeed, to alter a child's basic personality. I am thinking of abuse, or something awful, like that. Sorry to go on.
Myself having been booted out of Girl Guides at the tender age of 11 by an evil Heir Commandant--surely they can't be one and the same?!--my full sympathies to both you and your daughter!
And happy to see you're having a better day!
I am sorry I didn't read this yesterday! You have to love the irony of a drill sargent that even without children of her own could tell you... the mother ~ that you didn't do it right. Excuse me but kids do not come with a list of instructions and there isn't a guide book out there to show a parent the One and only way to raise our kids. I am proud you didn't kill this person. We as parents are going to screw up many many times~But we do know our children and anytime we can help them through a rough patch we do try. What is frustrating is when over zealous individuals think that they know what is best for our children. I can't wait to hear more!
Mean mom, Liz and Susan, thanks for your support! I've loved hearing everyones comments on this.
Welcome Dori. What did you do so bad that you got thrown out?! Thanks for your support also. Please call again.
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