Ruth Walker - Mock a woman's driving or hair if you dare, but call her a bad mother and prepare for the inner lioness to growl

Published on Thursday 4 September 2008 12:03

SO, KATE MOSS has got her neigh-bours in a tizz over some teepees on her back green. Apparently, the 15ft-high tents have been in situ all summer, blocking their idyllic views of the rolling Cotswolds countryside. Don't you hate when that happens? (Though in my case it's usually a whopping great lorry blocking the chink of the Firth of Forth I can see from my lounge on a good day, when the sun is shining and there is an 's' in the month.)

Ms Moss is not the only sleb to have got on the wrong side of their nearest and not so dearest. Cristiano Ronaldo knocked down his home in Alderley Edge to build a five-storey, 4 million mansion his neighbours deemed "off-ensive and insensitive". And noisy Posh and Becks got the locals riled when they threw a pre-World Cup bash at their huge Hertfordshire home. Things got so riotous that Victoria's father Tony was summoned to an emergency meeting of the local council's environmental health committee. Gulp!

Which makes me wonder why we are bothering with Home Information Packs at all. What we really need are neigh-bourly behaviour contracts, in which those who live in the immediate vicinity promise not to play Mariah Carey at full blast at 3am (okay, just don't play Mariah Carey at all); not to plank their ugly jalopy in your parking space; and not to let their small boys kick the football against the garage door until the Sunday morning scent of grilling bacon wafts its way out of the nearby back doors, signalling everyone is up and about (that one's me, I'm afraid – guilty as charged).

I have a friend whose relations with a particular neighbour have got so bad it would take a UN peace treaty to patch things up. Both women have daughters of a similar age. They once played together, had sleep-overs together, went to each others' birthday parties and generally lived out of each others' pockets. But as tends to happen when girls and raging hormones meet, there was a fall out (something to do with someone taking someone else's friend away from someone) and they stopped speaking.

Time passed, however, and the girls began spending time together again. Until one fateful day recently in the junior miss department of a certain cut-price clothing store. There was one I Love Troy Bolton T-shirt left (High School Musical people – keep up!) and both girls, naturally, wanted it.

A scrap ensued, with predictable results. The T-shirt was rendered unsaleable, a purple-painted nail or two was broken and a lightning bolt earring was lost in the mele. Mothers got involved.

Now I have a theory, backed up by years of experience in the matter. When children fall out, they make up in days; when mothers fall out, they fall out for good. Ergo, don't get involved. Unless blood is spilled or the police are called, let the little terrors sort it out for themselves.

In the end, the adults took sides. Insults were hurled, tears were shed. My friend's fitness as a mother was called into question.

Now, you can criticise a woman's driving if you dare, mock her hairstyle even, but call her a bad mother and prepare for the inner lioness to growl.

The women haven't spoken for weeks now, while their fickle little cubs have moved on from High School Musical – it's all Gilmour Girls and Unfabulous these days. Get with the programme. And next time, leave the grown-ups out of it.