Janet Christie: Mum’s the word - teenage bootcamp

FIRST week of No More Mrs Nice Mum and there’s a fundamental flaw.

Janet Christie's new teenage bootcamp regime has had the rug pulled from under it already Picture: Phil Wilkinson

I scour the house for someone to bully into tidying, but there’s only Biggie Smalls snoozing on my bed in dragon pose, head out, all four paws flung back behind him, occasionally emitting a low feline groan of pleasure from deep in his belly, like an iceberg calving. Aw. Since his only crime is to shed pale ginger hairs that lend my outfits a macaroon finish, I leave him be.

Maybe I could use the kids’ absence to gut their rooms? Find my missing phone charger? I send the BoyF upstairs to scout it out.

He returns, charger in hand. “Don’t go up there. It’ll make you cry.”

OK. Three days pass where I enjoy not cooking, cleaning, or wandering around with a face like a skelped a***, but on day four I suddenly find myself standing next to a pile of freshly ironed clothes. Aw no, why have I done that?

I snatch Eldest Child’s gig shirt off the pile – a swirly-patterned Versace-lite number hunter-gathered from T-in-the-Park. It’s not me, but I’ll wear it anyway. And that goes for the rest of the stuff in that pile. Youngest Child’s skinny jeans better have plenty of Lycra.