In a historical first, Alpha Mum invites the children and me for tea. We arrive 10 minutes early and wait in the car while I give the boys a final briefing on the incentive scheme I have introduced especially for the occasion. For the eldest two, there is a sliding scale of rewards, ranging from offers of packets of Haribos for eating all veg, to trips to the cinema for dropping in requests to play Junior Monopoly and refusing to play video games. The toddler is given specific goals: they include keeping his clothes on, peeing in the toilet rather than the nearest available receptacle and not having a tantrum about either of the aforementioned.
“Are we ready for action, boys?” I ask as we stride towards the door.
“So what have you been up to?” asks Alpha Mum when we’re settled in the kitchen.
Without waiting for me to answer, she launches into an account of her holiday programme.
“We did a violin course the first week, a chess course last week and this week I’m taking them all to different activities,” she says.
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“My brother, who is a psychologist, says that over-stimulated children don’t learn to play on their own,” I reply.
A bookshelf of parenting manuals catches my eye – The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, Positive Parenting from A-Z, Going to School: How to Help your Child Succeed.”
“What parenting philosophy do you subscribe to, Lucy?” she asks.
“Slow mothering,” I tell her. “It’s part of the slow town, slow food movement aimed at producing free-range children.”
“Oh,” she says, shocked. “I haven’t heard of that one.”
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I catch the toddler with his pants down by his knees in front of the open saucepan drawer and berate him.
“It’s his third birthday tomorrow,” I say.
“You had a baby in August?” she asks aghast. “He’ll be the youngest in his year, he’ll underachieve, his confidence will be knocked. You’ll have to do a lot of peddling to make sure he doesn’t fall through the cracks,” she says. “Have you thought about taking him to someone who can help him with his pencil grip? I suppose if you breast-fed him for a year, you’ll have raised his IQ by six points.”
The children sit down to tea: alphabet pasta with home-made pesto. “I thought they could practise spellings while they have tea,” she says proudly, watching her children begin to formulate words. I notice her eight-year-old son pick out the letters S H T I. “Oh my gosh,” she says, lurching towards his plate. But it’s too late.
“You’re missing an N and O for Shinto – the indigenous religion of Japan,” she says breathlessly. “We’re reading a book about it at the moment.” “It’s a four-letter word,” he says vengefully.