MY CHILDREN’S FRIENDS

My son told me all about the party he went to the night before. It was at his friends house. This boy lives with his Grandmother. His mother is in prison for hiring an assassin to kill his father after finding out about his affair. My daughter then went off on her story “that’s so similar to my friend who lives with her Grandmother – her dad is in prison for killing her mother with a knife and she clearly remembers seeing it happen even though she was only three. I have to be really careful what I say to her and try and be really sensitive – I can’t mention parents or anything. He only got 11 years and apparently he’s coming out really soon, but I don’t think she wants to see him”. I could see my teenage son looking puzzled. Sensitivity is not one of his major features. BUT STILL. Do you think I should start paying more attention to their friendship groups? Should I be concerned that both my children seemed to be hanging out with the children of murderers? How awful for those poor kids (not mine, the ones who are living with grandparents). That really is an argument for thinking through the “all actions have consequences” mantra before carrying out something so devastating.

My youngest child was really pissed off as he had nothing of such major interest to report so went into a total sulk because nobody was listening to him. He kept trying to say clever things and his older siblings just kept looking at him with such derision or falling about laughing that he began to get really cross. Perhaps I should suggest that he find a few murderers to hang out with – it would make him so much more interesting.

We also had an interesting conversation about being the Queen. My daughter thought she might just marry Harry “he was a real minger when he was 10 but he’s OK now”. She mulled over the idea of being the Queen and what sort of things she could do. “I’d have my face on all that money and I’d own all the swans in the country, so I’d dye them all pink”.