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Checkmate For DD

294 replies

TheShellBeach · 20/10/2022 00:22

Reminiscing...........,,,twenty years on:

I recall when DD was thirteen she told me once that she was ill, so I let her have the day off school. Despite having had a "terrible headache and awful period pains" she recovered remarkably quickly and I realised by mid-morning that she'd been having me on.

The next day she asked me for a note to give her teacher, so I wrote the following:

"Dear Mrs. X,

DD was absent from school yesterday because she was pretending to be ill. My investigations suggest that this was very likely because she had failed to do her homework the night before.

Yours sincerely,

The Shell Beach"

Mrs. X was delighted with this missive and apparently pinned it on to the wall in the staff room. DD was less delighted when she discovered what I'd written, but she never tried that one on again.

OP posts:
Habreathmint · 21/10/2022 15:23

This is a story that has been doing the rounds for years. It first appeared in an Adrian Mole book decades ago. Nice try OP.

glassfully · 21/10/2022 15:58

They’re not feeling great, they may be tired because they stayed up past their bedtime, they have their period. Just like adults.

If I'm tired because I stayed up past my bedtime, I go to work. Jesus Christ it's no wonder everyone hates young adults these days.

peaceandove · 21/10/2022 16:28

Both our DDs have had a Saturday job since being 14. Not a chance I would have let them skive a day off just because they were knackered from staying up too late the night before.

AloysiusBear · 21/10/2022 16:52

There's nothing humiliating about catching your dc out in a lie and calling them on it. I'm a teacher and the best kids have parents who aren't afraid to pull them up when they misbehave, demonstrate that they're working with the school and not against it and don't make excuses for poor behaviour.

This.

AloysiusBear · 21/10/2022 16:53

If I'm tired because I stayed up past my bedtime, I go to work. Jesus Christ it's no wonder everyone hates young adults these days.

This. The world doesn't cut you some slack because you made poor choices. Young people expecting it to just shows entitlement

notprincehamlet · 21/10/2022 16:58

This is why I used to write my own absence letters Halloween Smile

ReneBumsWombats · 21/10/2022 17:00

AloysiusBear · 21/10/2022 16:53

If I'm tired because I stayed up past my bedtime, I go to work. Jesus Christ it's no wonder everyone hates young adults these days.

This. The world doesn't cut you some slack because you made poor choices. Young people expecting it to just shows entitlement

Pissing myself at the idea that only the yoof of today does this.

TheLadyofShalott1 · 21/10/2022 18:21

AngelinaFibres · 20/10/2022 11:21

I went to school in the 70s. I was terrible at maths, just couldn't get it. Secondary school maths lessons were absolute hell on earth. We did the SMP maths scheme . We used to borrow the relevant answer book from the library so my dad could help me with the homework hell and we could check we had finally got it right ( couldn't cheat and just write the answer because you had to show your working out process). At parents evening my father ( Chief Educational Psychologist for the county we lived in ffs) wanted to bond with my maths teacher so he told him all about getting the answer book from the library. Oh what a jolly jape. You wouldn't think maths could get even worse. I dare ge and the teacher laughed and laughed. Teacher didn't laugh with me he belted me on the head with his fist and sent me out of the room, having told everyone what my dad had said. Parents are shits sometimes

Sorry Angelina, I am just catching up, so commenting a bit late. I just wanted to say how sorry I am that your father did that, I don't think that I could have ever forgiven one of my parent's if they did something like that to me, and for your father to do that to you when he held the position he held, is absolutely awful. I can only hope that you managed to keep some sort of positive relationship with him going forward.

I probably wanted to tell you that I feel for you because of the empathy I am feeling now. My father was a mathematician who went to sleep at night working out formula's backwards eg. the formula for the quadratic equation was easy for him, and he was known to write to Stephen Hawkins on occassions when he didn't agree with him (obviously explaining in great detail the reasons for his disagreement). I have no idea whether either of them was right or wrong as I must be one of the people furthest away from ever being considered a mathematician!

Anyway, I started secondary school in 1969, so close to the time that you did. Maths must have passed me by at junior school, as I had no real idea about it when I went to ss. I seemed to have a brick wall in my head when it came to maths - possibly because my father used to really shout at my (quite a bit older than me) brother when my brother was doing his maths homework, so I was already really scared of the idea of it.

As it happens my Dad didn't shout at me about my maths homework - it was the only homework he supervised helped me with - I presume now that that was because I was a girl and so (obviously erroneously for that reason) didn't expect me to be any good at maths, or it might have been because I was, sadly, his favourite child - he would just try to explain to me the way I should work out any of the mathematical questions.

Unfortunately he never understood just how basic my knowledge of maths was. I could add up and subtract, do long division as long as it was very easy, and I could multiply slowly using my fingers etc (weirdly my infant/junior school never taught us the multiplication table or the alphabet! I knew all the letters in the alphabet, and which were vowels and consonants, but we weren't actually told the order they went in, we certainly didn't sing the alphabet song! I could read from an early age, and it was, and still is a passion of mine. I don't know how I would manage without the world of fiction to escape into (although music is great in that way too).

If you are still reading this Angelina then many thanks, as my English comprehension knowledge is let down by my lack of being able to summarise 🙄 🤭 Anyway (again!), I would nod along as my father was "explaining" my maths homework to me, and he didn't then ask me to explain it back to him, so I used to do exceedingly well in my maths homework - by that I mean I got very good marks for it. I only once had what I considered to be a good maths teacher, so until my mock 'O' levels I was absolutely atrocious at maths, and that was never found out in class because I sat as quiet as a mouse, and the teachers (over the years) probably thought I understood everything because of my homework grades.

When my mock maths results came in the penny must have at least partially dropped, as I was downgraded from the 'O' level class to the C.S.E. class, and that is when I at last got a good maths teacher, who was able to get me up to a good enough standard - in a few months - to get a 2 in my C.S.E. maths exam. I eventually managed to get a 'b' in GCSE maths - many years later - as I wanted to become a nurse, And I needed the GCSE in it to do so. My second, and present, and hopefully until the rest of my life, husband, tutored me for my GCSE exam (I did go to night school as well, but the maths tutor there was the same as most of my other maths teachers at school, and I hardly understood any of it, but when I got home my husband explained it all very patiently to me), and so I got a 'b', and I got to University to study nursing 😊

So, my father never caused me the pain and humiliation in the same way that your father did to you, but he actually didn't do me any favours by giving my maths teachers such an erroneous impression about my abilities. If I had been transferred into the C.S.E. class for maths during my first year of secondary school, and if I had had that same female maths teacher, who knows, I might have even got a 1st in my C.S.E. maths - which in those days was considered to be the equivalent to an 'O' level. How did you do in the end Angelina, did you get your 'O' level in maths, and much more importantly in my opinion, were you ever able to forgive your Dad? I do hope that even if you never forgave him for his dreadful behaviour that night, that you were still able to have a good relationship with him. 💐💐

TheShellBeach · 08/11/2022 00:08

donttellmehesalive · 20/10/2022 09:29

Please come back and give us an update op.

Did your dd turn into a well-adjusted individual with a sense of humour and a great relationship with you?

Or are you nc because of the ritual humiliation by two bullies and the epic parenting fail?

I've met a lot of parents and I think it'll be the first one.

DD and I have a great relationship and always have. We have a similar sense of humour.
Unfortunately for the "did DD end up needing counselling over this humiliation" brigade - no, she didn't.
Of COURSE she didn't.
She does have a strong work ethic and we absolutely love and respect one another.
Oh, and for those who thought I was EVIL for thinking about this so many years later - well, that was because it was fucking funny and I was laughing about it.

OP posts:
TheShellBeach · 08/11/2022 00:20

Shiningstarr · 20/10/2022 10:59

Dearest Theshellbeach,

I suspect that if you actually tried parenting your child, instead of humiliating her, you wouldn't have needed to write that note.

I'm glad you're not my mum.

Ah well. That is unfortunate. All my children have a great sense of humour, though, so that's probably why you and I are not related.

OP posts:
TheShellBeach · 08/11/2022 00:24

HailAdrian · 20/10/2022 11:40

Or she's busy?

Actually, I read the first couple of answers and went to bed.

By the way - this was not my autistic child (I have many children).

OP posts:
TheShellBeach · 08/11/2022 00:31

Habreathmint · 21/10/2022 15:23

This is a story that has been doing the rounds for years. It first appeared in an Adrian Mole book decades ago. Nice try OP.

I was probably inspired by Pauline Mole when I wrote the note, but it's a true story.

OP posts:
TheShellBeach · 08/11/2022 00:44

Johnnysgirl · 20/10/2022 11:09

Absolutely. As if the dd would hand that in or any decent teacher would display it in the classroom wall.

FFS the letter was in an envelope, and the teacher told me about sticking it on the staffroom wall at DD's next parents' evening.

OP posts:
TheShellBeach · 08/11/2022 00:51

And yes, this should have been posted in Chat.

OP posts:
TheShellBeach · 08/11/2022 00:51

And yes, this should have been posted in Chat.

OP posts:
Kanaloa · 08/11/2022 00:59

TheShellBeach · 08/11/2022 00:31

I was probably inspired by Pauline Mole when I wrote the note, but it's a true story.

How convenient.

RambamThankyouMam · 08/11/2022 04:36

I despise this kind of one-upmanship parenting. It's pathetic.

PriOn1 · 08/11/2022 06:01

I think it’s really funny and I’m glad you and your daughter have a great relationship now. Obviously there has to be balance, but as a one off incident (which obviously this was as you remember it all these years later) it’s a single occasion when the joke ended up being at your daughter’s expense, and deservedly so. I bet she would also agree it was funny, especially if she’s now a parent herself.

I’m fascinated by the generation x suicide stats though. I’ve observed over a long period that surveys taken always concluded “the happiest age range is …” with the happiness always being higher on either side of my age group. When I was young, I assumed I only had to wait a few years and things would get easier, but then I’d see another graph with the same picture and my (now older) age range still being in that trough. I hope that, even though things look quite tough for my children right now, that they end up having a better time than my generation perhaps have had it.

ReneBumsWombats · 08/11/2022 06:26

RambamThankyouMam · 08/11/2022 04:36

I despise this kind of one-upmanship parenting. It's pathetic.

It's also really weird to be gloating about it 20 years later.

And anyone who has to tell you how funny they are and what a great sense of humour they have is, well...

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