FRUIT OF FRUSTRATION HAD GOOD SEED

Luky
IT IS FOR ME A SOBERING THOUGHT THAT I WOULD PROBABLY NEVER HAVE WRITTEN ARTICLES BUT FOR A FIT OF TEMPER I GOT INTO FIFTY YEARS AGO.
  
  There was an article in a local newspaper by a lady who wrote about taking her little daughter to Mass, and how she deplored the actions of parents who were always punishing their children for not sitting still in church.
  I'd just come back from Mass, hot and bothered after a bout of fisticuffs with my children, and yearning for the obligation of Mass attendance to be lifted from mothers of small children when I read this article.

  I sat behind my typewriter and tossed off what I thought about taking children to Mass and bringing them up generally. I've always been the first to admit that my attempts at child rearing have been a hit or miss affair, and that any success I may ever experience in this line will be attributable only to the grace of the Great Eraser of parental mistakes.

  I didn't really think my article would be accepted, but I felt as if a load had been removed from my chest and I could breathe again.
  Then shortly afterwards I came back from the hairdressers to find a postal messenger in front of my flat door.
  I signed my name in his book and tore open the telegram, fearful lest it might contain bad news.

  If a person exists who claims life has no excitement to offer, he should try to write something and have it accepted.
  It had begun to drizzle and I dragged my children to my neighbour Maria.
  "Won't you look after my children?" I gabbled. "You see, I wrote this article, and they accepted it . . ." but she was looking at me uncomprehendingly. Then she smiled.
  "You happy Lucinha, me happy also. I look your childrens . . . ah cara Linda!" and she cuddled the baby till he squealed with laughter.

  I ran for my bicycle and tore off to the post office in the driving rain, and although it was goodbye to my new set I didn't care a jot.

  I still had bouts of fisticuffs in church with later additions to the family and a further episode was a case in point.
  They were very naughty and impossible and near the end I took them out, gave them a talking to and made them sit outside, where they sat very demurely since they knew they'd gone too far.

  I went back into church and bought a little blue book at the repository. I think it's called Mother's Manual.
  It's a beautiful book, and if only someone had given it to me fifteen years earlier I might have been top of the pops by then.
  As it was, I had to rely on it to aid me in retrieving some of the mistakes I have made hitherto.
  It contains beautiful prayers for a handicapped child, a child who is a priest or religious, a child that has passed away - even those of us who have had miscarriages can find consolation in that prayer - a child who is studying, for good companions, for a control of one's temper . . . in fact when I read that bit I felt even more as though this book had been written for me alone.
  There is only one thing wrong with that book, though.
  It should be called Father and Mother's Manual.

Catherine Nicolette
I don't believe a word of it. I was always an angel as a child . . .


Mother's Manual available from Amazon;
https://www.amazon.com/Mothers-Manual-Francis-Coomes/dp/1929198183

Father's Manual available from Amazon;
https://www.amazon.com/Fathers-Manual-Coomes/dp/1929198205

With thanks to amazon.com