Читать книгу A Spoonful of Sugar - Liz Fraser - Страница 16

So far Granny has advised not rushing too much, not worrying too much, not studying too much, not pressurising too much … anything else?

Yes, one more thing. Didn’t you just know it?

‘But you know,’ she says with her oft practised and amazingly effective ‘listen to your grandmother now’ stare, ‘I’m not saying you should just give kids a free rein to mess about all the time!’

‘Oh, right. I thought that didn’t sound much like you.’

Granny has a sharp tongue and a firm hand and has been known to use both on children who step out of line. Not that I would know, obviously.

‘At the same time as all this freedom you have remember the other thing childhood is for.’

What’s that then – making tiny models of squirrels out of your own snot? Saying rude things at full volume about people ahead of you in the Post Office queue and then having them say how sweet you are, instead of clonking you on the head with a jiffy bag? Eating sweets until you throw up into your sibling’s lap? Turns out Granny has something else in mind.

‘It’s the time when you learn the rules.’

‘What, the Rules of Life?’ (I think I may have been absent when some of these were spelled out … Sorry, Mum.)

‘Yes, if you like. There are a lot of rules that we all have to understand and abide by if we are to all live together peacefully. And childhood is when we learn the very basic ones, and learn where the boundaries are, from our parents.’

And presumably, I say, when children overstep those boundaries, as they so often do, they need to know about it …

‘Oh yes, of course they do. You have to teach that to a child, by disciplining them when they’re naughty. It’s not cruel, as some people say now. It’s part of what parenting is about.’