18 January 09
Ummmm.... IKEA doesn't take this one back!
It's not a new sensation...
You know that "ermmmmmmmm I thought this was gonna turn out a little different from what it is" sensation we all get when we assemble something from scratch with only a vague picture of what it looks like somewhere else.
Like the IKEA catalogue.
Look, I grew up in the 70's and it has left me with an aversion to brown, yellow, huge flowers, dark wood, patterned fabric and mock brick effects. So the whole time I liked at home I said... I AM NEVER GOING TO OWN BAD FURNISHINGS.
I mean how did some of that (quite frankly) S*it end up in my parents home?? Could they out of choice bought a flower power ice bucket and mock mahogany table nests... don't start me on the floral velour corner unit that inexplicably ended with a chaise lounge effect. And they were not alone... my friends parents decored their houses simularly... Angie's parents put DOLLIES on top of the TV...and Debbie's had a blue crochet ballet dancer hiding loo rolls under her skirts.
NO. NO NO!! When I got a place of my own it would be populated by tasteful furniture - each room would be co-ordinated and I would not allow anything knowingly tasteless in.
Yup... I has what is now known as a sunday supplement vision of the future. Or being working class I should say an IKEA catalogue version of the future... face facts even then deludeed as I was I knew I was not going to get furniture from Heals or get Cinalla pachwork mirrors flown in from Buneos Aires.
I like most of my generation was moved by Picasso's statement about transforming our realities into something beautiful...starting with our homes.
However...In life there are no set dressers..no models draped stylishly with a martini glass in hand... and things that looked great in the IKEA catalogue curiously look less like swedish minimalist and more like 'look at who is on a budget'.
And actually doing it for real has highlighted something else I should be a little more forgiving to my parents apparent lack of a plan about.
In the same way that before you have a place of your own you think you will never live with bad furniture or ill conceived design, then own day you have a place of your own and it don't look like a IKEA spread... having a child of your own is just like that... it's like looking at the living room set in IKEA and you are sure you can recreate that in your own home so you go and pay for it, but instead of getting it home the moment the deal is done... you find you have to wait for delivery which is NEVER the bloody day they said it would be!! Then suddenly without warning you are home alone with a zillion flat packs - but guess what you are so happy to have delivery you STILL don't read the signs...you think you can cope. After all what is so hard... a million people a day get flat packs delivered and build great sturdy furniture you've heard...all you have to do is check you have all the right packs and read the instructions. So you get all the bits out and then it hits you... IT IS WAY MORE COMPLICATED THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT! But you're in this now so you have to start putting things together... there is a feeling that things aren't supposed to be like this but you keep going but before long you are entirely overwhelmed with the knowledge that everyone else seems to have managed it because you have seen their bloody living rooms and they look fabulous! So as the confusion, the anxiety, and the tiredness build your head is departing for a town called PANIC!! But finally you manage to shove together some semblance of the pictures in the catalogue - so you breathe out and stand back to admire your handy work. Which is when you see it... all the dowels and screw you left out somewhere in the process. So what do you do... you scoop them up and hide them!! Then you position the furniture against the walls and just pray they can bear the weight of day to day life in your house and just don't collapse when someone is nearby!!
When I went into parenthood... it was a sunday supplement vision. The funky couple who broke all the rules of how couples around us were and out lasted them all...now we were gonna redefine Parenthood. Like the hip people in the Sunday Supplements, we had a kid out of wedlock and were gonna be the best parents ever! So we took him home to our 1/4 million pound home with it's huge garden and view of an 8000 year old wood. I was gonna feed him organic food home cooked of course, I'd read him Chaucer and immerse his world with stimulating activities. I knew I could do a better job than any parent that came before me... I was not about to unleash another little hoodie thug onto the streets of South London! As for him he was uber dad - if he could have breast fed he would have - all those dads who don't get involved with their kids..what fools!...it was the most rewarding role he had ever played - sign up for the school trips, ensure sleepovers at our house were the best fun, mark his growth on the door frame of the kitchen every three months.... for a whole 8 years.
So here we are 13 years on.
Or at least here I am... (when I last heard from him his latest slapper was up the duff and he was toying with idea of committing to her... nut not until after the baby is born cause he'd like to see how it goes first!)
So here I am 13 years later being exactly the kind of mother I was NEVER going to be at the start... single, broke, using the playstation as a childminder, and on more than one occasion passing of an Iceland ready meal as home made! I just watched my 13 year old peddle off with his mates down to the park... each of them wearing a sweatshirt with a hood as is the local style. Each of them with their hoods up.... Fabulous!
Who'd have known just like my BESTA TV Bench (page 75 Ikea catalogue).. I simply lean against the wall with my shelves propped up looking like they are attached. It's curious how often things that look like they are effortlessly doing a sterling job - are doing nothing of the sort. Me and my BESTA TV bench.......We get by. But we don't take close inspection... and for sure..don't try to move us around too much... we're ready to fall apart in yours hand at any moment! Best leave us where we are..we have support.
So Mum... Dad.... THANK YOU. I now see that I should not be angry that you didn't have a clue what you were doing... no parent does. But thank-you ... for sticking it out, for swallowing the pain that I must have caused by turning out different from your hopes. Thank you for not saying I told you so when my 'redefining the family unit' blew up in my face, and for quietly sliding into the position of my secondary childcare providers at a time in your lives when you should be taking it easy. Thank you for all the swimming galas, stageschool productions and sports days that you've attended with me so that your grandson doesn't see the great big hole where a boy's father should be. Thanks for never asking what I do on Friday nights and for having the BIG SLEEPOVER at your house. Thank you for knowing being a parent is nothing to do with your hopes and everything with just being there when your child needs you. Which right now seems like forever...
I just hope IKEA knew that when they made my TV bench.
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