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Places best avoided by a Mother and her Boys
• The chocolate aisle
• Any pub with a sign up saying, ‘Meals are cooked
from scratch – you may have to wait’
• A glass factory
• The London Eye with a potty-training lad*
• Great-grannies’ sitting rooms full of tantalising
trinkets
• All public areas where there’s a risk of dog poo
• Each and every shop selling ladies’ lingerie
• Any winter beach where your shivering
concession is, ‘OK, you may play by the waves, but
just don’t get wet!’
• The quiet coach on a commuter train
• A doctor’s appointment involving ‘womanly
bits’
*Although I have it on good authority that this is infinitely
preferable to being stuck inside a capsule with a ‘wailing-for-awee’
girl: the swift downing of a bottle of Evian results in a
receptacle entirely appropriate for a barely visible boy pee.
Essential strategies for living with boys’ bits
• Install industrial drains with minimal U-bends.
• Ration toilet paper.
• Indoctrinate boys early on that the loo seat stays
down.
• Put laminate down in the bathroom. Actually,
throughout the house.
• Ensure that your boys have both hands on top
of the duvet before you embark on a bedtime
story.
• Buy one of those weird-looking ping-pong balls
witha funny face on it and pop it in the loo. It will
confuse the hell out of the MOGs, but your lads
will love it!
• If at all possible, invest in an en suite.
• Accept that pulling down your pants means the
same to a male as a ‘high five’ does to his female
friends.
family focus
• Willies are wonderful and farting is funny. No,
really. They are.
Ten entirely empirical and irritatingly
stereotypical reasons why it’s marvellous
being a MOB
• The needs of a lad are simple and
straightforward: exercise, discipline, lunacy and
love. Oh, and a neverending supply of Scooby
snacks.
• You’ll always be in profit at a ‘Pick your own’.
Although, of course, they may not let you come
back.
• Boys are fascinated, not horrified, by your
cellulite and wrinkles.
• You can tickle a boy until he pees his pants. And
he’ll still come back for more.
• One day he’ll bend down and kiss the top of your
head. He may even wipe his nose before he does
so.
• No hair bands. No grips. No plaits. Nits. Need I
say more?
• Your boy can go almost anywhere with an outofbed
head. And still look lovely.
• What you spend at the supermarket, you’ll get
back on clothes.
• You’ll never have to read Milly-Molly-Mandy
again and realise how rubbish it actually was.
Probably.
• OK, OK, so you’ll never have the stripy tights. But
then again, you’ll never have to get them on to her
when she’s still wet from swimming, will you? I rest
my case.
Extracted from Hannah Evans latest book entitled
MOB Rule. www.bloomsbury.com.
Carol Farley is a publishing consultant, publicist and
reviewer. www.farleypartnership.com.
www.roundandaboutssh.co.uk HASLEMERE & VILLAGES R&A x 29