Girls

The picture shows Number Two Daughter’s newest career progression.

She has been transferred from the dumper truck to the bulldozer.

I am very pleased and proud, obviously. It is lovely to see the children getting on in the world.

This has been a topic of some discussion in our household lately. Whatever criticisms might be levelled at my style of parenting, and indeed there are many, ask the children, I do not think that I can be accused of producing shrinking violets.

For the benefit of anybody who might have forgotten, I have three daughters, one of whom is a sergeant in the PT Corps and international athlete. The second is currently boosting her income driving a bulldozer and is actually in demand as an instructor at ski resorts all over the world. The third is earning money as hired muscle before she has even left school, is qualified to train people in unarmed combat, and is about to embark on a career as a policewoman.

It is as if they have never heard of equal opportunities. They have all got on and jumped for the stars without even stopping to consider that girls have got a glass ceiling on which they might conceivably bash their heads. The only times they have bashed their heads have been when they have got into fights, occasionally with each other.

Obviously I think that this is splendid.

However, lately I have started to consider that my own story is not much like theirs. There are all sorts of things that I can’t do, because obviously in the nineteen seventies the world was entirely different. Equal opportunities were just beginning to take shape, but still, realistically, most girls probably aspired to be nurses or teachers. The organised and sensible might possibly choose something administrative, like being a bank clerk, or, for the gently inclined, there was always some branch of social care. It didn’t much matter really, because we all knew that having babies would happen in the end, which would mostly be the end of that.

Knowing myself as I do now, I am not surprised that I have remained unemployed. I think it is more than apparent that I would have been utterly rubbish at absolutely all of those things, even without babies.

When I started work things were really very different. I have been asked, by cynical job interviewers, how on earth I would manage to come to work if one of the children were sick. The world has changed now, and it is brilliant. All the same, I am beginning to think that I might have lagged behind.

There are lots and lots of things that I have never done.

Hence this morning, when I booked Oliver and Mark on to their practice clay shoot next week, I have booked places for me and for Lucy as well.

I have never used a gun. That is rubbish, when you consider that our household has had guns of all descriptions for years.

Oliver and Mark need to do some shooting practice, because they have got a Fathers And Sons clay shooting competition at school in a few weeks. It seems that Oliver’s school has not really got to grips with the idea of girls yet. They have got Matron, who is handy if anybody has a sore knee or earache or any emotions, but she does not do shooting. Neither do mummies, who probably can’t because of the handbags and high heels.

Obviously I don’t want to make a fuss at school, because actually I think it is brilliant that fathers and sons do stuff together. I don’t mind in the least that it is a Boys Own thing.

Lucy and I can’t do the shooting competition, but we can jolly well learn to shoot anyway.

I have booked us all in for a clay pigeon shooting lesson next week.

I think this is very exciting.

I still can’t drive a bulldozer, but I might have a go at Mark’s digger. I have never driven that either, being a girl. He did teach me to drive a tractor, years ago, but I have forgotten that now, I would have to start all over again. I am not sure that I would recognise a set of chain harrows any more.

We will get to that.

For today I have booked myself on to a shooting lesson.

That is a good start.