La chambre de mademoiselle

There comes a time when a little girl needs to make her mother understand that she's growing fast.  She knows that her mother really knows.  That she's already noticed the jeans getting shorter, and the telephone bills getting longer.  But she needs to be sure that the MESSAGE is getting through.  She decides that she no longer needs a little girl's bedroom, she needs a big girl's room.  A canvas upon which she can project her own image as that of a beautiful glamorous soon-to-be young woman!!

The first thing to be expulsed from the little girl's room, is the dolls' house.  If ever there were a symbol of childhood this is it.  The mother had made it herself, and furnished it with love and attention.  And it was played with alot but that era is now past.

So the dolls' house is evicted on to the landing,  but still the mother doesn't look like she's going into re-decorating mode.

Perhaps a little gentle stimulation... decorating magazines are left lying around, their pages strangely fallen open at pictures of beautiful sophisticated and feminine bedrooms.   Colour cards from the paint shop are regrouped in suitable complimentary tones.  Even the mother's girlfriends are made unwitting accomplices and innocently remark how exciting the bedroom project sounds, apparently not noticing the mother's surprise.

Finally the mother decides that she can play smart too.  Mind you, it's not that she doesn't like re-decorating, she loves it.  But sometimes mothers have to simultaneously play the role of she who pleases and she who disciplines.  And so it is that a deal is struck, "Here's the deal" exclaims the mother triumphant, " you improve your school work, I improve your room."  Strangely she doesn't sense her daughter's air of triumph.

You really would think that after almost 20 years as a mother, she would realise when she's been outwitted.  But no, foolishly she prefers to believe in the obedience and good intentions of a teenage daughter, and in her own cleverness.  And so she goes to bed happy in the sure knowledge that she has single-handedly found a way of motivating her beloved daughter to try a little harder at school.

To be followed...

photo.  Homes and Gardens