Hello and welcome to the English Like A Native podcast.
My name is Anna and you're listening to week 34, day 5 of Your English Five A Day, the second season.
I'm here every day of the working week, that's Monday to Friday, to help you in building your habit of daily dunking into the English language.
Little steps on a regular basis can take you a very long way.
Now, all week we have been looking at different items of vocabulary, and today we're going to bring it all together and review with one big story.
This is a personal story and I do hope that you will find it interesting and entertaining.
So let's begin. caught short, a mum on the edge.
It was the fifth baking hot day in a row and I was clinging to my sanity by a thread.
You know the kind of day I mean.
The air felt thick and sluggish.
My clothes were sticking to me.
And the children?
Oh the children were cranky, tired and loud, very loud.
The end of term was approaching and I was spinning so many plates.
I felt like a circus act on the verge of disaster.
Between teacher gifts, planning summer camps, confirming after school clubs for next term, arranging childcare, juggling finances, coordinating holidays to avoid paying triple the price, plus trying to tie up all the loose ends at work, I was done.
Absolutely spent.
Every day had become a relentless checklist of must-dos and still-to-dos.
And how did I forget that agains?
My inbox was overflowing, my calendar double-booked, and my to-do list had to-do lists.
I couldn't remember the last time I sat down with a hot cup of tea that stayed hot.
So, of course, that day, that glorious Wednesday, was the day I forgot to buy groceries.
School pickup had been chaotic.
My eldest had misplaced his water bottle and was melting in the heat.
My youngest had lost a sock, don't ask me how, and was very upset about it.
I bundled them into the car with promises of air conditioning and dinner.
And I thought, right, quick supermarket dash, in and out, grab something for tea, done.
Famous last words.
The moment we stepped into the shop, it began.
The moaning, the dragging of feet, the huffing and puffing and flopping onto the floor.
I'm tired.
I'm hot.
This shop smells weird.
And then came the dreaded.
Mum, I need the toilet.
Of course they did.
Ten minutes earlier, outside the school gates, I had asked very clearly very kindly, Does anyone need the toilet?
Before we go.
Two little angelic heads shook in unison.
Nope.
Well, that aged well.
Now, here we were in the middle of a small, rather cramped supermarket and both children were hopping from foot to foot, like they were auditioning for a river dance revival.
I reminded them calmly but through gritted teeth that I had asked at school.
They didn't need it then.
Now they'd have to wait.
Meanwhile, I began grabbing the first semi-coherent collection of dinner items I could find.
A packet of pasta, a tin of something, a wilting cucumber.
Who knows?
My only mission was to get them home before someone had an accident in the bread aisle.
At the till, my youngest, just four, was turning an alarming shade of pink.
He clutched himself and whimpered, Mummy, I really can't wait.
My heart sank.
I turned to a member of staff, hopeful, pleading.
Excuse me, is there a loo we could use?
My little one's, well, he's four.
He's desperate.
The lad looked at me, then at the child doing the potty dance beside me, and shook his head.
No customer toilet.
Stuffed toilets off limits.
No empathy.
No, let me check.
Just a firm, bureaucratic no.
I could feel a wave of heat rising from my chest to my cheeks.
But I hadn't time to argue.
I tapped my card, grabbed the shopping and we dashed outside.
And here's the thing.
I'm a rule follower, a proper good girl.
I don't jump queues.
I don't park in parent spaces if I don't have the kids.
I don't cross the road before the green man.
Every bone in my body resists doing anything that could be frowned upon.
But then i looked at my boy.
His face was scrunched up in agony.
He was writhing like a worm on a hook, trying with all his might to hold it in.
That was it.
Time to abandon dignity.
There were no public toilets nearby.
The nearest one was a ten minute drive away and we didn't have ten minutes.
We barely had ten seconds.
So I did what had to be done.
I ushered him to a small corner of the car park just behind my car next to a scruffy little tree.
I checked the coast was clear, crouched beside him and whispered, go on love, it's okay.
And as he began, relief flooding his face, I heard it.
Oh, charming!
A voice like vinegar.
I turned to see her.
An older woman, neatly dressed, handbag clutched under her armpit, face twisted in utter disgust.
She was glaring at us as if we'd committed a crime.
He's only four, I said, trying to stay calm.
We didn't have much choice, I'm afraid.
He had to relieve himself.
Disgusting, she spat, with all the venom of someone who's never been caught short in her life.
And something snapped.
The woman didn't know me, didn't know the week I'd had, didn't know how close to the edge I was.
That I was drowning in admin and expectations, trying to be everything to everyone and failing at remembering toilet trips.
She didn't know that I had pushed past every discomfort, broken every rule in my personal code of conduct just to help my child avoid humiliation.
But none of that mattered.
In her eyes, I was scum.
Filth.
A bad mother.
It was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I squared up, not aggressively but firmly, and said What exactly do you expect me to do with a four-year-old who's about to wet himself in the middle of a shop?
No answer, just another scowl.
She climbed into her battered old car and sped off, leaving a cloud of fumes and indignation behind her.
And there I stood, red in the face, shaking with rage.
My little boy beside me, trousers now pulled up, utterly confused.
Why was that lady shouting, mummy?
Oh, love.
We sat in the car for a while, the aircon blowing full blast, the silence heavy.
I didn't cry, not then, but the shame stuck.
Her words rang in my ears for days.
Disgusting.
And yet, what was disgusting?
Because if I'd had a dog and my dog had relieved itself in the exact same spot, she wouldn't have batted an eyelid.
But a child?
Cue the public shaming, the moral outrage.
Motherhood, I've found, is full of these moments.
Caught between doing what's right and what's acceptable, between your instinct to protect and society's obsession with appearances.
That day I learnt something.
Sometimes survival trumps dignity.
Sometimes doing right by your child means breaking the rules.
Sometimes you get shamed and you have to hold your head high anyway.
And sometimes just sometimes you need to advantage others by telling a story like this so that the next mum spinning plates and juggling deadlines knows she's not alone.
Because motherhood is ambitious work, demanding more than any job description could ever capture.
It's over and above what most people will ever see.
And the harshest rivals aren't other parents but the judgmental strangers who jump the gun with their criticism before knowing the full story.
I do hope you enjoyed hearing about my experience and I hope you've enjoyed this week overall.
Remember, you can get more from your listening experience by becoming a plus member and activating that knowledge within our community.
I'll leave a link to learn more in the show notes.
Until next week, take care and goodbye.
