Playtime-out

The scene: today, our kitchen, lunchtime. I have spent the last 20 minutes making a healthy tomato-based organic vegetable soup for the toddler. She is sitting expectantly in her highchair.

Mummy: Here you go, sweetie. Yummy tomato soup.

Toddler: NO!

Mummy: Try a spoonful please.

Toddler: *Takes a spoonful. Spits it directly - literally - all over Mummy's face*

Mummy: *Wiping approximately £0.53 of organic ingredients from her face* No. Naughty. VERY naughty. Don't do that again.

Toddler: *Spits in Mummy's face again*

Mummy: If you do that again, you will have to go on the Naughty Step.

Toddler: *Delightedly* STEP! 

I decide I have to follow through. I wipe her mouth and take her to the Naughty Step for the required minute and a half.

She sits on the step, merrily swinging her legs. I go to the living room, where I can still see her, but deliberately don't make eye contact.

I sneak a peak. She is winningly smiling at me. I show her that I am not paying her any attention, by facing the other way and whistling in a nonchalant fashion.

The toddler starts whistling too. I think this is odd behaviour for a toddler. She can whistle. Is that normal? I try not to smile, and keep looking the other way. The toddler decides what I really want her to do is to sneak up on me whilst I'm "not looking". I whip my head round and catch her in the act. She thinks this is hilarious, and runs away, giggling, and sits back down on the Naughty Step.

It is actually quite funny. She starts whistling again and indicates I should look in the other direction. I do, and she sneaks up on me again. I can't help laughing. We're now playing a really fun game.

She ate Mummy's expensive Spanish tapas with manchego cheese for lunch. The organic soup will be used in one of our dinners this week.

The toddler is totally beating me at this parenting thing.

Telling the tooth

It was time to take the toddler to the dentist. All week we practised opening our mouth for the dentist. "What do you say to the dentist?" I'd ask her.

"Ahhhhh," she'd obligingly reply, with her mouth wide open.

Excellent.

Except once we arrived at the surgery, I realised that she would have no concept of this stranger as a dentist. And in fact he was more likely to say to her, "Can I have a look at your teeth?"

I thought we would rehearse this. The receptionist gave me a kindly smile. The other patients looked on approvingly.

"What do you say when the dentist asks to look at your teeth?" I asked the toddler. All eyes in the room were on her.

The toddler thought about it. I prompted her again. "What do you say when he asks to look at your teeth?"

She then shouted decisively, "NO! TEETH MINE! NO NO NO NO!"

She did not get a sticker for good behaviour.

Miss-ing the point

Yesterday the BBC published an article about whether or not calling male teachers "Sir" and female teachers "Miss" was sexist.

The accuser was a university professor, specialising in linguistics, and I have to say, I rather thought she had a point. She said that "sir" denotes knights - to me at least, it conjures images of upper-class, high status men. "Miss" on the other hand, tends to refer to junior females. The difference in status is therefore sexist.

Yes, there are probably bigger things in the world to worry about, but I thought she had a fair point. The school I went to didn't use the "sir/miss" form of address; instead we addressed teachers by their name - Mr Pearson, Ms Smith, Miss Peters, Dr Tompkins and so on. My brother's school, however - a boys' school which was the brother school to mine, did indeed use the sir/miss labelling.

Interestingly - though perhaps not definitively - whilst my school had very strong feminist ideals, his school was rather sexist.

What I was surprised about was the comments on the BBC website, from people who seemed genuinely outraged that someone had dared bring this up as an issue. Various comments suggested that Professor Sara Mills had nothing better to do, that she should "get a life" and stop her "inane drivel". Many comments said - probably correctly - that there was no difference of respect in a pupil's mind between "sir" and "miss".

But that is not the point.

"Sir" is not an equivalent to "miss". I have never been in a restaurant where TheBloke (TM) is referred to as "sir" and I am "miss"; in this case I would be "madam".

The equivalent to "miss" is "master" (which actually has its own linguistic problems, conveying authority and ownership).

In a world where women are consistently paid less than men, where they struggle to hold top positions in companies, surely it's worth looking at the language which is shaping our children's perceptions of gender before they even get into the workplace?

And even if we decide that actually, no need to bother changing it, surely, surely it's not a waste of time for a professor of linguistics to consider the question.

Nope, sorry Professor Sara Mills. The people have spoken. Get back in the kitchen, and maybe consider popping out a child or two so you can be properly fulfilled.