Opinion | Home-schooling hell and how the end of the world turned me into a bad primary school teacher, not Buffy
- Radio host Sadie Kaye struggles with the difference between a seed and a pip as she fends off her kids’ questions in a toilet-roll-less house
The schools were closed and the world had gone mad. Now we were all working from home and attempting to keep our kids entertained and educated, while trying to have a Zoom conference somewhere peaceful, like the broom cupboard. As for home-schooling, it turned out I’m quite a strict teacher. By the end of day two, I’d already given our kids 143 detentions.
Nobody saw this one coming. The trashy TV shows we watch about the apocalypse on Netflix never mention a worldwide shortage of loo roll or paper masks that at first glance look as if they’re going to provide the same level of PPE effectiveness as Sellotaping a paper plate on your nose. I’d always hoped the end of the world would forge me into some Buffy-esque, Lycra-clad, zombie-killing anti-hero, not a s*** primary school teacher.
“Mummy, how do you spell ‘fur’?” asked my boy. It’s been 0.4 nanoseconds since his last question.
“Use the dictionary, darling!” I announced airily.
“I can’t!” he whined.
“Yes, yes you can! You just look it up in the dictionary, that’s what it’s there for!” I enthused, like a demented Westworld extra.
