Mum the Cruise Director

Gone are the days when kids could keep themselves amused with the simplest of things. I'm sure at some point I must have driven my own mother mad because I couldn't find anything to do, but not to the degree that my own children are driving me mad!

Ricky and Jack have been grounded from the X-Box today. They were asked to tidy their part of their bedroom last night, and they never did. You'd have thought I told them they weren't allowed to breathe! They were horrified to be told they had to find something to do that didn't involve computer games!

I read books. Tons of them. Some of them I read over and over again for pure enjoyment. Not my kids. Uh-huh. How dare I even suggest such a thing? Ricky seems to be the most likely out of the two little monsters to pick up a book, but I get the impression he thinks he'll be considered a geek if he reads too much. Otherwise, I think he'd take after me.

Whoever invented Playstations, X-Boxes, GameBoys and the rest of this computer genre has a lot to answer for. They've turned children into easily bored consumers who, when they can't use their electronic gizmos, expect their parents to keep them entertained. I signed up for motherhood. I didn't sign up to be a cruise director.