Qualifications that would have been more useful than a history degree

So, after almost four years I’m finally writing another blog post. I thought (naïvely?) that because my three boys were all playing in the bedroom that I would have time to write a quick post. But, of course, as all parents know, as soon as I sat down, they all appeared.

But anyway, if I ignore the constant stream of questions (how can you push on the buttons so quickly? what does this one do? what are you writing?…) and the fact that I have a very warm 2 year-old with tickly hair between me and the keyboard, I might actually be able to get this done.

I often feel as a stay at home mother of 2, 4, 6 and 8 year-olds that my choice of higher education qualification may not have been the most useful. Having a history degree may have equipped me with a multitude of “soft skills” but, somewhat surprisingly, the ability to draft a well-argued essay using a number of primary and secondary sources isn’t actually that helpful when dealing with four young children. Strange.

NB I am deliberately not including the French part of my degree because, having a French husband, living in French-speaking Switzerland and having children who do French homework, a French degree is actually pretty useful.

However, there are many, many qualifications that would be more practical. Here are the ones I can think of:

Dressmaking

Mainly, but not exclusively, because having three boys means I spend a significant amount of time sewing up holes in trousers. I can see why boys were kept in shorts until they were seven or eight back in the day. Knees repair themselves, trousers do not.

I’m also now a devoted customer of my local second-hand clothes shop.

Hairdressing

To avoid being bankrupted by children’s haircuts, I have subjected my children on several occasions to a home haircut. Unfortunately, even after four years’ experience and watching all the YouTube tutorials I can get my hands on, the boys still end up looking like William the Conqueror, or bald. (I do have photographic evidence but I’m not going to share it because I think they would never forgive me.)

Nursing

I think this is self-explanatory – children are basically poorly from October to April.

Negotiation

It starts with trying to get your baby to sleep, develops into begging your bundle of joy to stay still while you change his nappy, moves through the standard won’t eat/ wrong colour plate/ won’t walk/ won’t go in the buggy/ won’t get dressed delight of 18 months – 5 years and continues into bribing/threatening your delightful child to do homework, get up for school, etc… I’m eagerly awaiting the new challenges that adolescence will throw up.

Conflict resolution

Linked to negotiation, with four children all with *ahem* strong characters, there are a lot of verbal and physical fights. I feel like my standard responses of “I don’t care”, “I don’t want to know” or even the slightly more engaged “play nicely” and “say sorry to each other”, could probably be improved upon.

Nutrition

Every week I plan meals for the next seven days. It is possibly the job I hate the most. Balancing likes and dislikes*, intolerances, nutritional needs and practical considerations, like whether it’s suitable for a lunchbox or how quickly it can be eaten, completely kills any creativity or inspiration. And then chances are that nobody will eat it anyway…

*This is actually impossible as children can change their preferences halfway through a meal let alone 7 days in advance.

Teaching

Not just during pandemic homeschooling but just for homework (or even trying to control the kids… I only have four and it’s chaos, how can teachers manage 30+?). Being trained in making learning fun, explaining things clearly and having some sort of authority could only be a benefit, surely?

As an aside, I strongly disagree with homework at primary school age – when I was little I did times tables, reading and spellings – when did this change?

Psychology

Am I traumatizing my child with too many rules? Not enough rules? Does my child have ADHD? Pathological avoidance disorder? Or do they just have a lot of energy and dislike doing as they’re told? In a nutshell, is this normal???!!!

On second thoughts, maybe just blocking Google could solve this particular problem.

Engineering

Civil or mechanical – I build train tracks, construct Duplo houses, make Lego creations and fix anything that needs fixing, including remote control cars and walkie talkies.

Bookbinding

On the subject of repairs, I have sellotaped approximately 9485873459873459873459 books in my 8 years as a mother.

Driving licence

I know most people just get one of these as soon as they can anyway but I didn’t and it would *definitely* have been more useful than a degree in history and French when we were living in British Columbia.

(I can now drive after many, many, many hours of lessons and practice and failing two tests… I wouldn’t say I’m a natural.)