Mary Killen Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 4 September 2010

Your problems solved

issue 04 September 2010

Q. My teenage son, who has started a new school, wants to bring some friends to stay over an exeat. He is keen not to alienate these new friends by appearing to have overly authoritarian parents, but I have reason to believe they will bring mobile telephones to the table and will assume they may make and receive calls during dinner. How can I impose the normal rule of any civilised household without embarrassing my son?

A.S., address withheld

A. Informants tell me your house is particularly grand. Where this is the case, the parent figure usually has no trouble. It has been observed that teenagers will rise to the occasion, just as created peers used to in the old House of Lords. In less grand houses the parent figure still has the option of the ‘mobile basket’, a concept familiar in all boarding schools. Pupils are used to having their mobiles taken from them at bedtime and stored in a multi-sectioned storage basket till morning.

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