Parent life / Classroom pets · 2012 and 2017
The class hamster has booked your weekend
Your child sees a special treat. You see a small guest whose entire class expects them back.
Fluffy had a booking system.
Fluffy was the hamster in Amber Class at Telford Infant School in Leamington Spa. In September 2017, the school told parents that weekend visits would be allocated through a schedule on the classroom door. First come, first served. There was demand.
The letter also said that declining was absolutely fine. I admire the thoughtfulness of putting that in writing. It is useful to have documentary support when your child has already decided this is the best idea anyone has ever had.
Picture yourself beside the sign-up sheet. A small person is looking up at you with enormous confidence in your ability to accommodate a hamster. You are trying to remember what else is happening that weekend. The small person considers this unnecessary. Whatever is happening could surely happen with a hamster nearby.
You sign. Your child has secured a distinguished visitor. You have acquired homework.
On Mumsnet in 2012, two parents had approached this prospect from rather different directions. One welcomed the chance for children without pets to learn some responsibility; their class had supplied a consent form and an introduction to care. Another dreaded being asked to host over weekends or holidays, worrying that something might happen to the animal on their watch.
They were responding to the same general idea. One saw an opportunity. The other saw the Monday-morning explanation.
I have considerable sympathy with the second parent. It is possible to like a small animal very much while preferring not to be the person temporarily answerable for it.
And children can make responsibility sound wonderfully straightforward when they are asking permission. In the imagined negotiation, they will do everything. You need only agree. This is a generous offer from somebody who may still require a reminder to bring their own water bottle home.
Now imagine the guest installed and the instructions being read. Your child is absorbed. An ordinary movement inside the habitat is apparently worth announcing to the room. You have been summoned to look at something you have just looked at, and, to your surprise, you don't entirely mind.
The hamster has brought remarkably little luggage for someone who now occupies most of your attention.
You began by wondering whether there was room in the weekend for a hamster. Now, in this imagined household, you are being called away from perfectly good coffee because the hamster has moved.
The classroom door has a schedule. Next time, you may wish to consult your calendar before your child gets there.