Good morning and welcome to the Mummy Pick Up & Drop Off service. I’m the chief operating officer cum chief pick up girl here. The job description fits me to the tee as I am always picking up things — clothes from the laundry, toys from the floor, soap from the bathroom basin, child from swimming class, bus stop, playdate, skating class and so on.
Mother and kid on bike. file pic: Raghavan Kandala
We welcome all sorts of applicants as long as they have spawned at least one offspring, possess a reasonable ability to be on their toes for the large part of the day, have a suitably haggard appearence while trying to appear cool and collected in standard ‘Mummy Chic’, i.e., loose kurti/long top and slacks/capri. Please note that at least one of the above garments need to have pockets to carry napkins, house keys, car keys, wallet, lollipops and so on.
Applicants also need to be good multitaskers and skilled in one-handed operations such as folding stroller while holding baby, bag and other paraphernalia, feeding banana while speaking to other moms and instructing maid at home over the phone, typing an email while reading bedtime stories to child, skateboarding while balancing the child on one hand and four tea cups in another. Ok so I made the last one up but I am quite sure there is some super multitasking mother somewhere in the world who can do just that.
For details regarding timings, rates and job satisfaction about the Pick up Service you could speak to some mommies themselves. They are found quite easily in parks, school bus stops and these days in summer near the swimming, art, craft, tennis and a million other camps.
The perks of the job include almost nothing, unless you count hanging around aimlessly or finishing up your grocery shopping while junior does his training as a perk. Be warned that the job also has a good ability to play havoc with your mind as the brat whines about not wanting to go for Karate class, making you wonder if you are being the pushy mommy type. So you pull him out of it only to have him complain that AAAAAAALL his friends go for Karate and he is the only one left out. This of course makes you wonder yet again if you are a good mommy at all and if you understand your child.
Our suggestion: Do not think. It interferes with the core job on hand which is to be pick up/shuttle service for child during summer vacations, along with other unsaid but built in responsibilities like being the in-house chef, emergency playmate, boredom reliever and anytime cleaning service. With such a massive job profile, when is the time to think?⊕