This article is taken from the November 2022 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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Am I genuinely the last person to be introduced to the concept of commuter kids? Literally, how did I not know about this secret racket? Probably because it’s a bit SW postcode, but still.

Anyway, it transpires that various buses take certain kids back and forth from London to minor prep schools in the shires, daily. It’s basically reverse commuting — with no horrific house move to Hampshire required. Presumably the entrance interview for a small Berkshire Prep is a damn sight easier than The Hall too. Where you basically need to be Salman Rushdie’s grandchild to get on the waiting list.

It transpires that various buses take certain kids back and forth from London to minor prep schools in the shires, daily

Apparently, Lambrook School in Windsor is a prime example. No doubt the bus will be increasingly busy now that the Cambridge children have put Lambrook on the map — having previously been a random Tonbridge/ Rugby feeder. (Side note, am I alone in studying those kids in what can only be described as a slightly creepy manner? Wondering whether George and Hector would be friends, if they were in the same class? Trying to assess whether Lyra had stronger Mary Jane game than Charlotte, at her age? I can’t be the only one.)

I told my friend Jazzy, who performatively sends her kids to state school, about these buses and she said it was “tantamount to abuse”. I agreed, obviously, while thinking how great it would be to dispense with the school run — and finally kill Will’s dreams of moving back to the Home Counties.

Jazzy didn’t get it because they spent millions moving next door to a state school in Kensal Rise where all the parents are influencers.

I then told Will about the buses, (husband, not future king) who kept saying, “But why not just have the kids board? Never did me any harm.” Which is his way of showing he’s not in denial about the trauma of boarding at seven. Not at all. On the subject of inflicting trauma on kids, Will accused me of being a cold-hearted bitch for checking into a hotel when Minnie went down with a winter vomiting bug over half term. Having established that this was not an underage hangover, and with my deadline for the new closed beta looming, I took the only sane route i.e. I ordered a load of Dettol and Dioralyte on Gorillas, and texted Minnie not to leave her room or en suite until 48 hours after the last puke.

Then I left the house. What? She’s 13-years-old, and she boards. She doesn’t need me holding her hair and inhaling her vomit molecules. Anyway Katya the au pair was there, and Will was WFH. What do they say about oxygen masks? This was oxygen mask parenting in action.

Will accused me of being a cold-hearted bitch for checking into a hotel when Minnie went down with a winter vomiting bug

Speaking of masks, this decision was mostly driven by the fact that the last time I nursed Hector through some foul gastro thing I GOT IT, despite wearing a Covid mask every time I went near him. Which, in my opinion, fully explains the pandemic. We should have all been walking our dogs in PPE! So I’m sorry, but I’m not chancing it again. Particularly since I didn’t even lose weight last time. FFS.

Brief guilt when Katya called me panicking that Minnie hadn’t sent a WhatsApp for two hours and might be dehydrated, but turned out she’d been creating a TikTok video called “when yo mum dont give a s**t that u sick”, looking ravishingly thin in my oldest Gucci T-shirt and pool slides.

I chose to reframe this as my girl wisely monetising any opportunity the universe sends her way.