Cinderella thinks live in my house. She isn’t as helpful as the films make out…

New Year 2016 — Teenage Queenie wants more shoes.

She has, in my opinion, a pretty good number of shoes for a girl who has grown 2 shoe sizes in 12 months. Flipflips, strappy low wedges, wellingtons, almost brand new Nikes that cost a fortune but she only wears in the garden after finding out they are not cool at her current school, and a 12 month old pair of vans that have become a little scruffy and are probably getting abit small for her. More recently she had new “daytime” ankle boots, as the heel on her slightly older “smart” ankle boots makes it hard to walk on icey paths, and in August she had a pair of white converse for our summer holiday. Oh and she has two pairs of school shoes, as the nice leather pair she’s originally chosen in September had been discarded when a “friend” told her they gave her “man feet”.

However all these are not enough for our teenage Imelda Marcos and she wanted new Vans, for wearing out and for PE at school, because her Converse are white and have gotten too dirty to wear (and “no-one” wears Nikes). I pointed out she could you know, clean the Converse… but apparently the feel of the brush against the fabric makes her feel sick. More likely the idea of putting some effort anything makes her feel like going back to bed. I love her, she has many amazing qualities including being strong, confident and kind, but boy is she a lazy mare.

Sensibly she didn’t even try to get us to buy her new Vans. With her being well into adult size (her feet are 3 sizes larger than mine) the brand name footwear she wants isn’t cheap and she had been given a generous clothing allowance just prior to Christmas which had disappeared in a flurry of woollens and party clothes.

Shopping we go and she purchased her new Vans with her Christmas money. We stopped to have food. Queenie lists all the things she has seen today and now needs. Husband and I look at each other. She has just spent ALL her Christmas money, we are skint after doing our best to spoil the girls for Christmas, and this huge list of things she “needs” are all just wants — MAC false eyelashes, Nails Inc glitter polish, that River Island Tshirt, etc etc.

I try to keep my voice calm as I point out that she could have used the Christmas cash for those things instead of the Vans. She retaliates loudly, in a tone that implies she is hard done by — “Well I couldn’t, I’ve had to buy myself new trainers for PE”

I am so angry, as is hubby, that we make excuses to go home as soon as we finish the food. She doesn’t mean to be ungrateful, 18 months ago she came to us without a single brand name item, all her shoes and trainers were from Shoezone and her clothes from Primark and Asda. But she WANTS WANTS WANTS relentlessly and it is grating.

As we travel home in silence, save for Queenie cooing over her Vans, I wonder if Cinderella complained to her Godmother that she needed new glass slippers because hers were a bit grubby after the prince let loads of other girls try them on.