I can’t wait for my kids to go back to school – but I dread the playground mafia

Facebook mothers who post gushing pictures of your children on their first day back: I KNOW what you're thinking. I know inside you're dancing, I know you can't wait to sling on your onesies and watch Jeremy Kyle

Children are set to return to school this week, following the summer holidays (Rex)

It's been nine long weeks. The house is a bombsite, the au pair is suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a family of Pom Bears are living down the back of the sofa and the depressed cat has been missing for days, presumed dead.

Child #2 has resorted to making weapons out of empty biro cases and nails he finds in the gutter and child #1 has decorated her room for Christmas. But tomorrow – hurrah! Hurrah! They’re going back to school!

Facebook mothers who post gushing pictures of your children on their first day back: I KNOW what you’re thinking. I know inside you’re dancing, I know you can’t wait to sling on your onesies and watch Jeremy Kyle. It’s just you, Jezza and a packet of Hobnobs from now on. It’s onesie-ing around Westfield, it’s a cheeky Domino’s at lunchtime and an afternoon spent Googling winter sun. Don’t pretend you’re sad and proud – you’re crazed with freedom and high on leftover French fancies. I KNOW.

But tonight I must prepare for war. I must lose a stone overnight and simulate two months of Barbados with a bottle of Dove Summer Glow. I will instruct my children to do two months of homework in one night. They will refuse and I will do it myself, writing left-handed to disguise my crime. I will refuse to believe Child #1 has got nits AGAIN and forbid her upon pain of death to scratch her head in front of a teacher for fear of – horror of horrors – her having to spend ANOTHER day at home. Tomorrow at the school gates the annual face-off between the parenting tribes will play out. The tribes are divided as follows:

The Smug Still Tanned

Summer is a verb, not a noun. You’ve summered in your chateau in the south of France and then summered some more in your Cornish beach-house. You’re even thinner than before the holidays in a desperate effort to stop your husband running off with the nanny. You may be over the moon to see off your beloveds at the school gates but you could never tell – a pre-term Botox boost has ensured your face gives nothing away.

You plié out of your white Range Rover Evoque, already in pilates gear – no Hobnobs or Kyle for you – you have a husband to keep and buttocks to keep pert. You’re jogging on the spot to burn off the quinoa and you’re super-stressed. A second home doesn’t build itself and your husband’s off to ANOTHER conference. Over the weekend. Poor hard-working man – still, he seems to have a spring in his step...

The Neurotics

You’ve had your children tutored all through the summer to ensure their reading age is now 95. All summer activities have been educational. Holiday highlights have included the British Lawnmower Museum and Bournemouth’s Sewage Works Tour. You make sure you personally shake the new form-teacher’s hand and consider palming them a £50 note to ensure they overlook your child’s “loveable” quirks. You’ll spend the long school hours speed-interviewing tutors and attending open days of schools your child won'’t be attending for five years and wouldn’t get into anyway.

The Class Reps

You’re already planning the design for this year’s Christmas tea towel and you’ve volunteered to digitise the entire school library system back to 1920 so you can spend even more time with your child. You are on high alert for any parking infringements and stick threatening letters on the windscreens of those who have dared to park in the drop-off bay. You are a snack Nazi. Your child comes to school with chia seeds and birch water. You feel inadequate not having a career and compensate by pretending to work for your husband.

The Shambolics

Your children are in the wrong clothes and they turn up a day late. You wonder if six is too young to send your child to school on the bus. Your son has a pirate tattoo on his forehead you haven't had time to scrub off and he’s had a Krispy Kreme doughnut for breakfast. You’ve had two. The happy pills aren’t working anymore and God knows you need the sugar.

The Working Mothers

You barely look up from your iPhone 7 (you were on the waiting list) as you push your child through the gates. You glare enviously at the Smug Still Tanneds and email your PA to book you an emergency St Tropez in your six-minute free slot at 16.42. You have no idea who your child’s teacher is this year or which year your child is actually in. You can’t remember why you thought a career was a good thing. You consider throwing yourself under the 08.35 but remember you have a pre-meeting about a meeting. You cry on the tube into your flat white for being a terrible mother. You buy your child 10 packs of Haribo at the station to compensate for your guilt. You eat six of them in the loo at work.

But let us look on the bright side. Soon we will all have eight hours of glorious freedom, five days a week. Jeremy Kyle is waiting. And there’s only 109 shopping days till Christmas.