The head-peckers
They are like wood-peckers – constantly pecking on the side of your head:
“I want to know what YOU are going to do to make MY life happier.”
- when are you going to give me my allowance? I need money or else I cannot go out
- I need a lift or else I’ll have to walk, will be killed and it will be your fault
- when are you going to spend more time at home? You are supposed to be a wife/mother/daughter, not a business owner
- I need a pay-rise because I cannot afford my lifestyle
- I need money for a school trip or else I will be the only one of our class who doesn’t go
- I cannot survive on 45%, I need a 50% contract or else I will have to look elsewhere
- I need to put my lab fees up
- I need you to reduce your overdraft or else the bank’s Head Office will withdraw your funding
- I need my dinner – I’m hungry
- I need more new patients or else my income will go down
- I need you to have a word with that associate because he is driving the girls round the bend
- I need a clean shirt for the office tomorrow
- I need you to let me have all the paperwork to prepare your accounts or else you will have a late-filing charge
- I need you to prepare for a big tax bill
- I need you to go on another post-graduate course or else you will fall behind
- I need sex or else I won’t feel good about myself
(best personal coaching I ever had – men need sex to feel good, women need to feel good to want sex)
- I need to go home because I’m feeling ill – you will have to get cover or else I will puke over the next patient
- Teacher says I need to take in a model of the Eiffel Tower made from lolly sticks by tomorrow morning
(and that was Monday – God knows what Tuesday will bring)
The reality is that head-peckers know all about X-Women.
They know that X-Women are compulsive helpers and will always pull a magical solution out of the hat – because you cannot live with yourself without solving ALL the problems placed before you each day.
So if you make it clear to the world that you are a committed X-Woman – the head-peckers will line up and start tapping.
Is it any wonder you wake at 03:00 and cannot get back to sleep?
*An excerpt from The Female Principal manuscript by Chris Barrow – to be published as an ebook later in 2014