This morning my daughter said she thought she looked funny. “My eyes are too big and my nose too small,” she explained.

My heart shattered and I said nothing in reply but thought about how having a daughter sometimes feels like endless near death experiences spun around. How she can say something and without warning I can be shot thought time, reliving my every memory at hyper speed like a rolodex I access to try to find answers or remedies or comfort.

My brain skips though years pinpointing everything familiar to the moment, times when I was young and felt unsure. Suddenly I am 5 year old, then 7, then 14 … and finally I am back in my thirties, sitting in front of my little girl, sifting through my time travel to see if I caught any nuggets of wisdom.

I wondered how she could possibly have come to the conclusion that she looked funny, or why she was even thinking about her appearance. I thought this would all come later.

Melisande is five. She is soulful and sweet, inquisitive and mischievous, she is the most fun person to be around every second except before school. When it’s time to put on her school uniform she cries. She’s uncomfortable from the lines of her tights, she wriggles from the label in her top. Her shoes feel funny, she wants her skirt not her dress. She will not let me touch her hair.

Recently after a crying fit that lasted almost an hour about the way her tights felt and countless changes into different brands of tights, I called the school to explain why she was late. “Her tights felt funny,” was all I offered.

Most days we run across streets hand in hand, time trickling against us, perpetually late. Other times she jumps on my back and I play “Hounds of Love” from my phone and gallop and she howls and we are SO FAST and still we are late.

A few weeks ago we arrived to school greeted by a line at the gates, we joined the line and Melisande asked what was happening. “We’re early” I said. “What’s early?” she asked, confused.

It’s possible that she has a sensory issue around clothes or maybe mornings before school are, in their very nature, a stressful time but things are very different now that we’re in lockdown.

There are no tears. Melisande comes downstairs wearing a witch dress from halloween with leopard boots and a floral jacket. She wears a blue party dress with a leather biker jacket and a santa hat or a traditional Mexican dress with a princess cape.

Her choices empower her, she is happy. She takes pride in her decisions and her confidence in lockdown has blossomed. The freedom my daughter is feeling from not having to wear her school uniform is electric, she buzzes with excitement, enjoying the process of choosing each outfit depending on her feeling that day.

As she escapes school, I enter it. Home learning means I am a scheduler of lessons, a “sit in your seat,” “pay attention” shouter and I don’t know why, because we both know I don’t care if she successfully retains facts about the Great Fire of London or not.

My entry into the world of school lessons has had the opposite effect on me, I can barely be bothered to get out of my pyjamas. I bought some vintage silk pyjamas to stop me from feeling sloppy.

To be fair I never loved the school run either. I often wore hot pants and a playboy jumper and the first time I came straight from work and wearing a suit the other parents audibly gasped. They were abuzz with questions for me, confused as to why they didn’t know what I did and why I hadn’t used the school run as a chance to recite my resume.

The main reason I didn’t enjoy the school run was because of the girl that bullied Melisande. She was a pale and unlovely thing, who would be completely forgettable if not for the fact she has the voice of an earwig and used it to say mean words to make other kids feel small. Maybe it’s less the school uniform that upsets Melisande and more the school playground.

When I was at school my school uniform bugged me, too. I often wore my jumper inside out or back to front for most of the day without realizing. I customized it however I could, big splits in my skirt and denim jacket over the top. Heavy black eyeliner a signal that I was counting down the days and seconds to be free from my school (and my town and the county etc etc forever)

Which is funny because I romanticize school uniforms now. I love white tights and tartans. I collect hair bows and black Mary jane shoes. I enjoy collars and pinafore dresses.

I guess a uniform only feels good if you take pride in what it represents. I felt completely unseen at school, I didn’t belong. I slipped through the cracks and any education I did receive came from boot sale books read in place of friendships.

I can’t complain about Melisande being at home. I’m happy for school staff to be safe and I like to spend time with my daughter. I enjoy hearing her thoughts on God and her questions on death. She is wise and funny and has an answer for everything. I know it’s cliche to say but she is my teacher. My teacher wears a cardboard robot outfit one day and is dressed like a tap dancer the next, I attend lessons in bedclothes with unbrushed hair. Spending time with her is the most privileged education I could imagine.

By Lily Gutierrez