Sitting on the train, I desperately texted my husband, Tom. ‘Is she OK?’ I asked.
After a couple of minutes, he replied. ‘The bleeding has stopped and she’s calmed down. I’ll give her a bottle of milk and hopefully she’ll fall asleep soon.’
I felt sick to my stomach. Just as I was getting ready to go out with friends, my nine-month-old baby, Immy, had tried to pull herself up in the bath, before falling with a thud. Catching the side of the bath, her little chin had started bleeding immediately.
As I scooped her into my arms and tried to soothe her tears, I’d decided immediately to cancel on my friends. Despite spending the day deciding what I was going to wear and applying blusher and eyeshadow for the first time in weeks, I just wanted to stay at home with my baby and make sure she was all better.
But, as Tom pointed out, my friends and I had had the night booked in for weeks and we’d chosen a restaurant on our side of town. Plus, we’d all agreed not to stay late, as it was a work night.
‘You’ll only be gone for a couple of hours,’ he reminded me. ‘She’ll be fine.’
So I sent a photo of the cut to a doctor friend, who assured me she wouldn’t need stitches, put on my heels and left the flat.
But as I sat on the train, I felt as wobbly as Immy had still looked when I’d kissed her goodbye. I rarely went out now that I had her and her big brother, Theo, and I wished that – on one of the few occasions I was – she hadn’t injured herself.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ I apologised, when I found my friends already at a table. ‘Immy cut her chin open just as I was leaving.’
I’d concluded, just because I was obsessed over my not-so-new little bundles, my conversation didn’t have to be
As they all expressed concern, I smiled and wafted my hand. ‘I’m sure she’s fine. Anyway, how are you all?’
You see, because although my little girl and her poorly chin was the only thing I could think about, I’d forbidden myself long ago to talk more than a few minutes about either her or Theo.
Ever since I’d become a mum, I was painfully self-conscious of simultaneously becoming a mum-bore. You know, the type of parent who only talks about the contents of her baby’s nappies or how much milk they managed at their last feed or how amazing they were at rolling over/sitting up/sofa-surfing.
I knew the clichés – often mocked on TV programmes and social media – of how people got married, had a baby and either left their friends in the dust, or became so self-obsessed with their ‘new family life’ that their friends did the same to them.
The thing was, I had changed as a person. Although I may have looked the same on the outside (give or take half a stone), inside I felt completely different. My children were all I could think about, they were the most important things to me.
Plus, being on maternity leave meant I had very little else going on in my life besides them – at that point, I didn’t really have that wide a range of conversation.
But I loved my friends and I didn’t want our relationship to change. So, I’d concluded, just because I was obsessed over my not-so-new little bundles, my conversation didn’t have to be.
Looking back, it’s clear this was my issue, not theirs. They always asked about my little ones, cooed appropriately over their most recent pictures and were never the first to change the subject.
So even on the night when I couldn’t wait to get home to check on my little girl, I barely talked about her. Instead, I asked how work was going, who everyone was dating, where everyone was going on holiday, all the while staying silent about my inner turmoil.
And it wasn’t just with friends, I did the same thing at work too. Even on my first day back after having Theo – as I’d had to physically force myself to step onto the train that would take me further away from him than I’d ever been before – I allowed myself just a few minutes of answering anyone’s questions, then threw myself into the usual work chat, catching up with everyone else.
Yet as the months passed, I realised that no other topic of conversation was censored with my friends – or colleagues. I’d listen for hours about what friends of friends were up to, how annoying flatmates were, the latest thing my mate’s dreadful boss had done.
I didn’t care that I’d never met these people, or that my friend had been talking about them for a good 15 minutes. I was listening because I care about what was important to them, what was going on in their life.
And I also noticed, the less I brought my children up, the less people asked. Which actually started to grate. I showed so much interest in their lives, why were they not showing the same interest in mine?
But why would they, when I barely brought them up myself?
So slowly, I started introducing Theo and Immy into the conversation more. What they were doing at nursery, what their latest words were. And obviously, my friends didn’t roll their eyes or glaze over. Not visibly anyway.
I’d never doubted they would but suddenly my worries of being a mum-bore seemed completely ridiculous.
Of course, mums could talk about their babies. Why would they not?! Children are no more boring a topic of conversation than any other.
There is so much pressure on women to be ‘everything’ but being a mum is often degraded, viewed as being less note-worthy, the bottom of the pile. We’re expected to work – and play – as if our children don’t exist.
Now – as the fact that I have this column suggests – I won’t be keeping quiet about my children anymore. They’re by no means my sole topic of conversation still, but now I let them be a part of it.
Because even though I’m not a mum-bore, I am still a mum.
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