Is It Just Me? (27 page)

Finally, Type Four will pass a lot of her time attempting to make friends with other mothers via activity groups. Sample phrase: ‘I’ve had this amazing idea! Percussion for Parents. Week one – castanets. We shake it all out, and the toddlers dance. Like we’re a Spanish village!’

Now, I worry I may have painted you a rather bleak picture. If so, forgive me. I am merely an observer. I appreciate the deep and wonderful rewards of parenthood and genuinely admire all you parents. You’re capable of enduring trials I can’t even begin to fathom, which is why I have yet to bow to the societal pressures of the need to breed. Thereby so far avoiding the horrors of parenthood, which I will forever be in awe of. If nothing else, telling your children about the birds and the bees.

Every parent must dread this moment. I firmly believe that there is no right answer to the question, ‘Mummy, where do babies come from?’ In the course of my aforementioned rigorous and scientific research, I have come across the following answers:

‘Babies come from the love between a man and a woman which happens when the lights are out and everybody’s feeling nice.’
(This child is likely to develop a fear of the dark.)

‘Babies are made by a special hug which mummies and daddies do when they get married without any clothes on.’
(This child will grow up wondering why people bother to dress for weddings.)

‘Well, Mummy and Daddy do what the guinea-pig sometimes does to the rabbit when he’s cross, except they both want to do it, and they do it because they love each other, not just because they’re in the same cage and they’re confused.’
(This child will be unpacking that in therapy for years.)

No, really, parents, I respect you enormously. If there were no parents in the world, then I would not exist (which would, of course, be the most dreadful of tragedies). I have the deepest of deep respects for you all. And if I do decide to take the leap, I’m not sure I’d make the grade. Talking of which, I should, if you don’t mind, take this opportunity to formally tell eighteen-year-old Miranda that we don’t actually have children yet. Wish me luck . . .

Ahem . . .

^*
Little Miranda stirs herself from a deep, sugary, post-Arctic-Roll nap
^*
Wha –? Oh, hello. What do
you
want?

Don’t be grumpy with me, young lady.

Excuse me; you are NOT my mother. Please go and mother your own children and leave me be.

How pertinent. I rather cut short our earlier conversation to talk about extreme motherhood. But it’s now high time that I swept in on the matter of children. So here I am a-sweeping. Watch my grown-up wisdom sweeping at you. Look at me sweep . . .

Get on with it.

Soz. Little Miranda, I have to tell you that at the age of thirty-eight, we remain childless.

WHAT? But that’s . . . IMPOSSIBLE. I’ve made a plan. I made it with Podge, Milly and Clare-Bear three years ago at break when we were making a cat’s cradle out of red liquorice laces. AND I explicitly explained it to the careers officer. We’re going to meet someone when we’re twenty-three, having set up a business; marry them when we’re twenty-five, then we’ll spend a year or two being really successful at our careers, then settle down and have three babies called Jason, Kylie and Donovan.

I see. Well, the thing is . . .

I don’t think you
do
see. It’s all mapped out.

Please stop interrupting. You are very interrupty today.

Interrupty isn’t a word. I might have barely passed English GCSE but I know that interrupty isn’t a word . . .

Well, actually, umm . . . in the last twenty years it has been declared a word, by . . . er . . . Angela Rippon.

Really?

Yup. So, if I may continue my wise sweep . . .? I’m here to tell you that it’s a good thing we don’t have children. We’re happy.

HOW are we happy? Everyone has children. It’s the rules. And how does your husband feel about this?

Ah, yes, well, we don’t actually quite have a husband yet, either.

Have we been in PRISON? Have we spent the last twenty years in prison? Because that’s the only possible explanation for the life you currently appear to be leading.

No, we have not. I think you’ll find that I’m a bright, sociable, erudite woman (say nothing, MDRC) and, as a bright, sociable erudite sort of woman (again, shush), over the years you’ll be bound to accumulate a fair bundle of friends. And, over time, a large number of them will have their own children. Which often results in being given the joy and honour of becoming a godparent. In my case, thrice over, if you please.

Why would anyone ask YOU to be a godparent?

I have a theory about this. Any one child has, on average, three godparents. And out of those three, one will be rich, one will be wise, and the third will be the ‘pity godparent’ – the sad one that the parents sort of felt they had to ask, to perk up their otherwise seemingly meaningless life.

And you are –?

WISE. I’m the wise one, obviously.

Say something wise, then.

Oh – uh – all right, umm . . . ‘The river which runs the deepest . . . also runs . . . uh – the . . . nicest.’

Hmm . . .

No, no, wait. ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket because . . . you might spill milk . . .’ No, hang on, hang on – ‘Don’t count your chickens before . . . you’ve looked at a gift horse . . .’ OK, right, I know, I know . . . ‘Never go to the supermarket when you’re hungry.’ There you go. Doesn’t get wiser than that. Fact.

You’re the pity one.

I’m the wise one, I tell you.
Wise
.

You’re deluded. You could be standing at the font between Donald Trump and the Dalai Lama and you’d still think you were the ‘wise’ one. Anyway, what’s so marvellous about being a godparent? It sounds dweeby to me.

Loads of things. First and foremost – you get to give them back. Did you hear me? You can give the children back. Joy. Brilliant. The minute the child cries, you immediately hand it straight back to it’s mother in a swift rugby pass manoeuvre (although do make sure the baby isn’t at any point airborne, as it turns out that isn’t funny). Godparenting has all the perks of being a parent without any of the bother. I mean, I love children, but after a while I simply can’t bear being with them . . . Oh, come on, it’s what we all think! Children, with all their jumping and shouting and wobbly teeth and silly handwriting. If I wanted to spend time with a bunch of kids who think the height of good taste is picking their bogies with a teaspoon, I’d go to a rugby match.

High five, good joke.

Thanks. I do, of course, love spending time with my godchildren. After all, you can buy them presents that you, basically, want to play with yourself. Wicked pirate outfits. Scalextric. Subbuteo men. Toy post offices that you can just fit in even at thirty-eight (though, disappointingly, you do need to remove the roof). But this doesn’t stop me pretending to be the postmistress. Once in, you can write fake letters to the Queen and the Pope and your favourite musical theatre actresses (NB: do make sure your godchildren don’t put a real stamp on said letters. Ruthie Henshall must have been confused by a few of her recent letters.)

So, feeling any better about godparent-hood, Little Miranda?

Maybe a little.

If it helps, you also get to do babysitting. Babysitting’s brilliant. Obviously I’m talking about the kind of babysitting where the children are soundly asleep in bed before you arrive, and all you actually have to do is watch television, which somehow feels rather illicit and thrilling because you’re doing it in someone else’s house. Then there’s the hallowed babysitting phrase . . . wait for it . . . ‘Please do help yourself to anything in the fridge.’
^*
Sings
^*
‘
Alleluia
,
alleluia
,
alleluia.
’ What’s the first thing we all do, after seeing the parents drive off?
Rush
to see what’s in the fridge. That’s not just me, is it? We all fall upon that fridge like a vulture. My question: how much can I eat without it being rude? My answer: all of it. She said ‘Help yourself to
anything
in the fridge.’ ‘Anything’ surely also means ‘everything’: that’s just basic language. A pound of lasagne, a twelve-man apple crumble and nine Babybels later – thank you very much.

But what about when the children are old enough to talk? Aren’t you meant to give them spiritual guidance and stuff?

Absolutely not. That is the last thing you should do. No, when they get older, it’s even better. When they’re old enough to know what you’re all about, they’ll start to view you as a visiting rock star: a desperately groovy figure with innate glamour who occasionally bursts into their humdrum, well-balanced little family life with ten sacks of Haribo and the original cast recording of
Shrek the Musical.

So that’s all there is to it? Vamping in and out with presents?

Yep. And the odd outing, which is marvellous. You can take them to places that you secretly want to go to but can’t visit by yourself. I once went to a zoo on my own in my early thirties. I was really enjoying myself before suddenly, in the marsupials enclosure, I realised that I must have looked like a woman on the edge. (The bum bag and cagoule didn’t help, sure. But both are comfortable practical attire and, I think, most unfairly tarred with the weirdo brush.) Going to establishments that are meant for children, as an adult, is a tricky life issue, I find. Even if you went to the zoo or Chessington World of Adventures or Cadbury World as one half of a couple, without children it feels a bit . . . wrong. You wonder if people are looking at you, trying to guess who’s the one being taken for a ‘special day out’. But with a child by your side, you can pretend your squeals of delight on the log flume are just to keep the kids happy.

Well, that does all sound a bit –

Perfect. It’s absolutely perfect. Don’t worry, Little Miranda. There’ll be plenty of childishness in your future. There’ll be sleepless nights and tantrums and sugar binges and little toy post offices and face painting and sing-songs and games. It just won’t be a child who’s doing them. It will be you. Wonderful, thirtysomething you.

That does actually sound OK.

It is. It really is. I mean, take this moment. Right now. As I write, it’s three o’clock in the morning. I can’t sleep, so I’m at my desk. I’m wearing pyjamas and an apron, and Marigolds. I am wearing the latter because I have decided it would be fun to eat a jelly with my hands. Yes, I am eating jelly at three o’clock in the morning, and when I’ve finished writing this chapter, I’ll have a little dance around my living room to Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown Girl’. I’ll probably knock something over, but do you know what? No one’s going to make me clear it up. I can just lollop off to bed, sleep in my jelly-stained apron till ten the next day, then scamper out wondering what fresh disaster awaits me. Life is very nice, thank you.

OK, I am convinced. Now can I go and watch
Neighbours
? Madge and Harold get together today, apparently. Urh but aah.

You may go. For I sweepeth in, and now I sweepeth out. Laters, little one.

So, MDRC, here is what I conclude on the subject of mothers and children. Firstly, that being a godparent prior to having your own children, or as a substitute, is a wonderful gift. All of the fun; none of the work.

My second conclusion is that all our well-intentioned extreme-mother-types should try to embrace a little calm. I know I speak with no authority at all on the subject, but as you know by now, I do enjoy speaking with no authority on subjects I know nothing about.

I said at the beginning of my what I call, book, that as adults we spend such vast amounts of our time worried what people think, trying to get through each day without causing a fuss, or looking like a fool. But children don’t have that worry. They’re free. They are, for that blissful time in their lives, free of all social convention and stress. So, please, please, please, don’t force them to wear the right things, eat the right things, learn and do the right things. No parent can ever get it right but, much more importantly, if you’re basically decent and kind then it’s hard to get it particularly wrong. We’ve all turned out all right – so let them play. Let them be a mess. Give them a tin of beans and a big stick and cast them loose in the backyard with an Arctic Roll.

Because, think about it – how great would it be to live life like a child, right now?
Is
it just me who, deep down, yearns to go on the swings, make dens, and wander into any old playground and find an equal-sized, willing partner for the see-saw? Imagine for a moment playing by children’s rules. If you were at a party and saw someone you liked, you could just go and hold their hand. If they then try to kiss you and you don’t like it, you can push them over. If your aunty gives you a Christmas present that you’re not too keen on, you can throw it back in her face and burst into tears. You can gallop freely. You can skip. Children have got it right. The tragedy is, none of this is permissible as an adult. Although one thing surely is – and I’ll bet you know what I’m going to say – that’s right, the
galloping
. Such fun!