As a mother I think it’s important to leave your comfort zone every once in a while. Life can seem so small – at least for women like myself, who can survive for weeks on fodder within the seven-block radius encompassing home, the Sainsbury’s and the petting farm. If a bomb were to go off at Westminster at noon today, I might possibly read about it passing the newsagents tomorrow afternoon – provided I’m not drawn away by the baby’s disappearing dummy and the broken buggy wheel. A little perspective is nice for a change.
So when I’m invited to join friends outside cosy N16, I usually accept. Even if it means having to change my socks.
For my troubles I’m often asked to partake in a meal that doesn’t rank baked beans as a superfood. Though I’m afraid the odd bit of shop talk does, occasionally, accompany the eating of it.
Last week the conversation turned to television.
“My daughter’s gone off it,” a fellow mother remarked. “She screams when the black people come on.”
She didn’t have to tell me the reason for this, that in her corner of west London Africans are about as common as polar bears (and, I’ll assume, only marginally better understood). So I guess that rules out CBeebies for the little girl.
“And don’t even get me started on the lady with one arm.” (For the record, we met her in the playground last autumn and she was lovely.)
Many months ago I was invited to the home of a friend who’d given birth mere weeks earlier, shortly after my daughter was born. The afternoon was billed as a “new mums’ tea”, a celebration of our changing lives. Welcoming the distraction, I strapped on the sling and braved the Tube and two buses, arriving to find I was the only woman wearing flats, the only one teetotalling, the only one still carrying her baby weight – indeed, the only one still carrying a baby.
“At home with the nanny,” said one guest in response to my naive inquiry, in a tone that could have been interpreted as: well, duh! The others nodded pre-emptively, lest I send the same comic relief their way. Then they went back to their conversation about the brands of bottles nanny used to feed Master Harry or Imogen.
I joined in. “Oh, I haven’t any use for the bottle. My baby refuses to take one.”
There was a pause.
“Then how do you feed your baby?” one woman asked, her brow wanting – but refusing – to furrow.
I unsnapped my nursing bra and my daughter’s bald, three-month-old head disappeared up my shirt.
The woman laughed in her special way: “You know, it didn’t even occur to me.”
But of course.
Ellen Himelfarb is a freelance writer and mother of two. You can reach her at ellen.h@mac.com
