As our children grew, our mum’s group conversation changed, but the bonds of friendship did not.
The biggest change in our playgroup over time was not that our babies had grown half a metre in height or that they’d morphed into Spidermen. It was the talk that changed. TheWhen we first got together post-birth, cracked nipples were a major theme. Cracked nipples were fascinating. Who had them? Why? Which cream to use? We all shook our heads in sympathy for the cracked nipplees of the world. And winced at the idea of babies wanting a feed.
Or even: “Tommy’s head was as big as a basketball. I should have had a caesarean, but I was too far gone. They tried the forceps but ended up using the vacuum. I had 32 stitches and walked like a cowboy.”and we learnt all sorts of new vocabulary. I’d never heard of a “percentile” before it became the yardstick on which I based my success or failure as a mum.It was easy to talk about babies and women’s bits when the babies were in arms.
Suddenly, the kids were at childcare and most of us were going back to work part-time. Conversation got serious again as we talked about the way we were going to juggle our lives. Some mums had a nanny for one or two days, others had Grandma, all had crèche. We talked about the first day we had to say goodbye to our child and how we followed the rules, didn’t hover, and walked away with wobbly legs.
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